Red Taillight Film Installed

[tuanies]

Just got the tail lights covered with red film/tint. I'm not a big fan of chrome or taillights so I had this done to my wife's car. Next up is debadging, window tint and vinyl wrap on the door handles.

P1110056 by tuanies, on Flickr

post up pics when you wrap the door handles...I was going to Plasti Dip mine but I know it would start flaking...

I need to do that but haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

[palmermd]

...The window tint blocks out ~50% of solar heat, so for my rear facing 18 month old, that should make her quite a bit more comfortable in the summer. She gets super sweaty back there on hot days, but is fine in my ICE car with 20% tint all around. I don't even have the AC cranked up at all in my car either. Also by blocking out the solar heat, you keep the cabin cooler and make the climate control not work as hard, theoretically conserving range.

We got this for our son in the back seat, and it works amazingly well.

http://www.nogglenation.com/

 

[Beardedjeff]

Hate to be the party pooper, but as a an automotive lighting engineer (yes there is such a thing) there is no way placing red film over your STT lights maintains the proper, legal, and SAFE intensity for your stop lights. Your film also covers the side reflex area (shiny red side part) of your lights that are specifically designed to reflect incident light back to the source (the reflector part of the tail light, like a bike reflector).
There are very strict legal requirements for stop and turn intensities that I can guarantee you Nissan did not OVERSHOOT by the amount your film eats. The film over the reflex area completely changes the way it works and won't be legal as well.
While this does absolutely look nice you are creating a huge safety and legal liability for yourself. From a legal standpoint modifying your stop/turn/reflex lights to a level below legal limits is no different than disabling them. Imagine the field day any half-competent personal injury lawyer would have if someone was injured rear-ending you!

 

[SLCSlugger]

Great information Jeff, with all of your expertise you don't have any recommendations for best practices with light tinting by chance do you? Whether some films are more transparent than others? I know you aren't manufacturing/using these films but figured you may have run into some of these products during R&D possibly?
Also what are your thoughts on swapping the bulbs out to a higher output to offset the light output decrease with the films installed?

 

[Gigawatt]

Legality aside, had anyone tried this product to change the color of the obnoxious real lights? It's a red lens paint! Offroad use only!


https://www.pepboys.com/vht-nite-shades-red-10-oz-/product/302676