Window tinting in Greenacre

Shade is talked about as VLT, Visible Light Transmission, which is the share of light the film lets through. Lower is darker: 20% lets less light in than 35%. When you are comparing shades, that number is the one to hold on to.

Very few cars get a single shade all round. The front pair and the rear are usually chosen separately, partly because a lighter front and darker rear looks right, and partly because the rear glass may already be tinted from the factory.

Factory glass carries tint of its own and the film combines with it, so a 35% film on already-tinted rear glass finishes darker than the number alone suggests. We account for that when recommending a combination, which is the difference between a car that looks deliberate and one that looks mismatched.

The simplest way to choose is to see it. Bring the car in from Greenacre or have us come to you, and we will put sample film against each window so the decision is made on your glass, in daylight, before a single panel is cut.

Heat is what sells tint. Ultraviolet is what makes it worth the money.

Quality film blocks the overwhelming majority of UV, and UV is what fades dashboards, cracks trim and dries out leather. That damage is expensive and effectively permanent, because a faded dash cannot be brought back the way paint can.

If the car lives on the street rather than in a garage, this is the argument that matters most over a five year horizon.

Tinting pairs naturally with a detail or a new car preparation, because the car is already with us and the glass is already being cleaned properly.

It also pairs with dash cam installation, since both involve working around the top of the windscreen and the A-pillars. Booking them together saves a second visit and usually a second trip across the LGA.

A work vehicle spends its day parked on a site or a street in full sun, and the cab is where the driver sits at lunch. Tint on the cab is one of the cheaper ways to make that bearable, and on a van the cargo side often has no glass at all, so it is a small job.

For a fleet, the point is consistency. The same film and shade across every vehicle so they look like they belong to the same business. We can do a run of vehicles at your yard in Greenacre rather than have each one off the road for a trip to the studio.

Utes with a canopy or a tub cover have their own combinations, and a hard-lid canopy with tinted glass is a case where the rear is often left as it is and only the cab is done.

Worth saying plainly: a very dark rear window makes reversing through the mirror at night harder. That is a trade-off, not a reason to go lighter, and most people are happy with it, but you should know it before you choose.

A reversing camera changes the picture entirely, because the camera does not look through the glass. On a car with one, the rear can go as dark as you like without giving anything up at night.

The front windows are different. You look through them constantly, at night and in rain, so a lighter front film keeps that view clear and lets the rear carry the look. That is the pairing most cars leave with.