Are nightshade blackout taillights legal?

I wanted to tint my taillights black but don't want to get a ticket for them. Are they legal? Can the nightshades be removed if you get stopped by the po po poopers? If any of you have them please post some pics and let me know if you had any legal problems. Thanks for the info

youll get a ticket if your lights dont shine through bright enough

my friend tinted his tails with a spray on tint...heres what his look like and hes never been pulled over for them..

Day


Night


hes had them like that for about 8 months now...just watch what your local and state laws say on how much light has to shine through, because every state can be different...

Unlike blockout covers niteshades allows enough light to pass through to be legal, just don't lay on to many coats.

alerored2000 wrote:

my friend tinted his tails with a spray on tint...heres what his look like and hes never been pulled over for them.. Day Night hes had them like that for about 8 months now...just watch what your local and state laws say on how much light has to shine through, because every state can be different...

Yea those look nice! does anyone know the law for CA? Is this stuff removeable incase I get a fix it ticket? The only reason I ask is because cops have pulled my black 300zx over 4 times in less than a year. All the tickets are for tinted windows and no front plate. I keep having to take off the tint and put it back on. I garauntee you I will get pulled over again soon. Thats why I ask if this stuff is removeable. Thanks!

Im sure it can be removed with paint thinner, or somehting that wont eat plastic...I havent used it so I dont know, and those niteshades look a lil dullish. Maybe a clear coat spray would fix it..looks good tho, I just wish I didnt have to order a can, wish there was somewhere local...

ProjectRAGE wrote:

Im sure it can be removed with paint thinner, or somehting that wont eat plastic...I havent used it so I dont know, and those niteshades look a lil dullish. Maybe a clear coat spray would fix it..looks good tho, I just wish I didnt have to order a can, wish there was somewhere local...

Some local auto places sell it. Give a few a call.

As for the legality of niteshades, I'd follow what everyone else is saying: just don't make it too dark. Niteshades is pretty good with letting light through, so I doubt you'll have to worry about that. The legal thing that cops worry about is your taillights have reflectors in them, so if your car is parking on the side of the road at night, it'll reflect people's headlights. Tint them too dark and that ability goes away. So not only are you risking legal issues, you're risking having your car hit! No!

And yeah, Niteshades is like a spray paint - it's meant to be pretty permanent. You can also try to see if a tint shop will put vinyl tint on your tails, if they aren't too curvy and odd. Then it would be very removable, and still look good.

The other option though more expensive is to aquire an extra set of TLs and tint those....that way if you get a fix-it ticket you can get it cleared up quick.

in addition to aken: why make yourself a liability? it just makes yourself that much easier to be "not seen" and, even worse than being parked and hit, hit while driving. its an immediate way for the cops to say - hey its your fault, your **** tinted.... and so on and so forth.

my policy is, dont mess w/ safety equipment.

hey, does anyone recommend any spray tints? Well I'm thinking it might be easier to tint the rear and side windows if I used that instead of the crappy cut n' apply tint? Might be good to know incase I do my tails too. Oh and as far as I know, taillight tinting is legal in Gergoia, as long as they still function as they are supposed to.

Sry... didn't know they made spray tints, so just wondering...

nite(night?)shades i know they sell it at modernperformance.com

might be kinda hard to get evenly on all the way around

buy some clear coat and add a hint of black to it and lay it on, dont use thinner on the lense either you'll **** them up.....

niteshades is a really good product if you are half decent at spray painting and know how to wet sand.

Even if you use niteshades it will dry with a satin finish. From my experience, you should wet sand the finish then layer on a few coats of clear (and wet sand them) to get the best finish.

corvettecrazy wrote:

niteshades is a really good product if you are half decent at spray painting and know how to wet sand. Even if you use niteshades it will dry with a satin finish. From my experience, you should wet sand the finish then layer on a few coats of clear (and wet sand them) to get the best finish.

What grain of sandpper do you use so you don't scratch the plastic lenses?

I'm not worried about people not seeing my reflectors I have 2 giant chrome mufflers that are easier to see than reflectors lol. Plus you have to be a total idiot to hit a parked car with or without reflectors. But I understand your concern for safety. I am just worried about getting a ticket and not being able to remove it. Taillights are expensive I don't want to buy another set of tails just to do this mod. But maybe I will try a few light coats to see how it looks. Thanks for the input!

depends on the finish you want. I would probably use somewhere betweeen 1000 and 3000 grit

Hey i tinted my tails with nightshades. If ya wanna see how they look orhow dark i did them, pics are in my gallery. I wouldnt worry about the cops. Ive been pulled over about 4 times since ive had these tinted and not one cop said anythng about my tailights. they pointed out my tinted license plae cover but not my tails. At night its stil visible and you can buy LED bulbs to make them brighter.

I bought my Nightshades From Modern Performance.com for 20 shpped for 2 cans. I used one can for both lights and sold the other. Many places like autozone and such wont sell it. I also bought a can of Automotive Clear Coat and sprayed that on the lights a day after i painted them. I DIDNT sand the lights. didnt need to. all you have to do is clean them with alcohol and youll be good to go. my lights have been tinted since last december and still look like th day i painted them.

Nightshades can also be taken off if you get caught. Buy some DOT 3 brake fluid and pour it in a tub. soak the tailight in the tub of fluid for about an hour. the paint will loosen off and with a soft brush you can remove the nightshades and clean up the tailight.

also SATURNMOTORSPORTS.com sells VHT products on their online catelog. If you search their VHT page, They also sell Window tint that you spray on. not sure how good it is, but they sell it.

Wow very nice twisted! About how many coats would you say you have on there? Thanks for the info I am going to order some this week and try it. Would I be able to use this on my headlight housing as well?

That **** is tight, Im for sure doing it, taking out my clear taillights and clera corners and putting stock in and spraying those...black and chomre..'drool'

Ghetto but cheap, I had a extra set and spray painted these with black, a slight mist, turned out good IMO, lmao

When i did my lights, i honestly put on about 10 coats. i put each coat on so thinn it was barely noticible. then 5 min later i put another coat. i did it this way so i knew it was even and each layer stuck and dried. it turned out excellent. And i didnt do any sanding just clean then paint, and cleaned then cleared them. like i said, they still look great and i put wax on it on a normal basis and they still shine with ease.

one can was just enough to do the tails. 2 cans could cover tails headlights and corners easily. if ya need anymore advice just ask.

I used the whole can and alternated back and forth until it was empty and it turned out perfect!!

It can be removed with paint thinner.
Just be patient with it, it takes a while to get off.

Mine were tinted, then I didn't want cops hasseling me, so I took it off.

I liked it a lot though

Just get some tail light covers. I bought some for my car, they stick on with velcro.

twizted_ion wrote:

one can was just enough to do the tails. 2 cans could cover tails headlights and corners easily. if ya need anymore advice just ask.

no no no headlights. this is meant for taillights only.. if someone wants to test it on headlights have at it and let me know how it goes lol.

heres why i will never ever tint my tailights black

if somone rear ends you, (say I do) there is no way that I would pay for anything. Id say I couldnt see his brake lights and I thought he was moving. OR if your parked, i didnt even see the car at all (assuming its night). Now this may be total crap, but you bet your ass id try it to get out of paying for damages/ medical bills. Why give someone any amunition to try to shift the liability to you?

the risk is not worth the marginal benefit

Tim wrote:

Just get some tail light covers. I bought some for my car, they stick on with velcro.

Where did you get your lense covers at? That looks good and would be much easier to do The problem on the 90-96 300zx is that the tail lights and back-up lenses stretch acrooss the entire width of the back. They are virtually flat and It would be hard to paint such a large surface evenly wouldn't it?

It would be easier to just use window tint instead of the nightshades?

Does the lens dip down where each light is, or is it all completely flat on the outside?

If it's completely flat, it'd probably be better to do film tint. Easier to put on, WAY easier to take off.

Glowin97x wrote:

heres why i will never ever tint my tailights black if somone rear ends you, (say I do) there is no way that I would pay for anything. Id say I couldnt see his brake lights and I thought he was moving. OR if your parked, i didnt even see the car at all (assuming its night). Now this may be total crap, but you bet your ass id try it to get out of paying for damages/ medical bills. Why give someone any amunition to try to shift the liability to you? the risk is not worth the marginal benefit

you'd be liable either way. You'd get cited for failure to control vehicle speed at least.

Glowin97x wrote:

heres why i will never ever tint my tailights black if somone rear ends you, (say I do) there is no way that I would pay for anything. Id say I couldnt see his brake lights and I thought he was moving. OR if your parked, i didnt even see the car at all (assuming its night). Now this may be total crap, but you bet your ass id try it to get out of paying for damages/ medical bills. Why give someone any amunition to try to shift the liability to you? the risk is not worth the marginal benefit

isnt that what i said like 5 posts into the thread?

Aken wrote:

Does the lens dip down where each light is, or is it all completely flat on the outside? If it's completely flat, it'd probably be better to do film tint. Easier to put on, WAY easier to take off.

Yes Aken it is virtually flat. It has a slight compound curve but it appears flat. The only thing I am worried about is getting bubbles in the tint. I tried to tint my windows myself a while back and it looked like crap. I'm not even sure if window tint is made to go on plastic. Is it?

(e) Taillamps shall be red in color and shall be plainly visible from all distances within 500 feet to the rear except that taillamps on vehicles manufactured after January 1, 1969, shall be plainly visible from all distances within 1,000 feet to the rear.

There you go....that's straight from the Cali Vehicle Code...you're probably ok on the part about it being red and all, but if you can't see them lit from 500 feet at a minimum, you're screwed

yeah my beretta tails light up red, and have a red lense, but they have a factory tinted cover over em. i worry about people not seeing them light up during the daytime.

silentbob97 wrote:

Aken wrote: Does the lens dip down where each light is, or is it all completely flat on the outside? If it's completely flat, it'd probably be better to do film tint. Easier to put on, WAY easier to take off. Yes Aken it is virtually flat. It has a slight compound curve but it appears flat. The only thing I am worried about is getting bubbles in the tint. I tried to tint my windows myself a while back and it looked like crap. I'm not even sure if window tint is made to go on plastic. Is it?

I think it would work fine, as long as it was cleaned thoroughly and the tint was properly installed.

Try to find one of the following:
- A friend who's good at it.
- A decal/graphics shop, cause they know how to put layers of plastic down. They could do it.
- A tint shop that will do it for relatively cheap.