tbear853

I haven't had our Mustang tinted and likely won't because I found that tint slows the windows and I believe, leads to more wear and shorter life on window lift motors. I also like to spray silicone lube liberally down tracks to ease the job.

But while I have removed tint from a couple cars for that reason, I do still have the tint in place that was applied on my '01 Mercury Grand Marquis before we went west in 2005 (also '06 and '08). Car is under cover in a car port when not in use, as of today has just 70-odd K miles. I live in Va., tint law here requires 50% VLT front sides, 35% VLT rear sides and back glass (if tinted, I could have painted solid but that's not gonna happen.... but the "why" it's legal to paint solid is because I have two outside mirrors and while paint would stop any officer from seeing it, it would also stop anyone inside the car from watching the officer on an approach .... officer safety).

The Mercury's glass was right at 70% VLT as measured with a tint meter before tinting. I did the math (front math is 0.50 result devided by 0.70 glass tint = 0.71 or 71% VLT tint need to apply for front, rear math is 0.35 devided by 0.70 glass tint = 0.50 or 50% VLT tint needed to apply).

I had guy order soime 70% tint, he had 50% in stock. He tried to tell me 50% was OK, I explained law and he kept saying I had clear glass, I took tint meter to show him .... he wasn't smart on math but he did a good job (and he has a partial role of 70% tint left over .... ) and afterwards, my calibrated tint meter showed 48% VLT on my front windows as tinted and 34% on rear glass. Virginia law also specifically provides a 7% tolerance, so anything from 43% front and 28% on back was legal (and still is).

I am just posting the below pictures of the Mercury to show what legal tint under Va. law looks like. After you add even light tinted tint with UV protection you don't get much more with darker as UV is not in the visible spectrum anyway .... and besides, 50% is easier to see out of at night than 20%.

TheDivaDanielle

in 15 years of driving with tinted windows on every car, I've only been pulled over once for window tint, but it was more like i was getting pulled over for having a loud supercharger.

Both Mustangs and a GTP were 20% around except front (GTP got pulled over)
GTO, and Trans Ams were 35% all around except front

Never again will I overly worry about the police in that situation.

kevsgt

in VA i was able to submit a sun-shading authorization form to the DMV along with a Rx from the eye doctor. they sent me a new registration with allowance for 35% tint. not sure if other states have something similar. i have not ever been pulled over for it, but having that helped me be less concerned about it.