Leaving your car under the scorching sun may seem like a trivial thought to even think about but in reality, it is something worth noting — for instance, daylight will heat your car to extremely uncomfortable temperatures in just a few minutes. If you are in a hurry and hoping to drive away quickly, your plans may be hindered because your car is hellishly hot inside. You probably may even hesitate going inside and wait for a couple of minutes while the AC is turned on.
While this can be prevented by parking under a cool shade, it does not defeat the general problem at hand which is preventing your cars from heating. Although there are numerous claims by “experts” on the topic claiming that certain methods and products can and will cool down your car, most of them are pseudo concepts that are not backed by real science. However, there are also proven ways on how to significantly cool down a car — for instance, using a window tint.
What is a car window tint?
Basically, a car window tint is an additional barrier of the existing window between the outside and the car’s cabin. It serves dual purpose, both on aesthetics and heat reduction.
A car window tinting is no different from other tints. It is made up from multiple layers of polyester base with a scratch-resistant coating. Its UV ray blocking capabilities are embodied by different additives of undisclosed information, usually from patented formulation. Nevertheless, the final product will serve its purpose by reflecting or absorbing the sun’s harmful rays.
How does window tint cool your car?
The main purpose of installing a window tint is to act as a barrier between the sun and the car’s cabin. While it is a fact that prolonged exposure to sunlight can be harmful to us or even the car itself — window tints provide a safe means to reduce the damaging effects of sunlight.
In other terms, it works by reflecting a portion of the sunlight’s thermal rays that generates heat and only allowing wavelengths that produce light. Normal window tint (the one provided at your local dealership) typically provides 35 – 45% heat rejection while those high-rated tints provides 75 – 80%.
How effective is my car window tint?
To the astute car owners, a more technical approach in determining the window tint’s effectiveness is by looking at its visible light transmission levels (also known as VLT). VLT is interpreted as the percentage of visible light passing through the material. So if a window tint’s VLT is rated as 45%, this means that 45% of the visible light passes through the material while the other 55% is reflected.
There are also other terms like the visible light absorption (VLA), and visible light reflected (VLR) that requires attention since they are used hand in hand with other dealerships. VLA indicates how much light is absorbed while VLR indicates how much light is reflected. Keep this in mind and you will never go wrong with choosing the rating of your tint to suit your specifications.
One thing to note, however, is that all car window manufacturers apply a certain VLT rating to their windows because they do not allow a complete 100% passing percentage for various safety reasons. This means that your front, rear, and side windows are initially rated with VLT, usually at 80%.
To determine the effective VLT rating of a newly tinted window, just multiply the VLT rating of the two materials, for instance — an 80% VLT rated window is applied by a 60% VLT rated window tint has an effective VLT rating of (0.80 multiplied by 0.60) 48%.
The lower the rating, the more effective auto tinting
How much heat reduction can window tint achieve?
We all know that a car left for a while in broad daylight will radiate extreme temperature, but we do not know exactly by “how much?”. To give it more context, we must refer to the study conducted by F. M. Nasir, Jasni, (2014).
In a comparative analysis based on their study, two cars were left outside in broad daylight (in Malaysia, which is a tropical country). One car has window tints while the other does not. Their conclusion suggested that window tints cooled the car cabin by as much as 8°C and 12°C at the dashboard.
The other car without window tints recorded an average temperature reaching an astounding 80°C, the dashboard recorded the highest temperature at 87.5°C.
However, they used a low end window tint with a VLT rating of 85% on the front window and 65% all throughout for their experiment. If a low end window tint can lessen the ambient temperature significantly, how much more for a high end window tint? We cannot say for sure,Go yo Flying Window Tinting we have the best window tinting prices in orlando fl
This was written by Steven Hopkinson owner /operator of Flying Window Tinting.
`We have been in business in Orlando same location
for 20 years
We serve the following locations
- orlando
- winter park
- alafaya
- azalea park
We also provide the following service
- Window tinting
- tint removal
- headlight cleaning
- vinyl graphics
Contact us for free quotes on your vehicle
