Anyone stripped window tint?
 

I have always had it applied, never had to remove it.

Bought an M3 that is black with limo tint, and its a little too bad ass for me. Its peeling off of the front doors anyway.

Anyone have any recommendations for stripping it? I know they sell tint removal spray at autoparts stores. But would appreciate some tips from those who have done it.

The best way I've found to remove the film is to peel back a tiny section at the top, then just use a soapy sponge to get the soap solution back behind the film as you pull more tint down the glass. The soapy water will help release the adhesive. Hope this helps.

Interested in your results, ive got a car worth of terrible tint to remove as well

I've peeled it, use a razor blade to help it along, followed by clean up with acetone or goo gone, depending on the stickiness of the film. once gone, clean with windex.

This always worked well for me to get it off in one big piece - spray the window/tint with ammonia or ammonia based glass cleaner (like Windex) pretty liberally and take a garbage bag and press it against the window to hold the moisture against the tint.
Start the car and run the heater on full blast for a good 30 minutes, and re-moisten every so often.

If you did it correct, the tint should peel off with the garbage bag after the moisture evaporates.

I will give it a try this weekend, car is currently out having factory wheel re-installed.

I guess its obvious it will just peel off, I was mostly curious how much adhesive gets left behind and how you guys dealt with it.

I appreciate the insight thus far.

I'll post some pics JB3. The tint job wasn't necessarily poorly done, but the PO had it done years ago, like 2006, and since its a frameless window, the window automatically drops down when you open the door and pops back up when you close it. That's got the front two windows peeling.

When I bought my car someone had removed the tint from the rear window. Tons of adhesive residue left behind, and with the heated window wires I couldn't scrape it.

A friend of mine suggested 3M Adhesive Remover, which worked very, very well. We used the liquid with microfiber cloths (needed quite a few as they became impacted with the adhesive) but it got all of it off.

This is the stuff we used:
http://3mcollision.com/media/catalog.../0/8/08984.jpg

There is a 3M aerosol adhesive remover, I'm not sure if it's the same product, but if so it is far more widely available, auto parts stores, hardware stores, even wally world.

If you go the chemical route, be triple sure you have PLENTY of ventilation and aren't near any flame source.

Good luck.

I removed the awful tint from the rear window of my car. I foolishly just ripped it off and left all of the adhesive residue on the window. Afterward, I had the difficult job of removing it with denatured alcohol which removes the adhesive but doesn't damage the defogger.

However, it's still a PITA to turn yourself upside down, bent over backward just to get into a position where you can rub on the back glass. If I had known better, I would have done the procedure in post #5 but I didn't.

i just removed some from an el camino back window.i peeled it off which left the glue residue.got out the 3m adhesive remover and some shop rags doused liberally in it and 10 minutes i was done.but as mentioned i used one rag to get most of it off then came back over it again to cleanup the leftover glue.and then hit it with windex.

Buy a cheap clothes steamer. Piece of cake.

I did the same thing when I removed the tint in a old 300D I had a few years ago. I would steam small sections of the window and then scrape the film off with a razor blade. The tint was at least 15 years old so it didn't come off as easily as it would on a newer car.

My window tinter of 30 years showed me how he does it. The side windows are peel and scrape. The rear window with defroster gets special treatment. He takes a black garbage bag and cuts it the same size as the window. He takes 409 and sprays the inside window directly on the tint - he uses a lot. Then he puts the garbage bag against it on the inside of the window. It sits in the direct sun for about an hour. Maybe two depending on outside temperature. The black bag super-heats the tint. Then he just peels the bag off, then peels the tint off, and uses the 409 and paper towels for the remaining residue which is almost liquid by then.

This but with black trash bags and a sunny day