Hey guys.
Today we're gonna be taking a look at and installing the Smoked Tail Light Tint Kit
for 2018 GT and EcoBoost Mustangs.
This kit offers you a fast and easy way to add some non-permanent exterior styling to
your new 2018 Mustang.
It's made from 5-mil PVC vinyl, it's very easy to install.
I'll call it a one out of three wrenches on the difficulty meter.
It costs about 40 bucks, and I'll show you how to get it on the car now.
For this install, you'll need some Windex, a bottle with some soap and water mixture,
a microfiber towel, the supplied squeegee and a heat gun.
To start the install, you'll just spray the tail lights off with Windex.
You wanna make sure you have a nice clean surface so you have good adhesion with your
vinyl.
So I split the vinyl in two and I have just this side sitting up here.
I also have a clean microfiber and I have the squeegee that comes with the vinyl as
well.
I'm going to take a soap and water mixture.
I'm just gonna spray it on one section of the tail light.
I'm gonna get the first section of vinyl ready now.
I'll peel it off the back.
Gonna spray the back of this as well.
And this is gonna help me get the vinyl in position before it sticks on to the car.
So right now, I'm just gonna line this up and I'm actually squeezing some of the soap
and water mixture out from behind.
Once you get rid of some of the soap and water mixture from behind the vinyl, it'll start
sticking a little bit.
So I'm kind of squeegeeing with my fingers at this point.
One thing to note is I have this microfiber towel for two reasons.
One is to wipe away some of the excess moisture that we have and two is so I can wrap my squeegee
in it.
If you take just the squeegee right to the vinyl, you run the risk of scratching the
vinyl.
So we don't wanna do that.
So I'm going to wrap the squeegee in the microfiber and then use it like this.
All right.
So at this point, we have less moisture behind the vinyl.
I have it sitting pretty much where I'd like it to sit.
You guys can see that I haven't even tried to attempt the top yet.
So, one thing that's really nice about this vinyl is it's a good material.
So it's really easy to work with.
So I'm actually gonna leave this like this for now until I get the bottom a little bit
more in place and then I'm gonna use a heat gun to stretch it.
So now I'm going to use the heat gun just to get the top of the vinyl on.
I like where the bottom is sitting right now.
I have to do a little bit of work down here still but...
So the heat gun will do two things for us.
It's going to help us stretch the vinyl a little bit.
It's gonna heat the vinyl up and make it a little bit easier to work with on curved surfaces.
You guys can see how it just wants to conform now, and I can just stretch it up a little
bit.
The other thing is it's really gonna set the vinyl in place.
One thing to note is you don't wanna have your heat gun too hot and you don't wanna
leave it sitting on the car or touching the paint.
So the next piece will be the same thing.
I'll take my vinyl.
I will spray the back of it with soap and water mixture.
I'll spray the tail light with soap and water mixture.
I'll get the bottom set and then I'll use the heat gun to stretch the top and get it
to conform.
One thing to always keep in mind when it comes to vinyl is to just be patient.
So, luckily, this vinyl is made of really nice material, and nice material is good for
two reasons, one because it's gonna last longer on the car and two because it actually makes
it easier to install and the finished product looks a lot better if you have a nicer material.
All right.
So I'm gonna get the bottom lined up.
You guys can see what the soap and water mixture does.
It allows you to move the vinyl around so you have it perfectly lined up.
And once I have it where I like it, I will squeeze some of that soap and water mixture
out from behind the vinyl and get it to stick.
All right.
So the bottom is sticking.
So once again, I have the top that's left off at this point.
So I'm gonna take the heat gun, get the vinyl a little bit stretchy, and stretch it up to
the top.
It doesn't take much heat.
It only really needs a little bit of heat and I can get the vinyl to sit nicely right
here in the creases in the tail lights.
Nicer material is usually more forgiving too.
So you guys can see how that laid weird.
It laid with a wrinkle.
I was able to pull it back down and reset it so it's not wrinkled.
All right.
So for the last section, same thing, a little soap and water mixture, grab our vinyl, soap
and water mixture on the back of this and we'll get this positioned on the tail light.
Once again, I'm not worried about the top at this point.
I'm simply lining up the bottom, squeezing out some of the soap and water mixture from
behind the vinyl so it starts to stick a little bit.
Now it's starting to stick.
So I will take my microfiber.
Use the microfiber and the squeegee to grab some of that moisture.
Grab the heat gun again.
You guys can see, you don't really need a whole lot of heat and you don't wanna overheat
this.
I'm just going to pull up on the vinyl to get it to stretch a little.
I want it to lay nicely.
So I'm gonna use a little bit more heat to get this tint sitting better in the tail light.
And I always run the heat across my hand as well because if it's too hot for my hand,
then it's definitely too hot for the car.
So the tint is clear with a gloss finish.
It's rated to last for five years of outdoor weather, and you can see that it's dark.
So it's definitely gonna darken up your tail lights, but it still allows 80% of the light
to come through.
So you're not gonna be completely blacking out your tail lights.
So we're gonna start this side the same way that we started the other side.
We'll clean the tail lights with Windex first.
All right.
So once again, we'll spray the tail light with a soap and water mixture.
We'll peel the vinyl off of the backing and spray the adhesive side of the vinyl.
We'll get our bottom lined up and in place and use our rag to help squeeze out some of
that soap and water mixture.
Okay.
So we'll get the bottom in a good spot before we worry about the top.
Grab our heat gun.
Pull the vinyl a little to stretch it.
So if you guys run into trouble, you can always respray as well.
That will help a little bit.
Like I said, the nicer material is more forgiving so you have a little bit more room for error.
All right.
So what I did right now is I did heat this up with the heat gun.
I peeled the top down a little bit because I had some bubbles in there that I didn't
wanna set in.
And now that I have this nice and in the crease, I'm just going to very carefully lay the rest
of the tint up on the tail light and I'm getting rid of those bubbles that are right there
on the top.
All right.
So we'll spray with our soap and water mixture.
Grab our vinyl.
Spray the vinyl.
We'll get it into place.
Once again, start by getting the bottom lined up.
I like where it's sitting right now.
So I'm going to take my microfiber, use it to grab some of the moisture.
All right.
Now, I'll grab the heat gun.
The bottom is sitting pretty well so I wanna get the top set.
I'm just stretching the vinyl a little bit right now.
All right.
So now we're moving on to the last section.
We'll spray with soap and water mixture, grab our vinyl, spray the back of the vinyl, get
it seated in place.
Once I like where it's lined up, I'll just press down, try to work some of that moisture
out from underneath the vinyl.
Grab my microfiber.
Start squeegeeing.
Once again, mostly concentrating on the bottom three-quarters.
I'll grab our heat gun.
Using the squeegee to help me get the vinyl in place.
So at this point, your vinyl is in place.
I'm gonna go ahead and wipe it down just because I want it to look absolutely perfect.
One other thing that I will say is to make sure that you don't take your car through
any car washes for the first 24 hours or so.
You wanna make sure that the vinyl really adheres to your tail lights.
That's gonna wrap up this review and install.
Keep in mind, you can always check this kit out more online right here at americanmuscle.com.