prophecywhiteis500

I need some help. I have a bit of perfection OCD and need thoughts. This picture is after a 2nd attempt at the rear window. The first install had the same issue with just a ton of debris in a specific area at the bottom of window. This 2nd attempt is a little better but still has quite a bit of debris bubbles so before I complain I just want to see if it’s common.

It was done yesterday but I can tell these are debris bubbles as I can see specs in them so I doubt they’ll go away.

Is this typical for the IS rear window since it angles super tight? Is this acceptable? They already left white dried adhesive back there which is extremely hard to clean. It’s also done by a very reputable tint place.

richieca

Thats not great but seems to be the level of tint jobs these days. I would be weary of redoing the rear too many times each time it can potentially start pulling off those defroster lines.
I guess I am getting old I remember when it used to be perfect. My last car an C300 had something similar and I went back 2 times and finally the tint guy, with my lifetime warranty, said something to the effect of there is lint everywhere in the air and that its unavoidable. So with that car I had little specs on the driver window and passenger rear. Luckily it never turned into a bubble but nevertheless always bugged me. With my latest Lexus I went out of my way to a guy I knew a decade ago that still does tint and he got it as perfect as I remember tint used to be done. He did say he was going to retire soon and just hang out with his grand kids so my next car is going to be a roll of the dice with tint.

prophecywhiteis500

Thanks for the response, that is my biggest fear is having the rear window done a 3rd time and having damage to the defroster lines. They use a steamer to remove it and claimed they've never had an issue. The more I think about it the more I'm inclined to just deal with it because, as you mentioned, it seems all rear tint jobs have debris bubbles like this, mine are just clustered in 1 area. The rest of the window looks great. Thank fully it does look slightly better a 2nd time as the 1st time had a HUGE cluster of debris bubbles.

The other windows are amazing. What kills me is I drove 40 min. to an extremely great, 3M premier dealer, 3M awards, bla bla bla and here they do this kind of work on the rear window. I had a '22 IS 350 with same tint and it had nothing like this and it was done at a local auto glass AND tint shop, I guess that was just extreme luck.

ronkelley

--

Other than that you say it bugs you to know it's there, really--how often in the future are you going to see it once it's off the top of your mind? If you're not really going to notice, who else will notice?

I remember some years back when I had personalized plates on all my cars at a cost of thousands of dollars over that time. One, just one, time did anybody ever say anything to me indicating that they noticed the plate on one vehicle. So who cared? Wasn't worth the money. Or maybe fretting, in your case.

--

prophecywhiteis500

It's very obvious if you get close to the rear window in a certain light and look in that area. Is it bad enough where it'll bug me forever? Probably not.

To be honest I was just looking for some reassurance that other IS owners have debris bubbles like mine under their rear tint. I know there isn't a perfect tint but to have that on my new 500, even after a 2nd attempt of the same problem is just... face palm. I also have OCD with new cars so it's partly me.

I can wait and see if some of the bubbles clear or lesson (doubtful as most are debris bubbles) or the shop offered to replace it a 3rd time with the owner doing it on Tuesday. It seems better to get it done sooner as less stress on the defroster lines due to fresh adhesive but I'm not sure what I want to do now.

richieca

I have to agree with OP. You pay for something you expect it to be a certain level of quality.
Think of when you bought your car new what if there were swirls in the paint, scratches by the door handle, license plate was screwed in not horizontally level. Sure you could ignore it because over time weathering can effect your paint and no one pays attention to how a license plate looks but it would personally bug me.

AkioToyoda4Ever

Personally, I have given up on trying to receive quality labor on anything anymore. It is all done by unskilled, unmotivated, "get-me-the-cheapest-guy-to-do-it" personnel available across most industries.

My passenger window is far worse than that with the dealer tint but I just know if I have them redo it I will receive it marginally better (if not worse) with added scratches dings and God knows what else...

You should have seen the state of my obsidian black hood paint when the dealer's troglodyte "detailed" my new IS before handing me the keys. It looked like he used a Scotch-Brite sponge to do it.

prophecywhiteis500

I completely agree but I think I’m going to give the shop 1 more attempt. For an expensive tint job at a supposed very good tint place it’s just not acceptable and should be redone until it’s correct.

I called and talked to the owner and he reassured me the defroster lines will be fine due to a few reasons; the car being new, the IS has apparently thicker lines, the freshness of adhesive (will be a week old) and film type (crystalline if anyone cares) and the fact he has never seen defroster lines get removed from his steam method after 25 years.

I shall be praying to the tint gods in the meantime.

macmaster

I have had places redo tint for me, no big deal. Most installers take pride in their work and the good ones will be the first to say it needs to be re-done. Dust happens.

Fizzboy7

I agree, work done today is not the same as it was ten years ago. When I had my tints done on my 2023, I had to take it back for a redo. The second attempt was much better, but still not 100%. I called it a day and just live with it. To most, it's probably passable, and I got used to it.

prophecywhiteis500

Update:

Instead of redoing the whole thing they were able to push up most of the debris bubbles.

it looks 95% better, or this is how it should’ve looked the first time. So pretty glad I went back and the bonus of them not pulling at my defroster lines again.

jtrue28

Yeah, that looks much better.

Lex_Giorgio

That's a **** job and I hope you leave those exact photos on the shop's Google review page to save others from going there.
Reputable doesn't mean good these days, lots of people would think that's a great job...

Nice that you fixed it yourself, but again a good shop would have done the job right (no excuses).

swaangin

Just to follow up, no, not acceptable based off of reviews I saw. I know this because I just got a Model 3 done from a local guy who was offering to do my tints so I went to him. I had bubbles like this everywhere versus the tint I got on my IS from an actual shop. On my IS, there were absolutely no bubbles and when I went back to that shop, he showed me other cars that were freshly done and none of them had bubbles at all. But yours aren't that bad and I've seen other people with them too. It's really up to how much you care and will notice, tbh, I wouldn't worry, it's not as bad as some people on this thread are making it out to be

E46CT

In the industry thats known as "trash." (literally) not meant to be an antagonistic term. trash is any junk, lint, dirt, spiders, dust etc.

that should be child's play for any pro tint installer. i've done tint jobs myself that are cleaner than that as an amateur. so take it back and have them redo it. they should be sweeping that area down then flushing it lightly with slip solution to ensure no dust. basically its bad prep.

but also you get what you pay for. id avoid those tint/stereo shops. pay for a higher end shop that gets great reviews.