yah i smoked the tailights on my '02 Si.. they looked great from about 20 ft away..but when you got up close you could see drips and swirls.. i even sanded and used a clearcoat and buffed the hell outta em. i guess you've really gotta have a steady hand for the stuff. oh yea- they were blacker than hell cuz i sprayed like 5 or 6 coats on em.. amazingly, the cops never gave me crap about em even once!

i do agree that while smoking taillights yourself is a very cost effective method of obtaining smoked tails, you might want to really consider what you're doing before you do it because it's an thing easy to mess up and a pain in the ___ to fix any mistakes. and replacement OEM tailights for a brand new car aren't cheap!

 

Just spoke with my dealership today.

The TYC tails, and the TRD SC will be released immediately after hell freezes over.

They also apologized for any delay.

 

please, euro lamps? ugly, tacky, and ahem, not actually found on any european cars. How insulting it is to have those lamps associated to european cars

 

Here's a pic of our tC w/ tails I tinted. I'll getbetter pics when the car comes back from the body shop this week.



Here is how it's done for a professional look
1) clean the tail lights with hot water and soap to get any oils off of them.
2) scuff the surface with #0000 Steel Wool (this will make them look dull)
3) Wash them again and allow them to dry
4) Mask off the reverse section with fine line masking tape
5) mask off the tail light housing except for the lense that will be tinted
6) clean the surface with denatured alcohol and allow to dry
7) wipe down a final time with a tack cloth
apply 2 even coats of VHT tail light tint
9) allow 24 hours to dry at 70 degrees
10) your lights will still look dull and you'll see the marks from the steel wool still
11) take your lights to a body shop to have them clearcoated with automotive clear

They should look like glass at this point and are ready to be installed back in the car. You can even wetsand and buff the lights after they've been cleared if any orange peel is evident in the top coat of clear.

When finished they should have an OEM look as far as quality goes and just be slightly darker than the stock lighting was. Brightness is affected very minimally unless you go heavy on the tint.

Any questions feel free to ask I've done this dozens of times.

 

ummm... couldn't you just get bat's vinyl overlays and be careful at what you're doing? I mean sure, you can mess up and wrinkle em if you don't do it right, but that tail light looks exactly like a smoked tail with Bat's overlay... and saves you a hefty clear-coat shop price and a chance to screw up a brand new tail....

but what do I know, that sounds like a hell of a lot more professional work on a show car

 

A body shop should not charge more than $50 to clear them. They can clear them when doing another project and not even have any time in them.

I have never seen the tail light overlays before but the steps i posted turn out better than stock. It actually looks like a glass lense rather than plastic

 

Thank you, I forgot to mention that. To clarify: 1,300.00 for non-HID, non-DOT certified headlights is a freaking ripoff, no matter where you buy them.