Rear Factory (?) Tint Blurry
 

Hey all, i bought my 2013 with 15k on the odometer years ago but it was unmodded as far as i can tell. Can i assume the rear windshield is tinted from the factory and not the previous owner?

Reason i ask is that in the last few months, i've had a blurry effect on my rear window. I thought maybe i got some ceramic spray wax on it that got baked on there. I've tried everything, rubbing alcohol, clay bar, invisible glass, scraping with a razor blade... im out of ideas. I do see a tiny bubble here and there so im assuming it's a tint failure, not a coating that got baked on there. Anyone else had this issue? Can the tint be redone without messing up the rear defroster?

There is no 'factory tint' film for any vehicle. Oem tinting is done at the glass level.

These cars were never offered with a tinted glass option

If it's a film, it's aftermarket.

In my experience, rear defroster grids are made of powdered unicorn horn, and childhood dreams of Santa Claus. They only work as long as you believe and don't fuss with them.

As mentioned above, OEMs do not use film to tint glass - the glass itself is treated.

And although tinted glass was not an option for the twins, the rear glass is treated. The easiest way to confirm this is to put on a pair of polarized sunglasses and look out through the rear window. You should be able to see the spray pattern of the application.

By chance did you notice this "blurry" tint while wearing sunglasses? I have no explanation for the bubbles you mention...

No, it's blurry regardless of optics. I'll snap a pic of the bubbles i saw here and there. The car came from Washington so i doubt someone would apply tint film to the rear and do nothing else to the car, but who knows, maybe the dealer returned a lot of stuff to stock.

It's like looking through glass smeared with a bit of vaseline.

At some point i'll try my DA polisher with some glass polish. Failing that ask a tint shop.

Your "glass smeared with a bit of vaseline" description is how I'd describe my rear window as well. I had assumed it was an issue with the factory treatment because none of my glass is "tinted" and it wouldn't clean up either. But, after seeing this thread I went out to check and my rear glass has a film on it. It has to be a solar heat reducer or anti glare, but, if I pull back the headliner, there is a film edge a millimeter before the glass sealant. Somebody did an impeccable job of hiding the film edges. Not sure about the quarter glass. No film on the door glass or windshield.

I'd give it another go checking for a film.

As to whether a film can be removed without damaging the defrost :iono: I tried de-tinting a rear window once, ended up replacing the glass to fix the defrost.

I have tint on one of my cars that needs replaced. The tint shop is honoring the warranty 13 years later and they told me they spray the film with a proprietary solution and wrap with cling wrap to rehydrate the film and it slides right off.

The rear window on my '13 FRS has a lot of blotchy patches on it, too. I always chalked it up to the plastics used in the interior off-gassing and leavind deposits on that window in particular because it's more horizontal than all the other windows. Who knows, I haven't bothered to try and clean the inside window surface because I'm concerned about messing up the defogger...I drive in winter weather a LOT.

Looking at it very closely i do see a film on the inside. I'll be damned. I always complained these cars were hard to reverse into tight spots at night with the shitty reverse lights, guess i'm an idiot!

Swap out the reverse lights with some brighter LEDs.

I have 95% tint on my rear windows and swapping to LEDs made a big difference.

Costed $15 from amazon and only took a couple seconds to swap the bulbs.
I don't know if these are still the brightest, but they were when I was searching on Amazon (1600 lumens per bulb).
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Looks like these are even brighter: https://www.amazon.com/TORIBIO-Light...motive&sr=1-17