CerebralPrimate
Well-known member
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- #1
I wanted to share my deep dive into something many of us seem to have an interest in... darkening the light bar in some way. As my truck is black, I wanted to go as dark as possible to blend it in with the rest of the vehicle. Certain colors look fine with lighter tints- notably white and grey. But I wanted to go as dark as I could, so I did my usual OCD thing and researched it way beyond what a normal person would've done. After talking to multiple shops, lots of forum reading, image searches and even a couple of chats with AI, I thought I'd help save someone else the days of time it took me to pull this all together.
Initially I learned there are several ways to go about this.
The first is a spray on product that basically paints the lightbar in a way that allows the light to shine through at night. Looks dark in the day, so that's a plus. But it's almost impossible to lay on paint so evenly that a light behind it will show thru in a perfectly even way. The result is, it looks ok from a distance at night, but the closer you get, you'll see some areas darker than others, and even some splotchy/spotty type areas. My plastidip/powder coat guy told me this today, despite it costing him the business- his honesty was appreciated. But this made it a no go for me.
I read about the Lamin-X pre-cut tint pieces and saw some pix and it looked like a convenient solution. I ordered the darkest tint they had, called gunsmoke, for both front and rear for about $200. After more digging, I noticed the trucks this product looked ok on were all pretty light colored, or they were using the grey as an accent color elsewhere on the truck- whereas I am trying to get rid of the grey parts (grill, wheels, etc). I also found lots of complaints online about the cuts not fully covering the lights, and being very difficult to self install (I plan on using a shop, but even then, I dont want them to do a bad job and say it's the cut of the product that's making it look bad). After a while I had a change of heart and decided to return them. This is when I was surprised by them first telling me that I could not return the rear light tint as it was not returnable. I argued the website didn't say that, and they agreed to accept that. I mailed them back to the podunk building they have in nowhere Georgia at my own expense- luckily I had a box I could use. Once returned, they they hit me with a $50 "restocking fee", despite the films not only being in their original cardboard canisters still unopened, but those canisters were still in the sealed plastic bags with the inserts that had the color and product description. I am certain they will just throw it on a shelf and resell it, but they screwed me on the $15 of postage and a $50 fee for basically doing nothing. I have since looked them up and they are just some fly-by-night outfit of just 9 people out in the boonies. I do NOT recommend anyone do business with them. There are far better options out there for less money.
If you truly don't care about the light bar showing at night, you can vinyl wrap it in a way that perfectly matches your truck color. No light will come through, but it's your headlights that illuminate whats ahead of you, not the light bar. So it functions more as a running light. I decided not to go this route, but one local wrap shop offered to do it very cheaply and when they put a piece of the film on the light bar for me to see, it perfectly matched the metallic black of my truck. So this is an option, but I wanted the lightbar to actually shine at night, so I went with option #4.
And that brings us to what I feel is the best option, going to a local tint or wrap shop and letting them wrap it in Luxe brand light film. Many of them will have it in stock already as it's the most popular and highest quality film out there for light wraps. They will have to cut a seam along the edges in some areas to make it work, so make sure you're choosing a shop with very high reviews- maybe even ask if they've done Lightnings before. Going this route ensures the entire light gets covered, as opposed to pre-cut stuff that often does not cover the whole light. Its also something the installers are extremely familiar with, so odds are you'll get a great final product.
I will add some pics here so you can see the differences. I looked hard to find a sprayed light shining at night. I would have sworn I'd seen someone post one somewhere that you could really see the splotchiness at night, but I looked for 20 minutes and gave up while trying to create this post. Maybe someone can find it and add in the replies.
There is one other option... You can order the film yourself rather than relying on just what the shop has on hand. This opens up a few other options from Luxe, including one that's honeycomb, one that's quite sparkly (called "Star Power), one that's flat instead of gloss (it's called Stealth), and even a carbon fiber looking one. They dont have examples on a Lightning Lightbar on the site, but I'll create an image that shows the pix they do have that illustrate the different styles.
Hope this helps explain the options as this seems to be a very popular mod to make. Just learn from my mistake and the mistake of others... avoid that Lamin-X crap. Do the spray on option only if you're ok with the spottiness at night. Or do the Luxe.
And no, I'm not affiliated with any shop or company or whatever... just an OCD analyst in his 4th week of Lightning ownership.
P.S. If any of the above pix are your vehicle/pix, I just grabbed what I could find with Google... not trying to steap your intellectual property, just trying to give visual examples. If ya want anything removed, let me know and I'll see if I can find a substitute.
Initially I learned there are several ways to go about this.
The first is a spray on product that basically paints the lightbar in a way that allows the light to shine through at night. Looks dark in the day, so that's a plus. But it's almost impossible to lay on paint so evenly that a light behind it will show thru in a perfectly even way. The result is, it looks ok from a distance at night, but the closer you get, you'll see some areas darker than others, and even some splotchy/spotty type areas. My plastidip/powder coat guy told me this today, despite it costing him the business- his honesty was appreciated. But this made it a no go for me.
I read about the Lamin-X pre-cut tint pieces and saw some pix and it looked like a convenient solution. I ordered the darkest tint they had, called gunsmoke, for both front and rear for about $200. After more digging, I noticed the trucks this product looked ok on were all pretty light colored, or they were using the grey as an accent color elsewhere on the truck- whereas I am trying to get rid of the grey parts (grill, wheels, etc). I also found lots of complaints online about the cuts not fully covering the lights, and being very difficult to self install (I plan on using a shop, but even then, I dont want them to do a bad job and say it's the cut of the product that's making it look bad). After a while I had a change of heart and decided to return them. This is when I was surprised by them first telling me that I could not return the rear light tint as it was not returnable. I argued the website didn't say that, and they agreed to accept that. I mailed them back to the podunk building they have in nowhere Georgia at my own expense- luckily I had a box I could use. Once returned, they they hit me with a $50 "restocking fee", despite the films not only being in their original cardboard canisters still unopened, but those canisters were still in the sealed plastic bags with the inserts that had the color and product description. I am certain they will just throw it on a shelf and resell it, but they screwed me on the $15 of postage and a $50 fee for basically doing nothing. I have since looked them up and they are just some fly-by-night outfit of just 9 people out in the boonies. I do NOT recommend anyone do business with them. There are far better options out there for less money.
If you truly don't care about the light bar showing at night, you can vinyl wrap it in a way that perfectly matches your truck color. No light will come through, but it's your headlights that illuminate whats ahead of you, not the light bar. So it functions more as a running light. I decided not to go this route, but one local wrap shop offered to do it very cheaply and when they put a piece of the film on the light bar for me to see, it perfectly matched the metallic black of my truck. So this is an option, but I wanted the lightbar to actually shine at night, so I went with option #4.
And that brings us to what I feel is the best option, going to a local tint or wrap shop and letting them wrap it in Luxe brand light film. Many of them will have it in stock already as it's the most popular and highest quality film out there for light wraps. They will have to cut a seam along the edges in some areas to make it work, so make sure you're choosing a shop with very high reviews- maybe even ask if they've done Lightnings before. Going this route ensures the entire light gets covered, as opposed to pre-cut stuff that often does not cover the whole light. Its also something the installers are extremely familiar with, so odds are you'll get a great final product.
I will add some pics here so you can see the differences. I looked hard to find a sprayed light shining at night. I would have sworn I'd seen someone post one somewhere that you could really see the splotchiness at night, but I looked for 20 minutes and gave up while trying to create this post. Maybe someone can find it and add in the replies.
There is one other option... You can order the film yourself rather than relying on just what the shop has on hand. This opens up a few other options from Luxe, including one that's honeycomb, one that's quite sparkly (called "Star Power), one that's flat instead of gloss (it's called Stealth), and even a carbon fiber looking one. They dont have examples on a Lightning Lightbar on the site, but I'll create an image that shows the pix they do have that illustrate the different styles.
Hope this helps explain the options as this seems to be a very popular mod to make. Just learn from my mistake and the mistake of others... avoid that Lamin-X crap. Do the spray on option only if you're ok with the spottiness at night. Or do the Luxe.
And no, I'm not affiliated with any shop or company or whatever... just an OCD analyst in his 4th week of Lightning ownership.
P.S. If any of the above pix are your vehicle/pix, I just grabbed what I could find with Google... not trying to steap your intellectual property, just trying to give visual examples. If ya want anything removed, let me know and I'll see if I can find a substitute.
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I know purist would lose their collective minds, but can you imagine how bad ass that would be with the Lightning power plant in it?
