Can Factory tint be removed to add darker tint?

My truck came with Lifetime Factory Tint when purchased new. I hesitated for a few years to look into darken the tint since it was "Lifetime". Discovered that most tints are "Lifetime"; ready to upgrade darkness.



Can the factory tint be peeled off easily to add a darker tint? I would like to remove the tint myself to save $, will bring to a tint installer for installation of new.



The tint is NOT in the glass.



Thanks

 

There is no such thing as 'factory' tint, the dealer simply had it tinted. The rear doors-back glass are privacy glass, but there may be tint over them - it does not look like it from the pic you posted though. A quick way to tell if there is tint is to roll down the window and look at the top 1/8" of the glass, there usually is not tint on that section. Privacy glass will be uniform color the entire way up. You can absolutely tint over the privacy glass. The fronts can be stripped and retinted.

 

First, we need to address the misnomer regarding "Factory Tint", it's not a film. That is when the manufacturer tints the actual glass. 99% of the time this is only done to the two rear windows. Never the back window or the two front windows.

Dealerships will pay a local Window Tinting company to come tint the windows for their vehicles, so it's never done by the dealership per-say. Also, this usually happens in Southern states, that get a lot of sun light and are thus hotter.

Now, you can take off the dealer-added aftermarket tint. I did it when I bought my truck. I took my truck to a local Truck-Accessories place near me, they ripped off all the tint and put 5% ceramic tint all the way around. I recommend letting a professional do it, because there is a lot of adhesive left over after you peel off the old stuff, and it takes a lot of elbow work to get it off. It's very labor intensive.

Truck with tint from the dealership:


Aftermarket tint:

 

Your Limited came with privacy glass on the rear doors and back window. The fronts have had tint put on them. Like @drizzoh stated, you can tint over the factory privacy glass, and have the front removed and retinted darker.

 

I've never seen an SUV, truck or mini-van without the back window having matching privacy glass to the rear side windows.

 

Window tint film is not too difficult to remove if you have a steamer. I have used a clothes steam machine a few times, it works great. Just start at the top of the window, let the steam warm up the film. Work your way down by steaming and gently pulling on the film. You can tell when it’s working because there will be very little resistance as you pull the film off. Doing it that way will remove all of the glue with the film, very little will remain on the window. After you get the film off, go over the window with the steamer and a razor blade to remove any glue residue. Not hard at all. There are videos on YouTube that demonstrate it.

 

Lol they look exactly the same.

 

You're right, it does look the same. The first picture was taken on a day that was cloudy and it was taken at an odd angle.

They are different though. The tint I have now is ceramic and noticeably darker.

 

Get nice ceramic tint
It costs a little more but repels like 75 percent of the uv rays
It keeps your truck interior really nice in the summer
And they just tinted over my rear windows that were already “tinted”
I don’t think you have to remove the factory stuff

 

The rear windows aren't tinted.... they are dyed, (it can be called 'privacy glass') something like that which can't be removed unless you take those windows out and put new clear windows in then you can have them tinted as the way you want...

Or you can have them to tint the front windows to match the rear windows.

The rear windows are probably about 20% and ask your tint installer to match the front with their 20% tint film.

@Foghorn you can not remove tint off of rear windows on 3rd gens.. They are dyed. Unless you had aftermarket tint on the privacy glass.

 

my factory privacy glass metered at 29% FYI. I had ceramic 30% added to the front and 70% to the back. Decently close match.

 

I was told 20%... I think they come in vary depending on how much percentage was added to the glass. I am not expert on this but I think black dyed glass sheet is sandwiched in between two sheets of clear glass.

I mean Your truck came with 29%... other came with 20%. Someone else come with 25%.. something like that. I could be wrong on this. I remember someone on YouTube saying that his truck has 20% on rear before the tint was installed on front.

 

20% fronts and brow, 20% over factory privacy glass rears.

 

I should have clarified, I was only talking about windows with tint film applied.

 

A couple rocks will easily remove your factory “tint”.

 

and that's how it done folks!

 

OP if you’re going to spend money on tint you don’t want to cheap out if you’re planning to keep this truck. I paid like $750 for my old car for some nice ceramic tint and went 5% all around and it made a difference in the summer