Jaxxs Car Tints

[biffstergray]

luv the tints!!!

What % are they?

I want a light tint on my t sport, and was wondering where yours were done.

CHEERS , Biff

[jaxx]

cheers!

35% all round buddy

[gus]

whats the legal limit????am i right in thinking that 35% is as dark as you can go legally :(

[biffstergray]

Is that legal?

I heard that theres new laws about front tinting.

A company fairly near me called south coast tints ( sctints.co.uk ) looks interesting, so any comments woulde be appreciated :) .

They have quite a good gallery and i was looking to use their Light Smoke g35 steel tint if it was legal.

cheers people!

[jaxx]

as of jan1 2004 your not allowed tints at all on the front side windows and if you do youll find you have to sign some sort of disclaimer with the tinting shop so they cant get nackered for it but you can! back are ok

[Storm]

Cheers for the tip Jaxx, I didn't know that. I've had 35% tints all round on my Civic for the last 3 years and I've never been pulled once... Not that it's gonna stop me once I get my Yaris tho...

[jaxx]

if itr was done before 1st jan then your ok

i just keep the recipet copy in the car in case a rozzer asks

[tiktok]

One of the cheapest but most popular methods of customising cars these days is to apply tints to the windows. The procedure itself is hardly new - tints to reduce sunlight glare have been standard equipment for a very long time, and some manufacturers are, partly for security reasons, producing cars with remarkably dark glass in the rear side windows.

None of them supplies that kind of glass in the front side windows or the windscreen because there is legislation to prevent them from doing so. The regulations are reasonably straightforward and would probably have no impact on the general public except for the fact that they can be breached by aftermarket tints.

The responsibility for enforcing the rules among car owners in this country now lies with the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA), which was created on 1 April 2003. Full details of the organisation can be found online at www.vosa.gov.uk - the short story is that VOSA looks after things like testing schemes (including the MOT test), licence applications for bus and lorry drivers, advice to commercial operators, accident investigation and so on.

VOSA is itself empowered to stop vehicles for roadside checks in North Wales, Cambridgeshire, Staffordshire, Northumberland and Greater Manchester. Elsewhere it works in conjunction with the police.

The legal position is that the front side windows on all cars must allow 70% of light to pass through them. That figure also applies to the windscreens of cars first used before April 1985; any car first used from then onwards has to let 75% of light through the windscreen.

Through A Glass Darkly

This is, of course, a safety issue. The darker a window, the less chance there is of the driver being able to see pedestrians and other motorists, and take any avoiding action that may be required. On the other hand, darkened windows do make a car look quite dramatic, so it's easy to see their appeal among cruisers.

The level of light transmission is measured by metering units which cost up to £500 each. Supplying them for roadside checks across the country has cost VOSA £13,000. Another way of doing it would have been to include the measurement as part of the MOT test, but since there are 18,000 MOT test centres in the UK the equipment budget would have rocketed to £90 million, and the extra time added to the test would have led to an increase in the fee - all this for a very small proportion of UK cars.

If the meter registers figures better than those mentioned above during a roadside check, there is no problem. If between 45% and 65% of light gets through, the driver is advised to have the tinting removed, failure to do which might result in a prosecution and a fine of up to £2000.

For between 30% and 45% of light transmission the vehicle is assumed to be unfit for use but not to pose an immediate danger. A delayed prohibition is issued and the owner has up to ten days from the date of issue to remove the tint.

At less than 30% the legal position is that driving the vehicle would involve a risk of injury, and the vehicle cannot be moved under its own power from the issuing of the prohibition notice until the tint has been removed.

Where It Can Get Fuzzy

Whatever an individual's views on window tinting may be, all of this at least has the advantage of being quite clear-cut. But CARkeys is concerned about another aspect of the situation which quickly became apparent when VOSA contacted us to pass on information about these rules, and which coincidentally had been raised a couple of weeks earlier by a reader who had been stopped for having what were considered to be excessively tinted windows.

In that particular case we understand that no light meter was used. This is covered by VOSA in the following statement: "If the equipment is not available, a subjective assessment can be carried out. This involves looking at the window outside in and inside out, and if it is obvious that insufficient light is getting through the tint, an immediate prohibition may be issued."

That set the alarm bells ringing. Looking for confirmation, we asked these questions:

"Does this mean that whoever is carrying out the assessment is legally assumed to be able to tell by eye alone, and without any measuring equipment, whether up to 30%, 30% to 45%, or 45% to 65% of available light is being transmitted through the windows? And could a prosecution and possible fine of up to £2000 result from this?

"If measuring equipment exists (presumably because it is required for the job to be done properly) but is not used for whatever reason, how can a serious case be made against the alleged offender? Is VOSA confident that it would win a case that was based on subjective assessment?"

VOSA's reply was as follows:

"If it is obvious that the visual light transmission is less than the legal requirement and the level of visibility of the surroundings has been obscured to the extent that the 'danger of injury' criterion has been met, then an immediate prohibition may be issued under the Construction and Use Regulations 1986.

"If the level of visibility is not obviously dangerous then the officer will advise that the legal requirements may have been breached, thus putting the onus on the owner to investigate further."

This Needs To be Got Straight

We understand the appeal of tinted windows. We are also keen that safety standards should be maintained at a high level. It must be possible - and is surely desirable - for an acceptable compromise to be reached. But the situation at the moment appears to be that there is a reasonable and straightforward method of enforcing the regulations . . . which in certain circumstances can be replaced by the opinion of someone using their eyes alone with no form of reliable back-up.

Different penalties apply for 65% and 75% of light transmission. The latter means the car is legal, the former may lead to a £2000 fine. Do you think you could distinguish between those two levels without properly calibrated measuring equipment? Do you know anyone else who could?

The idea behind the laws on window tinting is a laudable one, but there has to be a better way of enforcing them than this.

[Ryan1985]

So u can still get ur front side windows tinted but only lightly? I see cars drivin round every nite like s**t wee clio's and 106's with wot looks like black film just stuck over the window, how they don't get stopped i don't know!!!

Cheers

[jerry phipps]

Oh well i guess the boys in blue will be after me. I had my windows tinted from new. Toyota done this job for me. Surely Toyota wouldn't have made it to dark?? Plus my wifes car has the same shade of tint as well?? Oh well if i get pulled and fined Toyota will have the dam bill then But you have got to remember the law has now changed from since 2002.

jerry!!

[SuperRetard]

Aha... that's what the VOSA bloke's doing on the A1... heflagged me down the other day, but I, erm, must have missed his signals...

I guess when they start using the police as back up, they'll probably get more help! :P

[knightrider]

ive got 35% all round too dark windows look like a van and u cant seet he nice interior of a yaris :D

[jaxx]

youll be fine jerry as long as you have proof it was there from the start

[Andy_e]

Right i picked up my car on the 1st march 2004 and had the windows tinted by toyota ( They arranged it ) the wednesday before the 1st.

I was told that the front side windows as of 1st jan or 31st jan 2004 (Cant remember which date they said) could only be 25 % dark and the back 35 % This i believe agrees with tiks very long explination above.

So that appears to be the legal requirements, but same as jerry if for some reason i get moaned at toyota would get bill lol

Mind you ive had to have mine redone cause it went a bit bubbly on a few windows first time round lol

Andy

[tiktok]

I was told that the front side windows as of 1st jan or 31st jan 2004 (Cant remember which date they said) could only be 25 % dark and the back 35 % This i believe agrees with tiks very long explination above.

aint that the ohter way around, the back can be darker than the front. oh and sorry for the long reply, i copied it from another site cos we were discussing it on there.

Teri had 25% rear and 35% front, wich means the the rear block out 75% light and the fronts 65% light, which accoridng the the long bit is fine, as max for fron is that they block out 70% so shes 5% below that hence legal.

it gets confusing, or for me anyway, when you say 30% front and 70% front.

so 35% all round is fine, as you are only blocking 65% light, which is below the 70% margin for the fronts.

[Andy_e]

Probably is the other way round i was having a blond moment hehe

Its 10 % Darker in back anyway which means its legal

Andy

[tiktok]

i was having a blond moment

when i get mine done, i'm only having the rear tinted, and as black as black can be.

i did see somone post who was a window tinter, but i'm buggered if i can remember what forum i was in when i saw it. Old age