Window Tinting Sunroofs – Everything to Know

Having a sunroof on your car comes with a lot of benefits. It allows more light to enter your car and gives a unique view of the skies. However, a sunroof also means more exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays, which puts you at risk of skin cancer and causes the fading of your interior.

You can protect your skin and vehicle interior from harmful UV rays by installing tint film on your sunroof. The tint film will block up to 90% of UV rays to protect you, other occupants, and your vehicle interior from solar radiation.

We’ve written about the benefits of automotive window tinting in the past. However, even if you get all your vehicle windows tinted, if you don’t tint your vehicle’s sunroof, you will not be protected from the sun from overhead.

Tinting your sunroof is vital if you want maximum protection from solar radiation. This is especially true if your car has a large sunroof that exposes you to more light and heat.

But installing sunroof tinting is different from tinting other car windows. In this article, we look at everything you need to know about window tinting sunroofs.

Reasons to Tint Your Sunroof

If you live in the Yuma, Arizona, or Las Vegas area that experiences sunshine for most of the year, tinting your car windows and sunroof is crucial.

If you don’t tint your sunroof, significant light and heat from the sun will get into your car, increasing the temperatures and glare in your vehicle. This will make your vehicle uncomfortable and cause damage to your car’s interior.

Tinting the car sunroof will prevent the damaging sun’s rays from getting into your vehicle and keep the temperature inside your car down.

That said, here are reasons to have your sunroof tinted:

UV protection

While sunroofs provide a great view of the sky and bring natural light inside your vehicle, they also allow harmful UV rays from the sun to enter your vehicle.

UV in your car can damage your skin (can lead to skin cancer) and hair and cause glare while driving. The sun’s harmful UV rays will also cause fading of your car’s interior and reduce the car’s overall value.

Tinting the sunroof can help reduce the temperature inside your vehicle by 60% and reject up to 95% of UV from entering your car.

Heat rejection

Newer and more modern cars have larger sunroofs. While a larger sunroof provides a wider view of the sky, it also means that more light and heat will enter your vehicle. Excessive heat in the car will cause discomfort, meaning you will have to crank up the air conditioner more often to cool your vehicle.

This will mean more gas money or a few miles per charge for electric vehicles. Installing Scorpion window film will help block significant heat to make your vehicle comfortable and energy efficient.

Glare reduction

Another benefit of installing a sunroof tint is that it can help reduce glare levels in your car. Larger sunroofs can cause glare, making the driver and other car occupants uncomfortable. Installing a window film sunroof will significantly reduce the irritating glare and ensure a perfect ride.

What Does Sunroof Tinting Involve?

Many customers have asked us about the sunroof tinting process and whether it can make the sunroof explode. 

In our experience, applying tint to your sunroof won’t break it. However, installing tint on glass with structural imperfections can make it fall, leading to breakage.

Tint works by changing the amount of heat that the glass windows can absorb. Installing tint can affect how glass responds to temperature change through expansion and contraction. This can make the glass with structural imperfections crack or break.

As you can see, the breakage has nothing to do with tint installation or the process but a lot to do with the quality of the glass.

Of course, tint installations by inexperienced people can cause the glass to crack or break, so you should choose highly qualified and experienced installers for your sunroof tinting.

Much pressure is used to get the tinting material to adhere to the sunroof glass. If inexperienced installers handle the process, they may press too hard or use inappropriate tools that put excessive force on the windows, which can cause cracks or even breakage.

So yes, your sunroof can break during tint installation, but mostly if you have poor quality windows and secondly if poor installers handle the process.

How Dark Should Your Sunroof Tint Be?

How much shade you want for your tint depends on your desired results. However, as a precaution, it’s best to avoid installing extremely darker shades on your sunroof.

Sunroof is made of tempered glass. While installing a darker tint will prevent a significant amount of light from getting into your vehicle, this also means that more heat will be conducted into the glass itself. This can make the glass hotter and even cause breakage.

In that regard, we advise our customers to choose lighter films to protect their glass. Having a darker film doesn’t mean you will keep much heat out. If that were the case, putting a darker sweater on a hotter day would keep us cool when going out.

Our window film rejects up to 60% of heat and prevents 99% of the UVA UVB from entering your vehicle. This helps keep the temperature inside your car cool and prevents glass cracking or breakage.

Which is the Best Sunroof Tint?

You have different options to choose from when looking for the best tint for the sunroof, including regular dye tint, carbon window tint, and ceramic tint.

Of all the three, ceramic tint is the best option. Although costlier, ceramic tint blocks up to 99% of heat and light from entering your car, making it ideal for extremely hot climates.

Besides keeping your car cooler in summer, the ceramic tint has an appealing design that gives your vehicle a luxury feeling. The best part is that it’s durable, meaning you get value for your money when you install it.

You don’t have to go for darker shades to benefit from ceramic tint’s heat and light-blocking properties. In fact, a lighter version of ceramic tint provides better heat and light protection than regular tint dye and darker carbon.

Let Us Install Your Sunroof Tint

Are you considering installing tint for a sunroof? We can do it for you.

Scorpion has been installing window film for many years. Our highly-qualified and experienced installers will inspect your sunroof glass before installing the tint to ensure there are no cracks or deep scratches that could negatively affect the quality of your sunroof tint installation.

Once they have determined that your sunroof is suitable for tinting, we’ll analyze the project and give you a friendly quote.