Lust4Lexus

On my maxima I have 15% llumar metalized film for the last 8 years or so. It still looks like day one. Unfortunately, the person who did my tint is no longer around. I am looking at the huper optik but it does seem a little over priced, but I would be willing to spend a little more if it was worth it, but I know that Llumar works and is pretty durable. I could also get it done for probably 200 dollars. I am thinking that whatever I go with, it will be ceramic, simply because I don't want it to interfere with my cars electonics. However, my LS has it's GPS antenna on the roof. So is this a moot point? My garmin and my escort radar don't seem to care about my metal tint on the maxima....any help on making this decision?

V8_Fan

I got Formula One Pinnacle ceramic tint, 35% throughout. Looks OEM. Huper Optik is overpriced and I heard it's thicker than Formula One, meaning you'll have larger gaps next to the rear defroster lines. The LS is known to have thick defroster lines, so just about any tint will show some gaps. A good tint job can get the gaps down to 1mm. I've had the same tint shop tint 3 cars, and the LS shows the largest gaps along the rear defroster. You can reduce it by basically sanding down the defroster lines with steel wool, but you could be compromising performance (or in the future, if you want to replace the tint, it might tear the lines if too thin). The top of the rear window is the FM antenna in the glass. The lines aren't as thick as the defroster lines, so the tint shows no gaps whatsoever.

Lust4Lexus

Thanks Jim.

I will probably go with the formula 1 tint. One more thing, I have heard that many shops feel the need to pull the door panels of to complete the job. I do not want to risk my panels being messed up in any way due to a botched removal. Is it absolutely neccesary to remove the panels or can it be done without doing so.

V8_Fan

I don't believe they pull the panels (at least the better shops). There's a website called something like tintdude where tinters post. Do a search under LS430 and it'll show what the major challenges are (the thickness, both in height and width of the LS rear defroster lines). Since the rear windows naturally have a slightly dark tint (maybe like 80% transmission vs. 90% transmission for the front), they will be a tad darker than the fronts if you use the same transmission of tint. Most cars in AZ use 35% on the front sides, 20% in the rear, which really makes it like 30% and 16%, a little weird.