Again, this is the new lighter shade of tint/smoke film that I am using. This is not regular normal window tint. This material is designed to be used on the exteriors of cars. I tinted / smoked the tail lights on this darker gray gunmetal colored new E350 sedan. We decided to go with covering the entire tail light to give it a consistent finish over the whole tail light versus just tinting the clear or red section on this car. The owner of this car was from around Newport Beach area and came out to me in Anaheim Hills to get the work done. It's not often that I get non white cars, so this will help out those who have similar colored cars and were thinking about getting their tails smoked or tinted and how it'd look. I also took some pictures inside and outside, to show the differences of how the shade looks in different lighting conditions.

Before:




Driver side tinted/smoked - Passenger side untinted/unsmoked.


After:






-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

how much would you charge to get the taillight smoke on the E class above? let me know thanks

 

Where are you located?

-Don

 

Redondo Beach

 

PM sent.

The owner of this silver F10 528i sedan drove down from norcal / San Francisco to me in Orange County to have his window trim vinyl wrapped with my gloss black vinyl. Similar to what the shadowline trim would have looked like from the BMW factory. I took more close up pictures around the edges, corners, etc this time to show you guys in more detail of how the finished product looks.

















-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

Man, too bad you're not in the NYC area

 

Not exactly sure the name of the color of this 370z, but the color looked silver. Either way, I vinyl wrapped the roof of this car in my gloss black material. The owner drove from Los Angeles county to me in Orange County to the roof wrapped. The curves of the roof really help make the gloss black roof pop and stand out a bit more. The owner of this car plastidip his antenna in the matte black finish. So this is good for those who wanted to get gloss black roofs and wanted to plastidip their antennas. I believe plastidip has a gloss black version out now that'd probably work better.











Some of the plastidip peeled off/up a bit when installing the vinyl. Tip of advice, plastidip the antenna after the roof is wrapped, instead of plastidipping i tbeforehand.


-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

I had a new silver Lexus CT200h come by to have me vinyl wrap his roof with the 3M di-noc matte carbon fiber material. The owner of this car was also from Irvine / Orange County. Took some close up pictures around the antenna area and side rails, just to show you the extent of the vinyl coverage and it looks up close. I think the roof accented the silver color of the car fairly well, especially since this carbon fiber finish has somewhat of a silver/gray tone to it, even though it is the black carbon fiber finish. The owner of this car also wants me to wrap his hood with the 3M dinoc carbon fiber material and tint his tails as well, so once I do those, I'll post some more pictures.

















-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

The owner of this blue VW Mk4 Jetta contacted me regarding the clear coat/paint issues that he has been having on his roof. The original plan was to wrap the trunk, roof, and hood, to cover up and prevent any further oxidizing of the paint. However, I told him to just go with the roof first, to test it out and see how that turns out first before continuing with the rest.

Vinyl is only an alternative to paint, it is not a replacement. However, in this case, it was a cheaper option and better than leaving the roof to oxidize further. The better condition the roof is in, the better the final results of the vinyl wrap will be. The vinyl material is very thin, about the same thickness as the car's paint, so it is by no means a body filler. Luckily for the owner of this car, even though the roof was in pretty bad condition, the vinyl was able to hide/cover up most of the oxidation without showing through the vinyl itself.

We went with the gloss black vinyl finish for the roof to give it a more factory look, versus going with the matte black finish or carbon fiber finishes.

Before:








After:








-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

This isomething a little different. It isn't a roof, but I did vinyl wrap the roof of this silver Lexus ISF with the 3M dinoc carbon fiber material a couple of months prior. The owner of this car ended up coming back to have me vinyl wrap the center of his hood with the matte black material and wrap the two sides of the hood in the 3M di-noc matte carbon fiber material. We were originally going to only do the center in matte black, but the owner decided to do this after seeing it on another car. The owner of this car came from San Diego up to me in Orange County / Anaheim Hills to get the work done. I think it really filled in the hood nicely and gave it a pretty cool look.











-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

The owner of this white Mercedes E550 coupe contacted me to lightly tint / smoke the tail lights on their car. The owner of this car was also from Orange County and came over to my shop in Anaheim Hills to get the work done. This is the new shade that I am using for tail lights, which give a very light factory smoke look. I tried to take some more before/after pictures so you guys can better see/visualize the differences and how this shade of smoke / tint looks like. I am not really into blacking out tail lights or dark tail lights, so this shade is perfect to me imo.

Before:


Right - Passenger side tinted / smoked:


Before - Untinted / unsmoked:


After:












-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

I had posted pictures of this same car that I also tinted the tail lights on. However, I had also blacked out the chrome / brushed aluminum window trim for him as well to give it that shadowline look. Unlike BMW, Mercedes does not have the shadowline option from the factory, so the only way to get rid of it is to vinyl wrap it.

We went with matte black instead of gloss black for this car. Everything turned out really nicely with the matte black finish. I personally think getting rid of the chrome is one of the biggest changes you can do with the car, especially if you are blacking or or getting rid of the chrome on the rest of the car. The black window trim really gives it a sportier look. In addition to the window trim, I also blacked out the chrome on the back trunk handle. The owner of this car drove out to me in Anaheim Hills from Newport Beach / Orange County to have the work done.











-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

^_^

 

Hope you're enjoying the tinted tail lights

Sorry if I have not responded to PMs or e-mails as fast/quickly over the last week or so. I had a friend pass away. His name was Jonathan Pham. He was the person who got me into doing vinyl and the reason why I do vinyl wrapping today, so I had been busy attending to his passing.

I had this white Mercedes Benz C63 AMG sedan come by to have me vinyl wrap the roof of their car in my gloss black material to give it the panoramic roof look. I believe the owner of this car was from Los Angeles and drove out to me in Orange County / Anaheim Hills to have the work done. I also did the side front bumper slats in the matte 3M carbon fiber di-noc material, which was a bit tricky to cut, since it had to be done freehand and there were no real lines/curves to follow. I forgot to take the before pictures, but I am sure you can imagine what a white roof would have looked like on this car before I vinyl wrapped the roof black.

Blacking out the chrome in either gloss or matte black vinyl to give it the shadowline look would really complete the look of this car imo and give it an aggressive look/stance.













-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

The owner of this car came out to me in Orange County from the Los Angeles area to have me lightly smoke / tint the tail lights on his black Mercedes Benz CLK55. In addition to the tail lights I also smoked / tinted the headlights and the side blinkers on the mirrors of his car. This light smoke / tint shade is nice, because it is not too dark and won't block out too much of the light output from the head/tail lights. Also, since this film material has a gloss finish to it, it'll give a shine to your headlights or tail lights again if they are a bit dull from age/wear.

Before:


Tinted / smoked inner smaller passenger side headlight:


After:












-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

Had this new body black Mercedes Benz CLS63 come by to have me black out the chrome / aluminum trim around the windows and back rear trunk handle chrome piece. We went with matte black finish material so that the trim pieces still accented the car and did not disappear completely into the body of the car. You can notice it when I take the pictures, the trim pieces still pop out a little bit in the pictures. It gives it a nice contrast if that's what you are trying to go for. The owner of this car was also from Orange County.

By blacking out the chrome it really makes the red calipers and other parts of the car pop more.

Before:




After:










-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

The owner of this blue F10 BMW 550i contacted me to see if I could vinyl wrap the diffuser on his car with the 3M 1080 gloss carbon fiber material. He brought his car out to me in Orange County from around Riverside, for me do to the work on his car. Usually a lot of diffusers are not very practical to wrap due to their shapes/curves, which makes it hard for the vinyl to stick and stay conformed to over time. However, this one was fairly flat and there wasn't too much heat from around the exhaust areas on this car so that was a good thing as well.

Before:


After:










-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

The owner of this car wanted to have me wrap both the roof and the two side pillar pieces that run front the bottom of the front windshield to the back of the roof with my gloss black vinyl wrap material to give it the panoramic look. The gloss black vinyl wrap makes the roof continue and flow with the front/rear windshields pretty well. The owner of this car was from Irvine / Orange County also and brought his car over to me in Anaheim Hills to have the roof done. The tail lights were previously tinted / smoked by him beforehand, so that's not something I did.

Before:




After:















-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

I know I don't post this often, but I also do clear headlight film protection as well. I just never really take pictures of it, since you can never really see or tell the difference of a before and after

In this picture the driver side has already been done and the passenger side has been applied, just waiting to be trimmed. You can see everything is custom fitted, since I do not use pre cut materials. This allows me to cover more of the headlights than pre cut pieces do and also get a closer/better fit to the pieces that I am covering/applying the material to.

Clear headlight protective film is good if you have glass headlights, so it'll prevent rocks from cracking it or chipping it. This can also be applied to fog lights, which are more prone to cracking, since they're lower/closer to the ground. Even if your headlights are plastic, the film will help prevent nicks and chips in the plastic lenses. It'll also help protect/prevent against oxidation better. If your headlights are already oxidized/faded, I can clear/clean those up for you before putting on the clear film.





I know clear bras / clear headlight protection films aren't very exciting, so I figured I'd post pictures of this gray / silver Mercedes Benz E55 AMG's tail lights that I tinted as well. This is my lighter shade that I used for this cars tail lights. Unlike a lot of the other tail lights that I have posted recently, I only tinted the clear portions on this car's tail lights versus tinting the whole thing. So these pictures will be good to help show those who were interested in something similar for their cars and were wondering how just the clear portion would look like tinted / smoked, only slightly darkening the clear parts of the tail light.

Before:


After:


Before:


After:












-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

Don, looking good - what I'm looking for. How does it hold up under the hot Californian sun?

 

It holds up perfectly fine in hot and cold weathers.

I think I work on more AMG cars than non AMG cars when it comes to Mercedes, haha. I blacked out the chrome / aluminum window trim on this black Mercedes Benz C63 AMG with my matte black vinyl material to give it the shadowline look. Owner came out to me in Orange County / Anaheim Hills to have the work done. I took some more detailed pictures of the corners and edges for those who were interested and asking me for them.

Before:






After:














-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

This gray / silver Mazda RX-8 came by to have me vinyl wrap the hood of his car with the 3M Di-Noc matte carbon fiber vinyl material to cover over his factory black hood that he had on there. The owner of this car drove up to me in Anaheim Hills / Orange County from San Diego county to have me do the vinyl work on his car. The weather was a bit over cast that day, so the carbon fiber weave in the vinyl did not stand out that much when photographed. From further away, the vinyl appears more of a solid flat/matte-ish and then when you get closer you start seeing the carbon fiber weaves in the vinyl.

As comparison, the eyelids on the headlights are real carbon fiber pieces.

Before:


After:












-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

These aren't the greatest pictures in the world, since I was in a bit of a rush when taking them. I wasn't going to use them, but it's not often that I get a domestic car, so I decided to just post them anyways. The owner of this red / orange Chevy Camaro came from Huntington Beach area out to me in Anaheim Hills to get the vinyl work done. He originally had a matte black vinyl roof installed on his car but he wanted to change the look up and get a gloss black roof put on there this time around.

Before (matte roof):




After (gloss roof):










-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

I had this newer 2012 or 2011 alpine white BMW E93 335i convertible come by for me to tint / smoke their tail lights and black out the chrome window trim (I'll post pictures of that process later). The owner of this car was from Irvine / Orange County and drove out to me in Anaheim Hills to get the vinyl work done. The tint / smoke film is very light and just slightly darkens the tail lights enough to give it a very factory look. It's light enough where you most likely won't get any hassle from cops about them. It's also light enough where if you put it on the headlights, fog lights, etc, it won't reduce the light output by that much compared to darker films.

Before:


Only driver side trunk tail light is tinted in this picture:


After:












-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com

 

Took a while for the owner of this car and for me to figure/find out a time for him to be able to bring his car by to get the chrome / aluminum window trim wrapped in my gloss black vinyl material to give it that shadowline look. The owner of this car was from Los Angeles and brought his car out to me in Anaheim Hills / Orange County. He went with the gloss black over the matte black finish to get more of that factory BMW sport package look. I have seen cars come with the window trim in matte black as well, but I don't know what package those come with or are offered with.

Everything is wrapped seamlessly and tucked in where ever possible, to provide the longest lasting results.

Before:






After:










-Don Nguyen

donathon@gmail.com