Maybe a mod might want to move this to the how to section. It might be helpful for others. Now, I'll say up front that I know 99% of people want tint, so this is only useful to the 1% that want to remove tint or the 99% who want to remove tint to re-tint. This is my experience, so your results may vary, but this worked really well. The first owner tinted my Forester and I lived with it for a few years, even though I don't like tint, and I still didn't like it, so I removed it. I'm just posting this to help out, so hopefully it can avoid all the "why in the world did you remove tint? I love tint! It's the first thing I do to a car!" comments :icon_razz:
My car's a 2003. I bought it a few years old, so I don't know how old the tint is. My guess is it was installed about the time the car was purchased. At the time I took it off, the car was almost 7 years old and had 100K on it. It has been in Atlanta all but the last 6 months of it's life. The tint was in very good shape, no cracks, bubbles, pealing, etc and looked good, I just didn't want it anymore.
Tools:
1. Windex (I used the Target brand. You want the kind with ammonia)
2. Razor Blade
3. Steamer (I used a 1000 watt steamer I got at Target. It was less than $30. I got the kind that you hold in your hand, but has a tank that sits on the ground. My logic was that if it's an entirely hand held one, i.e. no separate tank, you're going to be filling up the water a lot plus most of these are lower watts so the steam isn't going to be as hot.)
The trick is basically the steam. It does all the work and the job was pretty quick with virtually zero scraping with a razor. All told I probably had to scrape about the size of a quarter total. The steam works that well if you're patient. To start, just steam the corner of a window for a while and then use the razor to peal it up a little so you can pull. Keep steaming and then use a little pressure to pull the tint back. I sprayed window cleaner on the window as I pulled the tint down so that it ran down between the glass and the tint with the logic that ammonia plus heat helps the glue release. Honestly, I'm not sure that did a lot. I think the steam is the real trick, but it seemed to help a little on some windows.
If you steam back and forth slowly as you pull the tint down, the window will get to a point where the tint starts coming off pretty quickly because it's hot and the glue is releasing. If you ever see the tint start to separate (i.e. the glue half of the tint separating from the actual tint, use the razor blade to scrape the glue half down to where the tint is coming off so it comes off as one piece. The trick is that you do NOT want to leave glue on the window because then you'll be doing a lot of scraping. I only had it start to separate once and I scraped the glue half off the window and then it continue pulling off just fine. Once the tint is off, I cleaned the windows with the Windex while they were still hot from the steam. In my case, I didn't have any glue residue on any windows because I carefully steamed and pulled the tint off as one piece.
The trick to the back windows, because there is no corner to start pulling the tint off from, is to steam the middle top for a while and then use the razor blade to make a cut from the top down a an inch or two. Then steam that cut and use a razor blade to get under the tint on either side of the cut and start pulling it off. Obviously be careful not to cut any of your defroster wires.
Overall this is super easy with the steam. I even did it in the middle of winter with snow on the ground in the garage, so I didn't use any sun or heat other than the steamer. No glue residue was left and the windows looked great after I was done. It was a pretty quick job, definitely under 2 hours and easy. Hopefully I've explained it pretty well. I'm happy to answer any questions...
My car's a 2003. I bought it a few years old, so I don't know how old the tint is. My guess is it was installed about the time the car was purchased. At the time I took it off, the car was almost 7 years old and had 100K on it. It has been in Atlanta all but the last 6 months of it's life. The tint was in very good shape, no cracks, bubbles, pealing, etc and looked good, I just didn't want it anymore.
Tools:
1. Windex (I used the Target brand. You want the kind with ammonia)
2. Razor Blade
3. Steamer (I used a 1000 watt steamer I got at Target. It was less than $30. I got the kind that you hold in your hand, but has a tank that sits on the ground. My logic was that if it's an entirely hand held one, i.e. no separate tank, you're going to be filling up the water a lot plus most of these are lower watts so the steam isn't going to be as hot.)
The trick is basically the steam. It does all the work and the job was pretty quick with virtually zero scraping with a razor. All told I probably had to scrape about the size of a quarter total. The steam works that well if you're patient. To start, just steam the corner of a window for a while and then use the razor to peal it up a little so you can pull. Keep steaming and then use a little pressure to pull the tint back. I sprayed window cleaner on the window as I pulled the tint down so that it ran down between the glass and the tint with the logic that ammonia plus heat helps the glue release. Honestly, I'm not sure that did a lot. I think the steam is the real trick, but it seemed to help a little on some windows.
If you steam back and forth slowly as you pull the tint down, the window will get to a point where the tint starts coming off pretty quickly because it's hot and the glue is releasing. If you ever see the tint start to separate (i.e. the glue half of the tint separating from the actual tint, use the razor blade to scrape the glue half down to where the tint is coming off so it comes off as one piece. The trick is that you do NOT want to leave glue on the window because then you'll be doing a lot of scraping. I only had it start to separate once and I scraped the glue half off the window and then it continue pulling off just fine. Once the tint is off, I cleaned the windows with the Windex while they were still hot from the steam. In my case, I didn't have any glue residue on any windows because I carefully steamed and pulled the tint off as one piece.
The trick to the back windows, because there is no corner to start pulling the tint off from, is to steam the middle top for a while and then use the razor blade to make a cut from the top down a an inch or two. Then steam that cut and use a razor blade to get under the tint on either side of the cut and start pulling it off. Obviously be careful not to cut any of your defroster wires.
Overall this is super easy with the steam. I even did it in the middle of winter with snow on the ground in the garage, so I didn't use any sun or heat other than the steamer. No glue residue was left and the windows looked great after I was done. It was a pretty quick job, definitely under 2 hours and easy. Hopefully I've explained it pretty well. I'm happy to answer any questions...
. I wet a piece of balled up news paper with a bottle of Windex, which I added 20% amonia. Razor blade some of the glue off, then rub with Windex wetted news paper, hair drier following along outside.
