Hello all! I am a proud 9 day owner of a 2012 Prius Three. I bought the car initially to save money as I my job has me on the road 3 to 4 days of the week but I have really fell in love with this car, overall, since. My question is; The specs list the Windshield as being "UV reduction glass windshield". Do the other windows have this or other features as well? The reason I ask is, I want to get my windows tinted. When I visited a local shop, the sales guy showed me the 3M Stablecolor tint and demo'd it for me. The amount of heat it blocked was amazing. I went back to my car and noticed that the factory glass in the doors seemed to block a lot of direct heat as well (we've had some really warm days lately in So Cal). Was I imagining this? If the factory glass already has these heat-blocking properties I would probably install the standard 3M tint. Thanks in advance for your input!
You should get the tint that looks the best to you. Forget about which keep out the most UV, heat, etc. They all do about the same thing. Any differences are negligable, unnoticeable, and will help protect against melanoma all the same.
Look at the etched info on each piece of glass. My side windows on my Plug-In Prius have a logo on the bottom line that says uVs. I'm guessing that is UV protected glass. I also had my windows tinted by the dealer. I can tell the difference in the heat when the sun is shining directly on me and when it is through the window to know that the windows with the tint are cutting out the UV rays.
Nice attachment- I've been looking for something like this. what year is this for. So if I can go to 35% legally, and the door windows transmit 25%-- what % tint should I use?
llumar air blue 80. its pricey since its ceramic. the biggest plus is that its really light that some have tinted their windshield and you can't tell that its there. you know those annoying CA laws... http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...8138-winshield-tint-llumar-air-blue-80-a.html
What is legal for tint varies from state to state. You should be able to look up what is legal for your jurisdiction. So that person from the dealership might be correct about their specific location, but that won't apply to other states where the car might be registered. For example, when I was stationed in Nebraska I had my car tinted to the maximum allowable tint for Nebraska. When I moved to Massachusetts however I was told by an inspection station that my tint exceeded the maximum legal tint for Mass, and I'd have to get it removed. Some fancy footwork was required until I moved out of the state again!
I installed Hüper Optik's Select Drei on my 2009 Civic Hybrid. There are a limited number of installers and it cost me $500-600, so it's not an option for everyone. However, this light tint (35%) still blocked 99.9% of UV and an amazing 98% of infrared. Blocking heat doesn't make any difference? Absolute nonsense. Along with a sunshade, it helped significantly cool the interior when parked in 100°F weather. When driving the car, the AC temp could be set higher, so it helped mileage, too.
