Window tinting

For a privately owned car the figure reported consistently since a 2017 ministerial resolution is 50 per cent on the side and rear glass — put the other way round, at least half the light has to keep coming through. It was 30 per cent before that, which is why you will still find older advice quoting the lower number. Two cautions worth more than the number itself: the allowance is not the same for every vehicle class, and traffic law here is revised from time to time. So we confirm what currently applies to your car and tell you before we start, rather than having you act on a figure from a website. If you want it darker than the limit, the answer is no.

No. The allowance covers the side and rear glass; the front windscreen is not part of it, and we do not put film on one. A narrow strip along the very top edge of the windscreen is a separate matter with its own size rule, and rather than quote you a figure we are not certain of, we will check the current rule with you before anything goes anywhere near that glass. If a car reaches us from abroad with a filmed windscreen, we will tell you it has to come off rather than work around it.

Not from film we fitted, because we fit inside the limit and there is nothing on the car to argue about. The cars that have trouble are the ones carrying film darker than the allowance — a fine at the roadside is the visible risk, and a car over the limit can be impounded as well, but the quieter problem is that you are eventually left stripping it off. If tint already on your car worries you, bring it in and we will tell you what we think it is before you spend anything.

The legal limit is one question and permission is another. Taxis and trucks are outside the tinting allowance entirely. For a leased or company-registered car the limit itself is not the obstacle so much as the fact that the car is not yours to change: the registered owner or the leasing company decides, and film is a change to the vehicle they get back. Get that permission in writing before you book, because removing film later to satisfy a return inspection is a job somebody has to pay for.

Permission to exceed the limit is something only the traffic authority can give, and it has to be obtained before the film is fitted, not explained afterwards at the roadside. Some emirates have also asked for prior approval to tint at all, so where your car is registered matters. A workshop cannot grant any of this and we will not fit above the limit on the strength of a verbal claim. If you hold an approval, bring it, and we will fit to exactly what it says on it.

It matters, and it is a separate question from how dark the film is, which is the part people confuse. Two films at the same permitted darkness can behave very differently in the sun, because what keeps heat out is not the same as what blocks light. Dyed film is the basic category and the one that fades toward purple. Metallised film rejects heat well but can interfere with signal. Carbon and ceramic films are the categories sold on heat rejection without that interference. We will talk through which category suits the car and tell you plainly what is in front of us rather than reciting a brochure figure.

Yes, and it is worth understanding that removal is its own job rather than something included in the minute before a new film goes on. The sheet itself comes away in pieces; the adhesive under it is the slow part, and on a rear screen it has to be softened and lifted without taking the printed defroster lines with it. We would rather quote removal and fitting as two things you can see separately than bury one inside the other. If you only want the old film gone and nothing put back, that is a job on its own too.