27/09/2021
Importance of Tinting Car Windows
The most common reason people cite for wanting tinted windows is to keep the interior of their car cool and cut down harmful UV and UVB rays. But, according to the Cancer Council of Australia regular automotive glass cuts about 97% of UVB (short-wave ultraviolet light) which is the light that causes sunburn and more than 30% of UVA which is the sunlight that penetrates beyond the surface layer of your skin – it’s prolonged exposure to UVA that can lead to skin cancer. And laminated automotive glass is even more effective at cutting both UVA and UVB, indeed, it’ll cut down around 80% of UVA and it blocks UVB completely.
But what about keeping the interior of the car cool, does window tinting really help? According to a study by the RACQ in 2009 which explored the effects of windscreen sunshades and window tinting on the interior temperature of a car the temperature differences between them are minimal.
What the study revealed was that while clear automotive glass heats up quicker and with a higher interior temperature, but only by a few degrees C, than privacy glass and film-type window tinting, it was also quicker to cool if a shadow was introduced. The tinted windows took longer to reach ambient temperature and had a lower peak temperature than the clear automotive glass with the film-type tint recording a slightly lower peak temperature than the dye-type tint, but the difference was only 2 degrees C; the peak temperatures recorded were 59.7 and 61.8 degrees C, respectively.
What the RACQ study concluded was while tinted windows are slower to heat up than clear glass, the difference is almost so little that it’s almost not worth it. Especially when the fact that the windscreen is not allowed to be tinted and is thus significant entry points for both heat and glare. The study also showed that tinted windows slowed the heat loss from the interior of a car.
