[mrvenka]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Steel is harder than [most] glass: do not use.

+1

I just completed removing the sun films from two of my cars, I used a steamer to heat the film and then cutter to lift.
I recommend use of Cuttlebone to clean the glass if there any sticky portion that is left over, it just does a magic without damaging the glass. (I picked it from beach side to clean my Aquarium glass).

Cuttlebone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

17 year old Maruti 800 : took 5 hours, glue was sticky and there were few cuts which made the work really hard.
4 year old Magnum Optra : 20min’s it was so easy and no fuss.

[MK3]

Car: Fabia
Sunfilm make: 3M
Age of film: 1 year 1 month

Technique used to remove:
1. Left the car(windows closed) in sun for 3 hours
2. Applied water on the film (for some reason water application seems to be necessary. Without applying water if the film is pulled it splits or does not come without leaving residue)
3. Used nails to peel the edge (rolled down the window to get the edge)
4. Pulled top to bottom or across
5. Used car shampoo and water mix, applied gently on the glass. Scrubbed using sponge, followed by cleaning with water

No de-fogger, no worries

[HighOctane]

Today removed sunfilm without applying water. It came off easily, but in some places it left black residue. It should be pulled very slowly. Applied NC Thinner dipped with rough cloth and the black residue vanished. It took about an hour to remove and clean.

[mail.jaiswal]

Guys, just sharing a little bit of info. Me a few other guys got it removed by calling a mechanic guy nearby who has removed a lot of sumfilms. After waiting for my turn to come for over 2 hours, i decided to remove the sun films myself and ask the guys to just clean the glue. The sunfilms were easy to remove as long as u remove the films from the outside and then towards the center. removed the screens and realised that their was hardly any residue so decided to attempt and remove the glue myself. after about 30 mins of rubbing with colin and a clean cloth, All the windows were sparkling clean.

Following are the observations:
1. When doing a DIY, the most important aspect to keep in mind is that the windows are hot or warm to the very least. I parked my car in the sun before doing this exercise and it hardly created any problems whatsoever.
2. From the others who had got their sunfilms removed, the ones with most glue residue were the ones who had gotten the Sun film's "free of cost" or as a deal by the dealer. Hence the mechanic's logic was that these dealers use local, cheap sunfilms which require more glue.
3. Avoid harsh materials on the windscreen. Even though it may not be visible but might leave marks on the window.
4. Rub with a glass cleaning liquid like Mr Muscle or Colin after the whole process to ensure you have sparking glass. Everyone cleans a car from the outside, but hardly clean from the inside. this would be a good time to clean the window's interior.
5. While at the process, you might want to treat the complete glass as well. After the sunfilm and glue removal, i went on to clean my car's glasses from the outside as well. Doesnt hurt to see your baby's spanking clean

Overall amount time spent on removing and cleaning - 1 hour

Overall, I'd highly recommend anyone, who is doing a DIY on sunfilms to do it after the car is parked in the sun for a few hours.

[parik_ind]

Originally Posted by man_and_machine

1. Remove the film with the glue, this will need steaming the film inch by inch while removing it (a lot of effort, assuming we do not have steam throwers, unlike what you see on DIY videos from the west where they use steam throwers for general cleaning)
2. Remove the films (peel it off) and then remove the glue. This can be done in 3 ways
(A) Mechanical: use a blade to remove it (you need to be very careful here)
(B) Physical treatment: Use your Press/Iron box with steamer, or a face steamer (this is very slow), steam the glue and wipe of with a cloth
(C) Chemical: Use petrol to dissolve the glue (check the quality of your windshield, if you use too much of this then the glass becomes dull). You could also use benzene, but then you have scrub a lot and you need to really careful not be get it it on the painted parts of your car (its also a paint thinner !)

Its a pain getting the glue off. I used a combo of a steamer (the ones used for inhalation), a flat metal spoon and paint thinner. I first steamed the glass and kept scraping the glue off, the major parts come off easily and then finished it off with paint thinner on a sponge. The rear wind shield is the most painful because of the angles. In fact I have managed to finish only one third because I am using only thinner here as I don't want to mess up the defogger.

The glass thankfully has not scratches nor has it become dull.

Parik

[edassery]

If you have 3M and installed before delivery from showroom, it hardly takes 10 minutes to remove

Agree that local and free films have really bad residue.

What MK3 explained is pretty much what I did too. Although I used the scraper blade very effectively to cleanup the minimal glue residue remaining. Just posted the video on Youtube.

[prashant316]

I had to take my car to a garage guy to get my sunfilms removed. And Damn! it took 3 hours to be removed, majorly because of the amount of residue that they had left on the windows. The gum had to be removed using a sharp cutter.

The guy did a tremendous job of removing the residue with the cutter without even one scratch on the windows.

Thank god i did not go about trying this myself. Paid him Rs. 300 for this.

[man_and_machine]

Originally Posted by parik_ind

...... finished it off with paint thinner on a sponge. The rear wind shield is the most painful because of the angles.
Parik

Parik: Like I have mentioned before, if you use a thinner or any other chemical ensure that the interiors of the car are properly ventilated before you drive it. Since all A/C cars form a tight compartment, the fumes if not ventilated properly can be a threat. Please see another related thread "DIY for sun film removal - what not to do" for further details.

A face steamer is very slow, agree! This process is slow, sure, and I am not one bit happy myself doing it! But then, this is the rule and one has to follow it!

Originally Posted by supremeBaleno

looks like Chennai cops have swung into action.

Where there is an easy kill the cops never leave it, Chennai, BLR, Mumbai etc do not matter. It takes effort and intelligence to catch a chain snatcher, but what does it take to flag down a morning office goer? They are as dead as a Dodo.

BLR: no action yet, did not see any action, as the deadline is moved to a later date, but when its up, they all are the same! (what a shame)!

Note from the Team-BHP Support Team: Please use the "edit" button if posting within 30 minutes of the first post, instead of creating another back-to-back post.

Also use "Multi Quote" option for quoting Multiple posts.

[parik_ind]

Originally Posted by man_and_machine

Since all A/C cars form a tight compartment, the fumes if not ventilated properly can be a threat. Please see another related thread "DIY for sun film removal - what not to do" for further details.

I completely agree about the ventilation bit. Since it was one window at a time all the other doors were fully open. While working on the rear glass I had all doors open and once I was done I left it like that for about 3 hours. Also drove for an hour last night with all windows open. There is no smell of any kind.

Parik

[MAS]

Guys,

After reading the DIY to remove the tints, i found that most of them suggest to leave the car in the hot sun for an hour or two. As my car was parked already parked in the sun from 10 am, i decided to have a go at the tints.

It took just 15 minutes for me to climb down two flight of stairs, open the car, get hold of a paper cutter and pull the films off the four windows and the rear windshield and climb back to my office.

3M is really good. No glue, no marks, no residue. I am ready to be sun-baked now, but i would rather prefer it this way than stand in front of a cop giving him excuses.

[man_and_machine]

Originally Posted by parik_ind

I completely agree about the ventilation bit. Since it was one window at a time all the other doors were fully open. While working on the rear glass I had all doors open and once I was done I left it like that for about 3 hours. Also drove for an hour last night with all windows open. There is no smell of any kind.

Parik

Good move buddy, but please be a Samaritan enough to spread this word around to other DIY guys too (even those not on TBHP), I hear a lot of guys using thinners to remove the glue, we need to spread this awareness as much as we can.

[mac187]

I tried doing DIY for my car on Sunday. Car was in the sun since morning, it was hard to find the edge (with blade). When I found one after using my nail, i used Colin to keep it wet but it didnt help much. There was alot of glue on the glass which didnt go with rubbing from cloth.

Is it better to take it to some shop? I really dont like the glue residue and the glass is not going all the way down due to the glue.

[aravindr]

I also found that 3M came out easily without any glue or any other Residue. In fact it was about 10 minutes after I had returned from a hot drive. I actually tried removing the film from one corner and once the edge was lifted a bit, I worked around the entire window so that the edges of the film all around the window got a bit lifted up first. I then removed the film towards the center of the windows, the film came in one piece. I could remove all the films from all the six windows (Innova) in one piece each. It took about 15 minutes for each window. Need to try the last one, the windows on the back side, the complicated one. Have reserved this for the next week end !!

Originally Posted by MAS

Guys,

After reading the DIY to remove the tints, i found that most of them suggest to leave the car in the hot sun for an hour or two. As my car was parked already parked in the sun from 10 am, i decided to have a go at the tints.

It took just 15 minutes for me to climb down two flight of stairs, open the car, get hold of a paper cutter and pull the films off the four windows and the rear windshield and climb back to my office.

3M is really good. No glue, no marks, no residue. I am ready to be sun-baked now, but i would rather prefer it this way than stand in front of a cop giving him excuses.

[VANdaMAN]

Car: SX4
Film: Garware Premium
Dealer: Pratham Motors, Bangalore
Age of film: 1 year 2 months

I removed the films from my car myself. Just got a starter corner for each of the films and slowly removed the film itself. All the films (including the front quarter windows and the rear one) came off in about 20 minutes flat with the help of a razor blade to start things off. I was elated!

Then reality hit. The glue.

The glue residue covered 100% of the glass area that was covered by the film! I tried the following methods:

1. Colin and dish scrubber - result: comes off but very slowly and clogs the scrubber pretty fast

2. Colin and steel wool - result: comes off faster than scrubber but exhausting and steel wool gets fouled quickly with glue

3. Blade and surgical spirit - result: spirit dissolves the glue but leaves the gunky solution on the window, needs to be wiped off fast and then followed up with a blade to scrape off the remnants. Any material (cotton, gauze, newspaper) used to apply the spirit gets fouled up quickly as well.

4. Blade and WD40 - result: no discernible effect of WD40 on glue. Guess it helped the blade glide better but that's it

5. Blade/scrubber and shampoo solution - result: makes scrubbing easier but takes the same time (a LONG time!) to get all the glue off.

All the above attempts were made on 2 side windows and took 2 hours of fruitless scrubbing to get them even reasonably clean.

Finally gave up and took it to UM Motors off Old Airport Road. They clearly had past experience with owners like me who removed the film but were saddled with the glue. They applied some solvent from a spray bottle (unfortunately none of them, including the works manager, could tell me what it was - they called it "remover") and used a putty blade. Even then, it took them a good 2 hours to clean off all the glue!

Another thing I noticed - the rear demister elements are pretty robustly etched/deposited on the glass and they were not damaged by the removal process, though the guys weren't particularly careful when they cleaned the rear windscreen despite my anxious warnings.

Total cost of removal: Rs. 350

[HighOctane]

Guys, Please do not use scotch brite to remove the glue residue. One of my Uncle who pulled sufilm by himself on Fabia had rubbed the glue residue by scotch brite(like we clean the vessels) All the windows were scrached horribly. Yet he had not observed the scraches while cleaning. But I saw them and showed him. His face became so small on seeing this. Luckily he had not yet removed the rear glass sheet which had defogger. I had to remove that sheet and applied NC Thinner and the glue came off easily.

Yesterday, I pulled my car's sunfilms
which left no glue, but had left some black spots which was removed by thinner easily. Took about an hour to pull and clean the glasses.

Originally Posted by mac187

I tried doing DIY for my car on Sunday. Car was in the sun since morning, it was hard to find the edge (with blade). When I found one after using my nail, i used Colin to keep it wet but it didnt help much. There was alot of glue on the glass which didnt go with rubbing from cloth.

Is it better to take it to some shop? I really dont like the glue residue and the glass is not going all the way down due to the glue.

If you have about one hour's time willing to work and saving 200-300 bucks, get a bottle of NC Thinner from hardware shop for Rs.40 and take a rough/hard cloth and apply thinner in the cloth and rub it in circular motion and the glue gets disaappeared. Make sure that thinner wont touch the paint, fabric & plastic parts of the car. Also ensure thinner will not spill below the glass and damage the power window motor.

Note from the Team-BHP Support Team: Please use the "edit" button if posting within 30 minutes of the first post, instead of creating another back-to-back post.

Also use "Multi Quote" option for quoting Multiple posts.