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Legality of 35 percent tints


Colourfyre

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Hi,

I was going to tint my legacy but Ive been doing a little research into it all and from what I can tell, if i put a 35 percent tint (which is the legal minimum VLT value) over my window (which isn't tinted but because all glass has some light loss through it is about 80 percent VLT or so) then my car would technically be illegal:

V1 (VLT value of tint) * V2 (VLT of glass) = V3 (final VLT value)

So in that situation my actual result would be something like 28 percent VLT which is too low.

It seems to me that to be legal I would have to use something along the lines of 45 percent VLT tint film.

Has anyone struck this problem or am I missing something perhaps?

Cheers

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Yes technically it's illegal, but you would be very very unlucky to fail on someone actually testing it with a light meter.

However, if you are concerned with it, then ask your tint guy to test the VLT of your windows before he tints it, then use a tint level that's appropriate, to bring it down to 35%. If they use quality int, they should be able to supply a 45% tint, that will take your approximate 10% factory glass, down to approx 35%

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 94 Leone']Any chamce of convincing them gc8 had factory "privacy glass"

HAHA! call it a "Singapore Spec"

[quote name='Scoobydoo said:

Yes technically it's illegal,

However, if you are concerned with it, then ask your tint guy to test the VLT of your windows before he tints it, then use a tint level that's appropriate, to bring it down to 35%.

+1 exactly, get them to measure it, then use a lesser strength tint to make it 35%

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I guess my reason for looking into it was an article I saw a few weeks ago about insurance companies getting out of paying out because of "illegal modifications". I figure that it would be easy for them to measure the tint on the window, and then call it an illegal modification which then invalidates insurance. I have sent a few emails to tinting places to get their take on this.

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So, that's a funny one.

Insurance companies often try that move, but in actual fact the modification has to have contributed to the cause of the claim for it to invalidate your insurance.

If you crashed into someone because your tints stopped you seeing them, ok, sure. But if your wheel fell off and you ran into a ditch, they can hardly claim that your tints caused it.

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That was on FairGo. The main point was that tints make your car more attractive for thieves and such, not tints being an illegal mod. Something along those lines, should be able to find OnDemand. Basicly you need to tell your insurance company about every mod, but what if the mods were done prior to your ownership, you haven't been told about them and you know nothing about cars and never been under one (something like upgraded swaybars, strut braces, something that don't need a cert)?..

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that is I guess is a fair point, but if you don't know anything about cars then you should get a qualified mechanic to look at it and tell you whats not factory... at least i think that's what the official line is...

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  • 4 months later...

Well my diy tint job went well but, I went in for my first wof since the tints went on (brought online with the assurance that I was wrong about the maths and that it would all work out to be legal) and they measure at 24%! It failed of course and now I guess I have to rip the damn things off!

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No, I exchanged lots of emails with the people I got the tints off and they were sure that their 35 percent tint would actually be higher and so that when put on fourth gen legacy glass it would be fine. So on their assurance I just went with the 35%

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I get confused with numbers a bit are the percentages the % of light blocked or allowed

%5 is really really dark?

90% should be just about clear yea?

or is it the other way around

regardless i know 35 % is the limit

I have a feeling you're adding percentages wrong too, like a half plus a half doesnt = 1/4 etc (its a whole btw) just checking

I could be way wrong, keen to learn, bit like fluid mechanics, seems simple to turn a tap on & underestimate the flow

Edited by Joker
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Hi joker,

Your right on the 5/90 percent thing- 5 percent VLT would only be allowing 5% of the light through.

The maths of the equation is because if you imagine you had two pieces of 50 percent tint one on top of the other and they added together to make 100 percent then you would expect the combination to be completely clear. The thing is though that the top layer allows half the light to pass through it and then the next layer also allows half of that light through (which is half of half and so a quarter)

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The VLT % is what is allowed through, it stands for Visible Light Transmission.

so 5% only allows 5% light through, so it's very dark, and 35% is a lot lighter, and 90% would be virtually clear. But even factory glass tends to have a small amount of VLT% built into it to allow for sun strike, which is why it needs to be taken into account when adding tint overlays to it, as you've now discovered.

That tint probably is 35% exactly, so they're not wrong in selling it to you, but added to a 10% factory blend in the glass, now gives you your ~25%

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