Project LuLu: Window Tint

This was a small side project that I’ve been trying to tackle since I first bought LuLu. About half of her windows were tinted (in some regard) and not in the good way. The tint itself had faded to an ugly purple. There were bubbles and cracks on pretty much every tinted window. There there were even a couple windows in which the purple tint was gone and only the tint adhesive remained, giving the windows a foggy appearance.

My first attempt to remove the window tint was largely unsuccessful. My niece and nephew both tried to help, but we weren’t getting anywhere. All the articles I found online about removing tint basically said heat and scrape or alcohol and scrape. So we tried that. Didn’t work.

At one point, I thought we were making progress. We were able to lift up a corner on a couple windows and peel. I discovered that it was just the tint we were pulling off and it was leaving the adhesive behind.

Removing the Window Tint

Here is what I found that actually worked:

Use a razor blade scraper
Use ammonia
A hot day is your friend

First, not any scraper will do. There are several kinds and no where seemed to specify which so allow me – use a scraper that is just a razor blade being held by a handle. You need that very sharp, fine edge to get under the tint film. Make sure to change that razor frequently because it gets gunked up very quickly.

Second, you can probably use alcohol or Goo-gone and have the same effect, but all Windex is (essentially) is ammonia. I had ammonia and I didn’t have Windex so I used ammonia. Once I scraped and peeled the majority of the tint off a window, I’d spray ammonia all over it and take the razor blade back to it to get off small pieces and any lingering adhesive.

Finally, yes, heat is your friend. If you scrape on a hot day, it will likely come up more easily. But you’ll also be doing it on a hot day. You could use a blow dryer (maybe) or a heat gun, too. If you don’t mind the elbow grease, though, I had no trouble getting it off on a 75 degree overcast day (once I had the right tool, of course).

Now take a look at how much better LuLu looks after we scraped all her windows!