Tinted light bar on Rapid Red

[2wheeltraveler]

Since we won't be upgrading any time soon, decided to tint our Rapid Red '22. Wrap Fresh Dark Smoke installed by Ceramic Pro in Austin. Pic with lights on is showing through the tint.

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[The Weatherman]

I much prefer that look to the stock white.

 

[2wheeltraveler]

Me too, always a bit nervous for something like this, and ending up with “milky grey” would have been an expensive experiment gone wrong. This came out really close to perfect, matches most of the rest of the grey on the truck.

 

[mr.Magoo]

Since we won't be upgrading any time soon, decided to tint our Rapid Red '22. Wrap Fresh Dark Smoke installed by Ceramic Pro in Austin. Pic with lights on is showing through the tint.

Do you mind showing a picture of the lightbar off, semi close up in daylight?

Yours look really good, it's just that some tend to be milky gray in daylight and I'm not a fan of that.

Also, which wrap besides dark smoke (brand/type) did you use ?

 

[2wheeltraveler]

Wrap Fresh is the name of the brand. We tried the lighter smoke to see what it looks like and it gave it that light grey milky look. This still has a hint of that, but in person it's dark enough that it looks like normal grey and blends well with the other grey on the truck. It looks OEM in my opinion. I've seen other examples that were darker black, but that would make me want to darken the rims, and all the plastic pieces to tie it all together (that would look great though).

 

[2wheeltraveler]

In the close ups you can see there are some seams where they had to double up due to the geometry of the light bar and the need to cover 100% of it but you can't really tell unless you're looking for it. To do it right, they had to take it all apart.

 

[Zprime29]

I really want that now....guess I know where my tax return is going

 

[Lake Placid Lightning]

In the close ups you can see there are some seams where they had to double up due to the geometry of the light bar and the need to cover 100% of it but you can't really tell unless you're looking for it. To do it right, they had to take it all apart.

By "take it all apart", do you mean the installer removed the 3 sections of light bars from the truck?

How much did it cost?

Any tips on what to tell an installer on my initial visit to their shop?

 

[Robocop]

yes! that looks amazing!

I'm interested in finding out what product they used but hope they didn't use lamin-x on your truck. its a mother to remove that product.

 

[CuttingedgeMedia]

Looks awesome... Roughly how much did they charge to do this? Anyone else with a black truck that has had it done? Would love to see some pics

 

[2wheeltraveler]

yes! that looks amazing!

I'm interested in finding out what product they used but hope they didn't use lamin-x on your truck. its a mother to remove that product.

Wrap Fresh is the brand, Dark Smoke is the color

 

[2wheeltraveler]

By "take it all apart", do you mean the installer removed the 3 sections of light bars from the truck?

How much did it cost?

Any tips on what to tell an installer on my initial visit to their shop?

"Saturday morning turned into SunDAY" is how it was described. They tried without removing anything first and there was too many small areas with light bleed so they had to remove all the light bar components which required removing the frunk liner and not sure what else.

As for cost, I don't want to mislead you with it, it wasn't cheap, but I also don't know what they would have charged if they knew going into it how much work it would have been... I may have gotten lucky. I'd say consider their labor for ~8 hours plus cost of materials, that will give you a ballpark. I did share some of the other products referenced in posts online which were pretty inexpensive, but this particular one isn't as cheap as those but they swear by the product. They do really good work so I trust their recommendation.

I'd suggest up front you tell them you know this may require removal of the parts to do it right and set some expectations with your tolerance for overlap/underlap of film as one or the other will likely be necessary as it's a difficult shape. Def show them the photos (I shared what I could find online, but it was very limited which is why I posted this up).

Hope all that helps!

 

[mr.Magoo]

By "take it all apart", do you mean the installer removed the 3 sections of light bars from the truck?

I think what he means that in order to install it "correctly" without seams you should/need to remove the lightbar(s) from the truck, but it will make the job, what many already describes as a royal pain in the tush, even worse.

So people try to install it with everything still on the truck, in which case you'll have to deal / live with seams and areas where the film won't reach/cover.
If they know what they're doing it should still look OK unless you look at it through a microscope.

Your mileage, or range, will vary.

 

[beyondthelens]

Looks awesome... Roughly how much did they charge to do this? Anyone else with a black truck that has had it done? Would love to see some pics

I took the budget diy route with a precut tint from Amazon. It’s definitely not perfect but for time and costs it achieves what I wanted.

 

[2wheeltraveler]

I took the budget diy route with a precut tint from Amazon. It’s definitely not perfect but for time and costs it achieves what I wanted.

Yea, it's a leap to go from "mostly tinted with some visible white ares" to "fully covered". I really wanted fully covered as the white stood out too much on the red. From your pic it doesn't look quite as obvious o black if you're not looking for it. I also think the darker gloss black looks better on the black truck because it matches the paint whereas on red, you need to match the other trim. On red, gloss black still looks better than white, but I personally think it's too much contrast unless you black everything else out with it.

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