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No. I have 35% front sides and 20% rear sides and read and it is GREAT! It would be hard to go back to no tint. Takes the glare away and is so much more pleasant. I never felt it was bad at night at all. If anything it it better due to the moronic headlights people have that are so bright you get blinded from behind. The Jeep Grand Cherokee is horrific on drivers ahead of them, but those folks probably love it. Why else would you buy a box on wheels?
First, you have to decide why tint. If for cosmetics, then all you really need to know are the max limit laws for your area. Also, as a caution, scan through here and see the several threads on people who over-tinted, and then were trying to find an inspection station that would overlook it, and not make them remove the tint. (Most never succeeded).
If you are more concerned about sunlight fading: Use any tint. They all block UV.
If you are most concerned about heat, then you're like me. Black leather interior in a dark-colored car, in the HOT sunny south. The first few weeks (I got it in August), were unbearable. Handcloth on the steering wheel, etc.
Then I got the ceramic tint. I got:
Front 70% = 3M Crystalline. Sides & rear 40% = Johnson InsulatIR ceramic
I just turned over 50k and have never even slightly regretted the expense. The difference was huge. Now I leave the car in the sun for hours, open the door, jump in, drive off, and 3-5 blocks worth of Max-AC, I'm comfortable.
You DO have to accept some slight optical distortions, front and back. Find a car with the tint you want to try and sit in it, and look out the glass, then look out an open door. Also try it at night, looking at a streetlight or headlight. Sometimes you get some diffraction. All an annoyance, but still worth not burning my butt every time I sit down!
The person who creates a film or auto glass that can darken only in sunlight [like those glasses] is going to become a multimillionare... or even better if it could be darkened at will to any desired level.
Ah... dreams.
Dupont makes transistion lenses, they make the glass for planes too. I told a rep once, when I was applying for a job, they should make auto glass.
Gotta keep in mind that most automotive glass has a natural "tint" to it due to impurities when making the glass. If you were to slap a tint meter on natural car glass, you'd get a reading around 78% (meaning 78% of the light passes through the glass)
Now, if you slap 35% tint (35 percent of light passes through) on top of glass that is natuarally 78%, you are going to end up with a lower value.
0.35 x 0.78 = .273 = 27.3% VLT.
So slapping 35% tint on most vehicle glass will give you about 27% if a cop were to check with their meter. SO make sure you conform to state laws.
SO, with that said, I have 35% on my infiniti on all the windows EXCEPT windshield. Daytime driving is perfectly fine. No major loss of visibility. At night, especially on a rainy night, it is pretty dark. On a dark road without street lights I might need to roll down a window to pull out of a side street, but for the most part I can manage quite fine. Backing up in a unlit parking lot can be a little tricky too. I'd say 99% of the time though I am able to navigate at night without issue due to the tint.
It does keep the interior cooler when it's 95 degrees out and i'm running the AC. You can tell that sunlight doesn't penetrate as much. It's good for kids as I don't need to put up 4 different sunshades in the side and back window to keep the sun out of a toddler's eyes and restrict my visibility. It's FAR easier to see out of tint vs those silly baby sunshades. I can read my GPS much easier, and it does make it harder to see into the interior at night, so I can stuff my laptop on the floor behind the front seats and it's not easily seen at night (a flashlight would defeat it though).
As far as cops and inspection. I've been fine (knock on wood). MA law is 35% all around, and my tint reads 27% on a meter (see above as to why). I've gotten through inspection and been pulled over a few times without much issue.
Typically, friends who put 20% or 15% or even lower get harassed more. When I was a teen, I had friend's putting 3% tint OVER 3% tint and basically having painted black windows. Car looked kinda cool, but it wasn't practical and frankly....dangerous.
Take a look at ceramic tints. They do not have to be dark to reject heat. In fact they reject heat better than regular tint.
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