Questions about tint

[bigsherv]

So through my pretty honest sales guys and my trusted tint shop I have found out a number of things about tinting with the Odyssey and I wanted to verify them with you all since I have only had mine a month.

A couple of Honda sales guys added tint to the price proposals to me and had it priced at $400 bucks which I think was a rip off since you can find a quality tint shop who will do it for $250. When I spoke to my sales guy he said look, I am going to charge you 99 and here is why. The odyssey comes from Honda with tint on all the windows except the front two. He said he doesn’t know of any dealerships who would tint over the factory tinted glass so they are likely charging you 400 for two windows. That was good to know.

I went to tint shop today and he said that the windows are not really tinted to keep the car cool it is more of a privacy thing. He said he knows there will be some reduction in heat and UV but likely minimal. He wants to use the meter on it to verify.

So here is my question, do any of you guys have additional tint added to all of the windows in your Odyssey? If so what do you all think of it now?

[Happyvan]

So through my pretty honest sales guys and my trusted tint shop I have found out a number of things about tinting with the Odyssey and I wanted to verify them with you all since I have only had mine a month.

A couple of Honda sales guys added tint to the price proposals to me and had it priced at $400 bucks which I think was a rip off since you can find a quality tint shop who will do it for $250. When I spoke to my sales guy he said look, I am going to charge you 99 and here is why. The odyssey comes from Honda with tint on all the windows except the front two. He said he doesn’t know of any dealerships who would tint over the factory tinted glass so they are likely charging you 400 for two windows. That was good to know.

I went to tint shop today and he said that the windows are not really tinted to keep the car cool it is more of a privacy thing. He said he knows there will be some reduction in heat and UV but likely minimal. He wants to use the meter on it to verify.

So here is my question, do any of you guys have additional tint added to all of the windows in your Odyssey? If so what do you all think of it now?

Go to "Star Auto" (713-667-9600, talk to Frank) and they are superb and can do the two windows with high quality film (=better heat resistance) plus the "eyebrow" for may be about $120. The add-on tint you typically get from the dealer is very cheap and offers relatively little heat protection. It is not the color that filters out the UV but the materials used in the film to specifically block UV. You can try this out at Star Auto to see how each type of film works against a heat lamp.

My car came with the tint so I do not want to do it again out of my own pocket. You could wait 3 years when the film start to fade and then get new and better ones. IMO, the factory tint, without the eyebrow, is worth $50 or less.

[wojowojo16]

I had my WHOLE van tinted, I did 35% over factory in the back and 20% on front windows and the eyebrow...I'm happy with it, back is comfortable during the day, pretty dark at night....

Total Cost was $190, this is in MD

[rmistry7]

I have Crystal BlacK Pearl Ody here in California. I had all the windows tinted. B-Pillars back, I had one shade less than limo and the front windows, including the tiny peep holes with a 45 heat blocking clear tint such that the cops here will not know they are tinted. The part about the privacy glass is true, there really is no heat blocking, its simply to make it tougher to see inside. After the tint job, huge difference in interior heat on hot days. Plus, with the tint in back, it has a nice black on black look.

[0dyfamily]

I know ths is for newer gen Odys, but I did a bit of research before my tint job.

First, standard dyed tints are popular for price and performance for your money. That said, to get the heat rejection one needs to keep the cabin cool in summer requires a very, very dark dyed tint, no matter what part of the color space is used. Also, dyed tints can undergo a color shift after only a few years, and bubbling is common in hot climates.

My big concern was to maintain adequate visibility while backing or maneuvering on any unlit surface, as well as being able to adequately clear behind me and in either blind spot on an unlit roadway under overcast conditions with no moon and a lack of cultural illumination (I work a lot with NVD's, and light transmission, luminance and radiance are near to my heart).

After a bit of searching, I stumbled upon Saint Gobain's Solar Gard line of ceramic window film. I've always liked what Saint Gobain did in terms of coatings, glazings and transparencies during my chemistry days, but had no idea they were now in the tint business.

I tinted all of the windows aft of the B-pillars with their ceramic Ultra Performance 70. Since the OEM Honda windows aft of the B-pillars are almost equivalent to a 20% tint, the Solar Gard UP70 knocked that down to a measured transmittance just under 14%...still not crazy dark. However, the amount of heat rejection was amazing. We had a string of 114-deg F days, and the Ody was actually noticeably cooler after baking all day in my workplace parking lot. No longer had to run the A/C and wait for it to cool down for the drive home; just get in, fire up, turn on the A/C, and go...also, the A/C was able to cool the cabin more quickly. Backing up in dark parking lots is still a challenge, but not impossible. Clarity is superb.

I had not even tinted the driver and passenger windows yet, but that is next. Those windows measured at about 60% OEM transmittance (along with the front windshield), so the swinging door windows will get the Solar Gard UP40 to bring the transmittance close to a planned 25% total. The bonus will be the heat rejection. The seats shaded by the sliding door and vent windows are noticeably cooler than they were before the tinting, and my kids no longer mind (as much) climbing into the car after a day of baking in the sun, so I'm looking forward to finishing off the total tint job with those front door windows.

We've had dyed tints before, and we've driven cars with metallized tints, but the clarity of these ceramic tints and their ability to block heat really amaze me. The ceramic tints offer the added bonus of no degradation of cell phone signals versus cars I've driven with metallized tints. My dash mounted GPS stays happy, even when we pull it off the dash, and one of our kids manipulates the menus in the back seat.

Very happy with Solar Gard Ultra Performance tints this summer.

OF

[jvinhj240]

^^try sunroof too, you like it more.

[Accordlayingkit]

20% all the way around for me.....$230

[DeDondeEs]

I just got the front door windows of our 2012 Odyssey tinted with a 30% ceramic tint. The guy at the tint shop suggested that I add the ceramic tint (40% I think?) to the rear windows all around to add heat blocking ability, which I think we will do.

The other thing he proposed was putting a clear film on the windshield called "Air Blue" which is basically the ceramic tint, without the tint in it. Has anyone had this done? The windshield on the Odyssey is pretty big, so I would think that any heat blocking up there would be a plus.

This tint shop has gotten 100's of excellent reviews on Yelp but I am noticing that on the passenger window there are bubbles forming when the vehicle is in the sun, when I park it in the garage and it cools off, the bubbles go away. I had the tint installed on Friday, is it still curing?

[0dyfamily]

I'm not an expert regarding cure times, so I don't have an answer for the bubbling that you are observing.

We did tint with a 70% ceramic on the front windshield of our 2003 EX, and I wish now that I'd gone with the Air Blue clear film (almost 100% transmittance) on the windshield. There is just enough degradation of forward night time viewing ability using 70% transmittance that it has me just a tiny bit concerned. Not dangerous, but I like to see as far ahead as possible; having D2S HID projector headlights is a huge help in my case. If I still had the old halogen headlights, I would remove that 70% tint on my windshield immediately.

I would not recommend tinting the windshield on a car with stock halogen headlamps unless it's a 100% clear film like that Air Blue.

I can say that it makes a difference in how hot the dashboard gets. If you leave any car outside during a hot, sunny day, a car with tinted windows will eventually get almost as hot as one without. The upside is that the seats and dash don't get quite as hot, and when you turn on the A/C, the tinted car will much more quickly cool down because your cooling system is fighting a lot less incoming solar radiation.

Air Blue is made by Llumar, which resides in the Solutia division of Eastman Chemical. This is a company with a long history in the coatings and transparencies business, so they are like Saint Gobain (and BASF, etc) at being at the top of the pyramid in making quality tintings for cars, homes, and big buildings.

OF

[DeDondeEs]

So last Friday I got the Air Blue put on the windshield and a 40% ceramic tint put on the remaining windows. Since then it has been in the low 40's during the day, so I can't really speak to the heat blockage yet. But as far as visibility, I don't really see any big difference. My wife claims that at night that the pattern the van's headlights project is more defined and that brakelights and headlights of other cars is also more defined and seems brighter. I personally don't see it. For the first few days the windshield had a hazy/watery look to it, but that is slowly going away as it cures.

The people at the tint shop were saying that the Honda Odyssey has the 2nd largest windshield of any of the newer cars out there. They said that the largest is on the Honda Civic coupe. I guess Honda likes big windshields.

[cahaak]

Air blue 80 is an 80% light transmission film. It does a very good job blocking IR, where much of the heat comes from. That being said, in the US it is illegal to put film on the front windshield. Lots of installers may claim that it is OK, but it is illegal. But, if you have a high VLT films such as the 80 or even 70 on there, it is very difficult to see that there is film on the windshield, so you are highly unlikely to have an issue here.

[ahhhchu]

I have air blu 80% tint on my front windshield, driver and passenger windows, and rear window. I also have 30% 3m tint on the 2nd and 3rd seat windows to block the heat. I can tell you that its a day and night difference when blocking heat. I had it installed in august and we had some really hot days in southern california in sept. My wife noticed the difference immediately since she is the primary driver. We don't even put up the sunshades anymore. It is true that any tint in the front windshield is illegal in California, but its so light, that no one can tell its on. The only drawback was that the entire front windshield could not be covered because it was larger than the tint film which left a small gap on the top left and right corners. I went with the air blu for the back window because its dark already looking through the factory tint. By the way, I paid $450 total for all the window with the air blu.

[0dyfamily]

Okay, my mistake....I thought the Air Blue had a transmissivity of 100%. First, that's impossible. However, it's rated at 78%, which is excellent (and how it gets the "80" name). Here's where I found the data:

Llumar .pdf with film specs

The Llumar & Solar Gard highest transmissivity offerings are both excellent and pretty close in performance, which is what you expect from people like them who've been in this business for a while.

The Ultra Performance 70 (73% transmissivity) on my windshield is difficult to detect from outside as cahaak noted, so no issues yet.

The bare Odyssey windshield has a transmissivity of about 80%, so by the numbers my Solar Guard Ultra Perf 70 takes that down to ~58%, and Ultra Perf 75 would be ~61%. The Air Blue would be about 62%.

Okay, it probably just seems darker to me because I'm old, and 0dyfamily's night vision ain't what it used to be.

OF

[DeDondeEs]

I have air blu 80% tint on my front windshield, driver and passenger windows, and rear window. I also have 30% 3m tint on the 2nd and 3rd seat windows to block the heat. I can tell you that its a day and night difference when blocking heat. I had it installed in august and we had some really hot days in southern california in sept. My wife noticed the difference immediately since she is the primary driver. We don't even put up the sunshades anymore. It is true that any tint in the front windshield is illegal in California, but its so light, that no one can tell its on. The only drawback was that the entire front windshield could not be covered because it was larger than the tint film which left a small gap on the top left and right corners. I went with the air blu for the back window because its dark already looking through the factory tint. By the way, I paid $450 total for all the window with the air blu.

I ended up paying $425 for the air blu on the front then the llumar CTX ceramic tint all around. The place I went to had flat pricing for all of their tint services on their website, they must love seeing vans come in with bigger multiple windows coming in that require more tint. I figured all of those people with fast and furious coupe type cars getting work done, were probably subsidizing the tint/labor for my van. :-) One tip I have found is to use Yelp to find a local tinter. It is pretty obvious from the reviews on there of who does good work and who doesn't. And Yelp came through with these guys.

The tint is curing up very nicely. The bubbles are gone on the passenger window, and the windshield hazy/watery look is gone. One thing I forgot to ask is that my wife needs a parking permit sticker in the front window since she is taking some classes at the local college. Can I put that sticker on top of the tint? The policy of the school is that the sticker must be permanently affixed to the windshield, to avoid people sharing stickers, etc. I usually just fold one corner of the sticker before attaching it, so I wouldn't have to use a scraper.

[huy30]

How about CERAMIKOOL? Only one site I see that they use it for ceramic tint. I guess I have to call around to see anyone use Llumar or Solar Gard products.