Remove your window tint with out damaging rear window defrost
m2m2004
02-24-2008, 10:26 PM
I removed my window tint from my car today. It was very easy with some 409 cleaner, Windex, straight blade scraper, non scratch S.O.S pad, role of paper towels and some black garbage bags. Took about 4 hrs to remove all the tint including the back window and the defrost still works! The tint was 5% all around and was about 2 years old. I don’t know it the age of the tint determines how hard it is to remove or not but I’m sure the older the harder.
I cut out a piece of the black garbage bag to fit the inside of the window. Sprayed the 409 on to the tint, place the cut garbage bag on to the window. This does two things, softens the window film and the greenhouse effect warms up the glue holding the tint. Let that sit for about 10 min in sunlight. (Doesn’t have to be a hot day, just sunny. It was about 25 out today when I did it) after letting it sit, pull off the film. Some of the glue if not all will still be on the window. Spray the glue again with the 409 and put the same cut piece of bag on the window. This will help the 409 to loosen up the glue and prevent it from evaporating, let it sit for 5 - 10 min. Scrape the glue off the window as you take off the bag, try to leave the areas that you are not working on covered so the glue doesn’t dry. Do this for all the side windows.
As for the back window with the rear defrost on it, that was a little more time consuming. Same as the other windows, but except for scraping with the straight blade, you will have to use the non-scratch S.O.S pad so that you don’t break the circuit of the defrost. This was by far the hardest part. The SOS pad takes the glue off; just not as fast as the blade, it is also hard to get your hands to the back of the window. After each window I did a quick wipe again with 409 to see the areas that I missed. Then did a final clean with Windex. The 409 worked great, I have hear of other people using ammonia mixed with some water and dish soap, oven cleaner (ware gloves) but I think the ammonia would be too much to breath in and I didn’t want it to stain the interior. The 409 was harmless to the cloth and plastic that it came in touch with.
If you were wondering why I removing my tint, it is because I will be selling it and I don’t want any potential buyers to discriminate or stereotype my car as some teenager’s car that was mistreated.
I cut out a piece of the black garbage bag to fit the inside of the window. Sprayed the 409 on to the tint, place the cut garbage bag on to the window. This does two things, softens the window film and the greenhouse effect warms up the glue holding the tint. Let that sit for about 10 min in sunlight. (Doesn’t have to be a hot day, just sunny. It was about 25 out today when I did it) after letting it sit, pull off the film. Some of the glue if not all will still be on the window. Spray the glue again with the 409 and put the same cut piece of bag on the window. This will help the 409 to loosen up the glue and prevent it from evaporating, let it sit for 5 - 10 min. Scrape the glue off the window as you take off the bag, try to leave the areas that you are not working on covered so the glue doesn’t dry. Do this for all the side windows.
As for the back window with the rear defrost on it, that was a little more time consuming. Same as the other windows, but except for scraping with the straight blade, you will have to use the non-scratch S.O.S pad so that you don’t break the circuit of the defrost. This was by far the hardest part. The SOS pad takes the glue off; just not as fast as the blade, it is also hard to get your hands to the back of the window. After each window I did a quick wipe again with 409 to see the areas that I missed. Then did a final clean with Windex. The 409 worked great, I have hear of other people using ammonia mixed with some water and dish soap, oven cleaner (ware gloves) but I think the ammonia would be too much to breath in and I didn’t want it to stain the interior. The 409 was harmless to the cloth and plastic that it came in touch with.
If you were wondering why I removing my tint, it is because I will be selling it and I don’t want any potential buyers to discriminate or stereotype my car as some teenager’s car that was mistreated.
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