You missed my experience above. I have run this in my vehicles since the early 2000's. I have never had to have it redone. The 2004 4Runner I had it installed in is now with it's second owner, and the windshield tint is perfect. A few other widows were redone from being scratched by cargo. I have it in all of my cars, and always do the windshield. I cannot remember if I do the windshields in 90 or 70 I will have to look.

One of the lessons my shop shared with me (they also do houses and industrial tinting) is that super black window actually cause more interior heat. Once they get hot (sitting out side) they radiate more heat into the interior than a more clean window with the same heat rejection property's would. This is, in part, why 3M Crystaline is never super dark. They also told me metallic films will always reject the most heat. They also are the most reflective, which means they cause glare for others. The ideal tint would be a silver mirror tint with very low visible light rejection, but imagine following that guy with the sun low in the sky (or being a cop pulling him over). On buildings they can use mirrored glass to great effect. 3M developed Cystaline for building and houses because more and more communities were not permitting mired windows. They tried to get as close to mirrored tint property's as they could with very low reflected light. Or so the 3m Rep told me.

Not getting your drift. Elaborate?

Basically, they might try to avoid paying a claim by suggesting that your forward vision was impaired by the film, leading to you being unable to avoid a collision. Or something like that. They seem to have a bad rep for trying to wiggle their way out of paying if they can.

Well I see the point but let's face it... there are so many things that people do that *could* be reasons for an insurer to not pay a claim. I don't know if anyone would ever pay attention to a detail like that unless it was a serious situation. In that case there are probably many other things they could pick on -- that just seems like it would have to be pretty far down the list of potential excuses. They would really have to be grasping at straws at that point but who knows?

My question would be what's the difference between film on a side or rear window and the front glass? The logic doesn't really hold water to me, unless the policies state that ANY window film is a policy violation.

I've never looked for that in any of my policies but I'll look into when I get a chance to see if they say anything about it.

If anyone has recommendations for a Crystalline installer in San Diego / North County area please send it on over my way. I've got a couple cars I would like to do, including my '88 3.2 Cab.

Thanks!