Window tint - how much does it lower interior temps?

[Jeff N.]

Black on black car - getting cooked out. Seattle heat wuss I guess. How much would a light tint help keep the car cool?

[Zeuk in Oz]

From someone who lives in a warmer climate - worth doing.
Effect depends on amount of tinting, but certainly saves the interior of cars from effects of sun. Presumably equally useful for human skin !
Other advantage, especially with side windows is that the glass doesn't shatter in an accident - the tint holds the glass together.

[Anton CH.]

If it's hot, it's always going to be hot. I haven't noticed any temp difference. It does help however with sunlight shining in your face so you don't have to squint as much and same goes at night when other cars are driving behind you so you don't get blinded. I think those reasons alone are worth having it.

[Brian C.]

...I can tell you all about solar radiation. My E34 was also black/black and for the 1st 6 months I had no tint. In the summer, it was unbearable to get in, not to mention any poor soul that was a backseat passenger. One summer I went on a trip to The Florida Keys and the place we stayed at had a white, crushed gravel driveway. Talk about an oven! It was getting the heat from top and bottom. I did a maximum tint job and it helped to some extent, but I'd say that something even more effective was when I bought, and regularly used a refective windshield shade.

Before the shade I kept thinking that I really needed to get the A/C checked....again and again....but what it turned out to be was that the sun would come through the windshield and onto the black dash. The entire dash and dash innards are almost all black plastic or metal and became a perfect heat sponge. From 9am until I'd go to lunch, it was just sitting in the sun, soaking up all that heat. I'd get in and start the car and run the A/C and nothing would happen. It was just blowing warm air through a really, really hot area with all the duct work. It would easily take 20-25 minutes before I'd feel any coolness at all coming out of the vents. When I started using the shade, it would at least keep the dash area 10-20 degrees cooler so it would take much less time for the air to start coming out cool. Before, without tint and the sunshade it was a good 20 minutes until I'd feel the least bit of coolness from the vents. After the tint and the sunshade, I'd say it started to put out cooler air in about 4-5 minutes. A big difference.

Also, the top of the rear seatback was getting more and more crispy without the tint. After I tinted, I sort of "overdosed" the seatback with leather conditioner and it started to come back a bit.

I'm voting for as dark a tint as legal, and get yourself an good reflective sunshade on the Internet somewhere. Lots of places sell the roll-up ones that are custom fit for the E34.

Brian C.

[rickm]

I have a dark silver E34 that I just tinted with the "legal" tint for NC. I live in the mountains but have several remote sites that are in south central NC around Charlotte, where it gets really hot. None of these places seem to have trees. :P

The tint (it supposedly has UV limiting on it) hasn't really kept the car from getting so hot but it has helped to keep the seats from being frying pans. The air will be roasting when I open up the door but the seats aren't unGodly warm to the touch. Since I've started to use a windshield shade as well as leaving the sunroof cracked the car has been a lot more comfortable in the afternoons. You can also get rear window shades, I had my rear window tinted. When driving it's much cooler. The sun isn't beating down on my so hard anymore, before I could easily get a mild sunburn from one of my drives. :P Not so with the tint.

[Guelphguy]

I can't live without tint anymore, it is the first thing I do to every car I get.....
Keeps interior, dark rich looking without sun bleach...
Keeps people from looking in easily to see what they can steal...
Looks Gangsta...lol
Hides who you are ridn' with...lol
Not sure if it is cooler...but it is "cool" man...
Yeah, no nead for all time shades wearin'

[Guelphguy]

Oh yeah and I heard on the radio the other day that "statics" show that males between 25-35 driving "sporty" cars with TINTED windows are more likely to engage in acts of road rage....lol

[Paul in NZ]

i second the windscree sunshade.With a rear sunblind and maybe the side shades you would be cool,I also leave the sunroof tilted in hot weather,and i have black on black....

[pundit]

Oh yeah and I heard on the radio the other day that "statics" show that males between 25-35 driving "sporty" cars with TINTED windows are more likely to engage in acts of road rage....lol

You talkin' to me?!! PUNK!!

Well you can't be, because I don't have tinted windows and I'm in the wrong age group!

[Robin-535im]

Not that you could do this in Seattle... but opening a window lets some of the hot air out and can make as big or bigger difference than tint... but it also lets in rain! Not a problem here in the southwest.

The sunshade in the window will do a huge amount for you, because the windshield and rear glass let in the huge majority of the light. What happens is the visible light comes in the front and rear (not so much the sides because they're usually at a sharper angle to the incoming sunlight, especially at the hottest times of day) and all that black leather/plastic heat up. Even though the glass blocks some UV coming in, the hot interior emits at all wavelengths and you get the greenhouse effect - the UV can't get back out once it's in!

Since you can't tint the windscreen, and there's a big black heat sponge (dashboard), I'd venture to say that maybe 50% of the heat in your car comes in from the windshield, and maybe another 20% from the rear, on average.

Let me know if you find a good one for the E34, I'm in the market for one too.