We have this ridiculous tint fitted to the windows of our car and need to get rid of it.
Has anyone here got any tips on removing it, or preferably any recommendation of someone who can do it for me in Taipei or Tainan?
Cheers
The one I had on my rear window managed to get all bubbly and falling off, making it hard to see through. I ended up just peeling away the whole film in one shot. That was the easy part… To my great pleasure, it left an opaque layer of glue.
I ended up getting some paint remover and washing the whole thing by hand. The uncomfortable position I had to take to be able to apply enough pressure and the amount of paint remover I used made it an extremely unpleasant process. By the time I realized this was gonna take me more than 5 minutes and that I needed a good mask to not inhale too much of the fume it was too late. My advice, ask for help. I’m sure any of the million places who clean cars can help you for a small fee.
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Yeah I’ve had a look on line and it looks like major hassle and worst of all time consuming. I think I’ll take your advice and ask around locally.
GF got hers re-tinted in Kaoshiung, which is of course pretty close to Tainan, though I’d guess lots of places would do it.
I’ll ask for an address if I remember. She’s been talking about getting it re-done so might shop local next time around.
- grab a brick
- break the glass
- get a new glass without tint.
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I guess any shop that install tint can also remove it… I got some new tint for my car windows a while ago and they had to remove the old tint…
Sometimes it tears off cleanly. But sometimes it leaves a very messy residue.
3M citrus adhesive remover.
Major pain in the *** from my experience too.
First and only time I removed one, it had been on the for way too long and started peeling small pieces by small pieces… It took me hours to remove all the pieces, and even more to clean the glue.
A car shop later advised me to use a heat gun to gently warm up the film, and that it would make the peeling way easier. But it was too late for me (so I didn’t experiment with this technique…).
Yeah cheers all. I’m just going to drive around local garages this weekend and see who’s prepared to do it. The last thing I want to spend my weekend doing is sitting inside a car warming my windows with a hair drier.
[quote=“Ducked”]GF got hers re-tinted in Kaoshiung (Gaoxiong), which is of course pretty close to Tainan, though I’d guess lots of places would do it.
I’ll ask for an address if I remember. She’s been talking about getting it re-done so might shop local next time around.[/quote]
She doesn’t remember, but says “any car accessory place”. That might not be true, but I’d guess the service is pretty widely available.
While working on the brakes I blundered into my DS wing mirror and broke it off. Crummy wee pot-metal ball joint mounting, perhaps made deliberately weak to avoid pedestrian injury, is proving tricky to fix in a way that’ll allow and hold adjustment, concentrating my mind on the fact that I couldn’t see properly through the back window due to bubbling of the anti-sun plastic film. This is probably a common problem on older cars here in Taiwan.
Cue an Internyet search. IIRC I looked here
and went for a combination of
Method 3 “Solar Peel” – you put black plastic from a rubbish bag over the outside of the glass which heats up in the sun (usually reliable here) and transfers that heat to the glass, softening the glue.
Method 4 Wet Newspapers You wet the inside of the window with “soapy water” (whatever that means. I used washing-up detergent) apply newspapers, keep the newspaper wet for an hour, and peel off the film. Some sources suggest the film just comes away with the newspaper, which I didn’t believe for a second.
I didn’t have newspaper (Sooo Last Century) but I have an unlimited supply of old test papers, so I used them.
Wasn’t very convinced by either of these methods but I had 2 secret weapons. GF’s hair dryer, and lots of old brake fluid. The recommended solvents are Household Ammonia (which I didn’t have and probably wouldn’t be able to buy here) and ethanol (which is hard to find due to the Novelty Exploding Cigar Virus Panic).
Brake fluid might be too risky if you had paint you cared about, but I don’t carry that burden.
Sho nuf, shortly after the black plastic was applied, the normally reliable sun clouded over and a stiff breeze blew up.
After an hour or two I abandoned the solar energy program and started peeling with the hair dryer, working brake fluid in behind the lifted edge with a brush.
The film peeled fairly easily but I wasn’t convinced the brake fluid was doing anything, so stopped using it about a quarter of the way down. This was probably a mistake, since there was a lot more glue left behind on the lower part of the hatch.
Lessons Learned.
I think its best to apply heat to the outside of the glass, so the glue line fails on the glass surface, perhaps aided by applied solvent. Heating the film on the inside alone (as with the hair dryer) means the glue line fails on the plastic inside surface, leaving a lot of glue on the glass. Duh!
Brake fluid isn’t an effective glue remover, though it may do some softening. I tried petrol and “Cleaning Naptha”, which apparently did nothing
Since it was a hatch, I had the luxury of varying its angle and could have heated the outside with hot water and towels.
I did this for the glue removal, leaving paper soaked in brake fluid on the inside of the glass overnight.
Still involved a lot of hairdryer and razor blade tedium to get (nearly) all the glue off.
According to the Internyet, a steamer is favourite. I don’t have a steamer.
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Excellent job! Seeing you work so hard made me thirsty. Celebrating your accomplishment with a couple of cans of Guinness now.
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Its been suggested to me that White Spirit / Stoddart Solvent (mostly aromatics like xylene and toluene) would have dissolved the glue PDQ, certainly quicker than Guinness
Can’t remember seeing that labelled as such here, but I think both petrol and “cleaning naphtha” are likely to have aromatic content, and they didn’t work.
IIRC the aromatics have high octane values, hence mothballs have been used as improvised octane improvers by, for example, Castro’s troops during the Cuban Civil War.
(I dunno why they didn’t use White Spirit, but it doesn’t matter now. They won anyway.)
I looked up Naphtha (hence my improved spelling) and the terms usage is unclear and inconsistent, and is therefore likely to be especially attractive to native speakers of Chinese.
I’d guess it may actually be White Spirit.
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Just be careful to avoid breathing in or absorbing through the skin any solvent mix with toluene or xylene.
I’d second the use of a hairdryer from the glass side to soften the glue. and then hopefully remove most of it with the film.
You only need a hairdryer on hot setting and a scraper, start top corner heat and peel downwards.
An alternative would have been to just remove the doors and rear hatch, in a macho super-legere makeover.
Cue Taiwans newish indigenous tactical toy.
I’ve seen one of these on a train in Tainan station. (Taiwan forces, to their credit, often move vehicles by train, which AFAIK the British Army never do).
Rather unmilitary wheels (surely not ALLOYS?), VERY unconvincing tyres, and they apparently don’t trust the handbrake, but they do seem to be packing a heavy calibre dashcam for those strategic selfies.
I reckon I could significantly undercut the 60k US asking price, and since its apparently based on Ford Escape gear might not be too far behind on reliability either.
I’d keep the roof and windscreen though. No point in being stupid.
Tempting, but might attract unwelcome cop attention (ALL modifications are illegal in Taiwan). Perhaps just as well I’ve lost my green paint.