3M Crystalline question.

RecklessReflections · May 23, 2015

Alright so we have a customer at one of our locations getting a full PPF on a 1993 BMW M3 coupe. Along with a CR50% full tint. Now before asking this question to give some kind of information about the car, yes it's 22 years old but it was a garage queen, everything on it is original: Paint/Interior/Glass. Being this car never really seen the road often as it only has 9,300 miles on it the glass as well is in very good shape. Upon installing CR50% the back window was very, very purple in hue. I know crystalline will give off that purple/red/orangish hue depending on the angle of the glass to how it's viewed in light, but I've never seen it this prominent on a bmw, especially an old model. I do see a lot of Tesla back windows as well as S class Mercedes with a more apparent purple hue with crystalline.

I unfortunately do not have photos of the back window as it was not done at the location I'm at and they had already pulled the film off.

Just want to get everyone's thoughts of what could be the cause of this? Just to give some added information as far asa slip solution we only use filtered water along with baby shampoo.

Appreciate any input guys. :prof

Tintguy1980 · May 25, 2015

the glass

MikeMN · May 26, 2015

:yeah

RecklessReflections · June 2, 2015

Thought I would post an update.
Took all the film off yesterday and replaced it with an even lighter shade of Crystalline (CR70%) And the reduction of the purple hue from the infrared layer diminished dramatically.

Although I still believe the glass itself had a big role of how purple the CR50 looked but as the 70 is nearly so clear with little shade it helped a lot. And the customer was extremely satisfied, so that's what counts! :cool

RockyDaz · June 2, 2015

A darker film (lower VLT ) will always emphasise the natural colour of the glass. In the 80s and 90s we saw a lot of brownish and rose/purplish coloured glass. Now we are experiencing the same problems with film emphasising the green hue of Toyota glass in particular.

Just fyi. :thumb

TomTint · June 3, 2015

Many of these newer cars have some pretty impressive glass from the factory. It is designed to reduce heat so the AC does not run as much , thus they can use more efficient compressors , thus better fuel economy, thus less emissions. This also has to do with much of the glass scratching easier via olfa blades. Glass today is far softer than 10 years ago.

RecklessReflections · June 3, 2015

A darker film (lower VLT ) will always emphasise the natural colour of the glass. In the 80s and 90s we saw a lot of brownish and rose/purplish coloured glass. Now we are experiencing the same problems with film emphasising the green hue of Toyota glass in particular.

Just fyi.

I was actually reading up on that as well. But thank you very much for clarifying. I tried to express to the customer that the film being put on is only enhancing the hue that's already being projected from the glass. He understood entirely that there were different rolls being put into this situation. But all in all the switching from a crystalline 50% to a 70% did the trick and it wasn't as brutal of a purple hue as it was with the 50%

Thanks for the info, something to always bring to the customers attention about colors.

RecklessReflections · June 3, 2015

Many of these newer cars have some pretty impressive glass from the factory. It is designed to reduce heat so the AC does not run as much , thus they can use more efficient compressors , thus better fuel economy, thus less emissions. This also has to do with much of the glass scratching easier via olfa blades. Glass today is far softer than 10 years ago.

Yes site I've noticed a lot of the S class Mercedes with some impressive looking glass as well.

I also seen the information regarding the Teslas windshield specs as well.

As far as the glass being softer, I myself haven't put a blade on glass ten years ago as I was just a teen picking up film and cleaning the cars but from what I do heard from other more experience colleagues, that the glass indeed is much softer. With that being said, all of my patterns are marked with a sharpie and taken to a glass board for a final cut.