Hello, I got 30% tints all around. i noticed that the rear window after tinted, reflects or separates headlights behind me. What i mean is, between the defrost lines, i see the spectrum of light being diffused, making my night vision from the rear view mirror a little hard to see when driving on the freeway.

Is this normal with tints? please advice.

 

No I dont think thats normal. I've had tints in all my past 3 cars and never experienced this. And they were all of varying degree of tints... 30% and 22%

 

Did you get a one-piece rear, or did they do strips?

Often times, to be able to do a one-piece rear window... they have to heat shrink the film. Depending on the quality of the tint film, heat shrinking can cause the film to transmit light unevenly.... resulting in blurry vision or ghosting.


If they did strips, then they will usually try to conceal them on the defroster lines. The effect you see could be light getting diffused through the small gap in the film strips, so it acts like a diffraction grating. I guess that this could potentially cause the white light to split into a color spectrum.

 

Yes, i got a one piece. It is done quite well. But I do get the light refracted at night. Upon a closer look, i noticed the defroster lines and the tints have a little gap in between them, thus causing light to "diffuse" at night. anyway around this? call the tinter and ask?

 

There is nothing the tinter can do about that. Defroster lines are raised above the glass, so there will always be small air pockets around the lines. The same is true for the edges of the glass where those black dot things are. They are also raised, so it is impossible to get the tint to stick to the glass between them.

 

Agree...I was thinking the same thing. Just wanted confirmation on those whose had the 1 piece tint installed. See if they'd experienced light defracting off those slight airpockets created beween the defroster lines and the tint.