Was just wondering your guys opinion on the best method to smoke tail lights. Vinyl is obviously the easiest but I've heard it looks pretty dull compared to if you were to use niteshade+clear coat + polish. There's also using a mixture of black paint and clear, but I'm not sure if that would let as much light through or how easy it would be to remove if the cops gave me trouble. I've never seen any of them in person. The pictures people post look drastically different so it's often pretty hard to tell exactly what they look like in real life.

 

Unless your car is black and pretty modified with other black accents you won't get a good response and will look terrible and cheap. If It is all black just get the tint overlay, nightshade or any spraying way can turn out terribly.

 

I went another way with mine; dark colored car. Instead of the smoked tail light look, the painter sprayed 9 coats of clear pearl; dulls it out and is still red, I think it looks good and fairly unique.

 

My car is silverstone but my rims,emblems, and door handles are black, I have dark tint, and I'm buying headlights with a black housing, the only reason I'm smoking my tail lights is so that they will match everything else. Niteshade CAN turn out terribly, or it can turn out a lot better than overlay. I've done some researching and people who've gone from overlay -> niteshade done correctly say it's much glossier.

 

The great thing about tinting/smoking your taillights is if you ever get rear ended it will be your fault no matter what.

One of the dumbest things anyone can do is make it any harder to see your lights or reduce their output, front or rear. Any insurance company lawyer will be drooling with excitement when that little fact comes out in a claim/lawsuit.

 

I understand and I'm willing to deal with the consequences. While they won't be too dark to greatly reduce light output I still realize the possible legal issues. For both of these reasons I want to use overlays for their ease of application/removal, but I'm worried that they will look "dull" or not glossy. Does anyone have pictures of tinted overlays on their tail lights that they can post? I've looked through every single thread on this website already, and from my research people seem to have mixed opinions.

 

I've always said this. But I also want to lightly tint my lights so they are more of a maroon instead of that bright cherry red so it will flow with the car better.

My buddy sprayed the lights on his 05 F150 how I want mine and you can't even tell a difference in light output.

The people that completely black them out are stupid.


Also FWIW, I've been rear ended and my tail lights aren't smoked.