I called an Acura service writer about his recommendation for a ceramic tint, and his response was that ceramics have some metal in them, enough to cause nav to misidentify the car's location. I have worked with this guy for years and I trust him, but I have never seen any comments of this sort on Acurazine. What do you think?

 

he is incorrect. ceramic tint is just that...ceramic. metallic tints are, you guessed it, metallic. metallic tints will interfere with nax/xm, ceramic will not.

 

+1 If it had metallic in it, it wouldn't be a ceramic tint. I believe Huper Optik is the industry standard for nano-ceramic tint. Llumar and Pinnacle(?) I think also have good ceramic tints.

 

I made sure that we were talking about ceramic and not metallic. The service writer said that ceramics contained some metal and it is sometimes just enough to affect things. Seems like there are enough 4Gs out there with ceramic tints and nav that such a problem might be common knowledge by now. Anybody with a 2009-10 TL with nav and tint having problems?

 

No problems here with Pinnacle F1 35% all around (not front)

 

lol got ceramic tint because it doesn't have metal in it.....0 problems..

 

XM would not be affected in any case... the antenna is in the Shark Fin.

AM is in the rear glass, and it *could* be affected. GPS is in the dash behind the GPS receiver, and therefor could be affected as well by Tint. Finally, your cell phone in inside with you, and if the tower is behind you (e.g. is not transmitting through the Windshield that is typically not tinted) it won't be affected... if the Cell tower is to the side or behind you, you can lose a bar or two.

But this all assumes a metallic tint. Dyed tint (the cheapest option) has no metal in it and will not affect radio. Metallic tint (the medium price option) by definition has metal in it and provides the most interference. Ceramic tints typically don't have metallic tint in it, however there are one or two brands that have a very small amount of metallic left in it and can have a very small effect.

Finally, you have the Nano-Ceramic tints... notably FormulaOne Pinnacle (made by Llumar), and Huper Optik, there is no metal whatsoever. Not only will these not interfere with Radio, they also give you the best IR and UV protection as well as best Heat rejection. And of course those have the highest price.

There's lots of mis-information out there, so do your homework and understand what you're getting. Go to the shop and see the quality of their work, cleanliness, and organization. If you can go a couple of times, you can see the work they're doing, both in progress and complete.

I was referred to the place that my Dealer's service department recommends. He tried to tell me that a ceramic tint was really a metallic tint that was applied to the film in a "ceramic oven". ?!?! I got off the phone quickly. The place that the sales department recommended to me sounded pretty good, and they are factory certified in SolarGuard UP, another ceramic tint with no metal. They also have and will apply Huper Optik a a $50 premium over their other Ceramic tint. Eventually, after seeing their work a number of times, talking to the installers themselves, etc. This is the place I'm going to. The local Huper Optik factory certified installer tried to steer me away from HO on the rear window... basically because HO is a little thicker than most tints, and is harder to fit to the back window on 90% of the cars out there. The place I decided on said yes... you have to take your time and shrink the film SLOWLY (which I've read everywhere) otherwise it can be harder to fit.. and it's worse on some cars than on others (My 2010 TL is actually one of the easier since the rear window is flatter than most, but a little harder to final-fit because there's no fold down rear seats.)

I hope some of this helps...
D.

 

Thanks for the informative reply. I was kind of leaning toward a high-end ceramic since I think that I'll have the car for a while.

Funny thing about the problems installing on the rear window--just when I thought that we had beaten the non-folding rear-seat issue to death in other threads, here it is again. Still, a terrific post.

 

The car that i am picking up today has regular tint on it and i have been fighting with them about the price of tint bcauase i did not want it because i was going to put ceramic tint on it.

They too tried to give the speach about ceramic tint messing up the nav. I called them out on it telling them that was metal film that did that.

He gracefully bowed down and said his info was 5 years old.

 

I have the darkest Huper Optik tint and zero navi/FM problems.

 

I had the Huper Optik installed today, 30% back and rear, 50 on the driver/passenger sides. I haven't driven it enough yet to know, but there seems to be no interference.

My only point about the fold down rear seats is that it makes it a bit easier to install the back window since the installer can fold them down, lay down on their back with his/her feet in the trunk to install the film. It just comes down to it taking a bit longer without the fold-downs while using a film that already takes a little more time to shrink into place.

 

Hey, did you see my reply to your other thread?

What made you go with the Huper Optik over the FormulaOne Pinnacle ceramic?

 

I have Formula One Ceramic and no problems. Onmy 04 non-Navi I had Metallic and it interferredwitht eh antenna in the back window for radio reception so I just do Ceramic by default now. I have had 4 Navi TL cars (3 - 3G and 1 - 4G) all ceramic in back and never a Nav problem.

 

I have metal tints and have never had any issues with the NAVI. On my last car the accord I installed my own OEM NAVI and the antenna was on the back deck. Seeing that this is Honda/Acura here's my thought. The navigation system in no longer located in the trunk. It is highly unlikely and I could be wrong that Honda/Acura would wire the antenna from around the passenger foot well all the way to the rear deck lid. I may be wrong here so I hope someone can correct me.

Back when, around the accord hybrid days the DVD for the navi was located in the front console and Honda put the GPS antenna in the front deck area. I'm guessing its the same here. So the Navigation shouldn't be a reason not to get metallic tints. On the other hand I do believe in some cases depending where you live it does interfere with radio signals.

 

The 4G's GPS antenna is in the center of the dash behind the display. The previous generation's GPS antenna was mounted beneath the rear shelf below the rear window.

Satellite signals are pretty weak; it has been proven time and time again that metallic window film will degrade GPS' performance.

 

So that means unless you are putting tint on your front windshield the type of tint you get metallic or ceramic doesn't make a difference with regards to any tint messing up the navigation.

 

No. Ideally, one would want the GPS receiver to have a clear and view of the sky in all directions for optimal performance. Having metallic window film installed on the side windows or even down to the A1 line will degrade performance. Keep in mind that urban canyon effect is already degrading performance.

 

Window Film Can Block Electronic Device Signals

See page 1 of November 2007 Acura Service News
http://www.in.honda.com/Rjanisis/pubs/SN/B071100.PDF

Individual article only
http://www.in.honda.com/Rjanisis/pubs/SN/B07110H.PDF

 

Totally understand what you're saying but that may be stretch. That would mean that the moonroof of the car should have non-metallic tint from the factory. Of course there's canyon effect but I doubt that is having any effect on the GPS signal acquiring satellites. Also to date and I guess it has been a year I haven't read a thread where someone has been complaining about poor GPS reception due to tint.

 

Not a TL specific issue...GPS is GPS is GPS. Google "GPS metallic tint" or simply ask a qualified installer about it. Most people probably don't even notice when their GPS has no signal from the satellites (when underground for instance), simply because the map is shown.