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Had Autobahn "Black Ceramic" installed but wondering if it is was switched out for a cheaper tint.


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Hello! I have a 1998 Lexus ES300 and recently went ahead and got a $600 Autobahn "Black Ceramic" tint with 15% for all four doors and back windshield. One thing I wanted to mention if I could possibly get someone's opinion on is, would it be possible for the tint shop to simply give me a lower quality "non-ceramic" tint even though I paid for ceramic tint? There are two reasons for my concern:
  1. Right before I left my car at the tint shop, I made the mistake of taking pictures of the exterior and interior of my car just to make sure I would be aware of any damage that was already done to the car prior to leaving it with them as I ended up having to sign a waiver saying that the tint shop is not responsible for any damage to the car prior to being left there. When I started taking pictures of my car the gentleman who I was speaking to became visibly upset and was hesitant on me leaving the car with them, as if I was supposedly just going to complain about damage to the car that already existed after they did the job. I reassured him that it was just for my piece of mind and that I had no intention of making false accusations. Eventually he settled down and I just left my keys and car with him.
  2. Another thing that I've noticed is that all four door windows seem to have a "greenish hue" (not incredibly green mind you but compared to the sunroof "factory tint" and the back windshield tint that they also installed, it appears "greenish") to them when looking through the window from the inside of the car. Surprisingly the back windshield actually doesn't have this issue. This is what initially made me think they switched out the tint perhaps either on the doors or the back windshield, otherwise, why would the door windows have a greenish hue, but not the rear windshield? Now I did not notice any factory tint on the doors or either windshield as I can clearly remember my door windows looking as clear as day after washing my car (to the point where it appeared as though the windows were down even though they were up). My VIN does show that according to the official Lexus website, that their was "Infrared and UV Reduction Glass" installed. I'm pretty sure this means the sunroof, as that clearly has a factory tint. But like I said, the other windows prior to this tint job showed no visible tint at all.
Sorry for the long story but I was just wondering if this was at all possible that they simply swapped out the tint that I paid for, for a lower quality, non-ceramic one.
Edited by CladInShadows
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Is your back window tagged with the Lexus logo in a corner somewhere like your door glass is? That’s ma first question for a customer that it sounds like I’d give the go away price. Too many variables on an old car to start pointing fingers imo.

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More than likely there's a difference in your factory glass itself that's making the color appear different. Toyota/Lexus is notorious for using different glass in their vehicles over the years, from green to bronze to clear to reflective and in some cases a combination on the same vehicle. The late 90's and early 00's RX300 and Land Cruiser both come to mind as common examples still frequently seen on the road. While no one can rule out 100% the film being switched it is highly unlikely that they would've done it for that single window. I'll attach a picture of an old truck I did recently where the wing window on the driver's door was clear glass while the rest of the truck had solar green glass, the same film was used but you can see the color variation between the main roll up window and the wing window in the picture. In the pic it's fairly subtle but in person it's much more noticeable. 

 

20210519_135910.jpg

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