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Did you tint the front/rear window & sunroof?

10K views 32 replies 14 participants last post by  Paladin1 
#1 ·
I live in California, a sunny state and expect to get my iX after the current stop sale.
While I heard manufactures already did a good job on preventing ultraviolet and infrared ray coming into the car, I want to see if any one further tint the front/rear window & sunroof just for heat rejection purpose, and how you feel about the temperature difference after tint.
 
#2 ·
I'm definitely doing the rear sides and rear window at around 15% VLT, front sides around 30-35% VLT, possibly 30-50% VLT for the sunroof, and nothing for the windshield. I wear polarized sunglasses (also in CA) and looking through tinted surfaces makes everything really warped where the installer stretched the tint, so that's definitely a no for the windshield but acceptable for the sides and back.
 
#3 ·
I live in S. Florida and the first thing I did when I got the car was to ceramic tint the windows 15% and moonroof 5%. The front window does not need to be tinted as it is infrared glass. It actually rejects heat better than any of the tinted window. I have never been a moonroof person living on SFL, I was disappointed that the IX does not come with a sun shade or sun screen because even with dark 5% tint, you can still feel heat coming through if you hover your hand about 1 inch away from moonroof while sitting inside the car. However, the tinting has made a very big difference. I have had the car now 4 months like this
 
#5 ·
It does make it harder to see out of the moon roof, but for me I really didn't care. If I had my choice I would not have even added the moon roof as an option (especially considering it cost like $10,000) Its not necessary to tint the back and side windows. BMW did a great job at dark factory tinting them. The brand I used was luminer (supposedly the best)
 
#6 ·
Is tinting the sunroof safe given the electrochromic glass? Because I may end up tinting mine a bit.

debating on the windows too - 50 is the lowest allowed in wi but I really want to go to 25-35. Not sure what I can get away with having a black sapphire metallic iX without the bronze exterior trim. I haven’t owned a black car for awhile and didn’t tint the Prius when I had it. I do have 35% on my blue MDX Type S and haven’t had issues…
 
#7 ·
Sure its safe,,,It does nothing to the inner working of the electrochromic glass. I don't think you have any restrictions in terms of the tint level on the roof. The max tint my shop had was 5%, and honestly, I would have tinted total blackout if i could... The moonroof is more of a gimmick to me. Even when you allow it to be clear, its still not completely clear. I would have opted without if I could, but it seems all EV makers are now doing this panoramic glass ceiling thing.
 
#9 ·
Your Tint guy can hold a few to the roof and you can see which you like best. Honestly, if I did not live in super hot South FL I probably would not have even tinted it. But I have to say that it does make a huge difference, especially tinting the driving and passenger window at 15% ceramic
 
#14 · (Edited)
August 21 will be 4 months of ownership. But we bought the car in California, and 3 months ago I drove it to Florida.
I'm not sure, but I think I saw it 1 time just in the sunny Isles area. I was moving and it seemed to me that it was IX.
And while I was driving through the states, I was like an alien ship to everyone.
 
#15 ·
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean..Everybody is looking at it or taking pictures when its parked and I come out of the store. It reminds me of the scene in The Hangover, where Zac Galianakis is at the gas station and the old man is commenting on his car. Wow you got yours only 2 days after the US national release date of Aug 19th. Love the car but wish they did have a sunscreen for the moon roof....Its brutal Here in the Summer as you know
 
#17 ·
I don’t see a need to tint the roof. It doesn’t;t even get hot to the touch sitting in the sun with the tint mode on and it doesn’t let enough sun in to create shadows inside the car. It’s much more effective that sun shades on the teslas. I thought it was a gimmick until i rode under it for a few weeks.
 
#24 ·
Did you already made a trip with passengers in very hot day?

do you have any term of comparison of the level of heat blocking between the IX and a normal sunroof (eg an X5)?

In all of my other cars I always used the sunshade in the hot days of summer.
 
#23 ·
Jai

Curious to know if you have already traveled in hot days.
I had sunroofs on 6 cars (vw, audi, bmw) and use sunshade all the time in summer as it becomes impossible hot for me and also front / rear passengers.

is iX sunroof that much better stopping heat than a normal sunroof (eg an X5), which are also tinted / uv filtered from factory)?
 
#25 ·
Sunroof 50% and 35% front windows and hatch (max allowed here), and it stays remarkably cool on 90F+ days - I really don't even need preconditioning unless I'm gone more than a couple of hours. Still good visibility night/day and great heat rejection. XPEL ceramic.
 
#27 ·
According to one of the biggest tint shops in my area, tinting the roof is not recommended. The tint will cause heat to build up in the glass and could either cause the glass to crack or can damage the photochromic capability (which is electronic and does not like heat).
 
#30 ·
The PDLC actually works pretty well for filtering heat/light in the car. I added 50% XPEL ceramic just for those rare days here (100F +) that really need it (or on the road in AZ!), and mainly as a UV filter, but you could likely leave as-is and get pretty good thermal protection I expect, which jives with other users' experience. Just had one summer with it so far, but the cabin seems to be fairly easy to regulate between preconditioning and tinting. I did notice the windshield IR protection seems excellent (leather dash), although I got a Covercraft sunscreen if I need to park outdoors somewhere for an extended period in full sun. In another life I was an industrial chemist with Dow Corning, and worked briefly with a very large team assigned to Lockheed developing thermal protection for the test bed that would later morph into the Space Shuttle, so have some familiarity with the physics of glass, but know very little about BMW's product or process for this particular glass, although it seems almost identical to commercial applications of PDLC/tinted glass, which has been used for decades for building insulation in all climates and regions with all kinds of glass.
 
#33 ·
BMW Group has not advised anyone to tint - or not - their sunroof, or windshield or side windows, on the iX or any other models they manufacture, in any written or verbal communication as far as I'm aware. Ever. A dealer - or a detailer - may have advised someone not to tint their windows (or sunroof), mainly because of their lack of knowledge about their process or their product, or because they may have damaged someone's window in the process of applying same. Tinting - or not - is a personal decision based on 1) esthetics, 2) legal restrictions or 3) need. There's really no need to tint your windshield, for example, because it's safety glass (with a sandwiched layer of polyvinyl butyral between layers), and it already has a very effective IR coating, so it rejects almost 100% of incoming infrared and UVA rays. For esthetics, perhaps, if you want a darker windshield, but in the US tinting your windshield below a certain area (generally about 4" below the top) is illegal. Tinting your sunroof with a suitable tint will reduce visible light transmission and some heat (the layered electrochromic glass already rejects most UVA), and your tempered glass side windows - even the factory-tinted rear passenger windows - have almost no UVA rejection so tinting these will substantially reduce transmitted energy.

Any window glass can be damaged by the application of tint by a sloppy detailer, and a small chip or crack can propagate in tempered glass (all of your windows except your windshield - the sunroof is layered tempered glass). Window glass can have manufacturing defects that only appear some time after installation, and cause an ultimate failure. But none of these are related to tinting, and thousands of cars, including the iX, have aftermarket tint applied pretty much everywhere, with no verified reports of failure related exclusively to tinting, after several decades on the roads collectively.
 
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