He's just building momentum, next up is the Nismo stripe

 

Ouch. However, you're not wrong about that cutout.



Dammit. OK... here's a thought. What if the beige surround to the brake light were painted black?

How do you remove the rear deck?

 

No idear

Thinking the car would look pretty odd with just the rear tinted, golden opportunity to nix it IMO.

 

No way. The rear window stays at 15%. Hard stop on that idea.

The rear deck should come apart easily enough, looking at the FSM.

And it seems the third brake light plastic housing comes in both beige and black.

 

keep the rear tint...just get that light in black..
no disruption on look with having just the rear tinted... my suggestion is to wrap the roof in gloss black..
its what I did with mine...

 

It is not difficult, but takes a bit of time. You need to remove the rear seat and C-pillars first.

 

I think this might be a project, first making sure I'm familiar with removing the rear deck and third brake light. Once I'm comfortable with that, I can either replace the light surround in black instead of beige, or paint the one I have. Either way, seeing that beige plastic through the cut-out in my rear window tint...

...it's under my skin now. STownSaint, I hate you.

 

It's not really much of a project. I believe there are 2 quick release tabs in the front of the bottom seat cushion, almost underneath the seat to remove it. There are 2 or 3 bolts to remove for the seat back and a couple of plastic rivets near the fold down armrest. There might be one bolt for each C-pillar cover, but I think they mostly just pop out and then you get to see the cool aluminum inflators for the head curtain airbags. Nothing too difficult, just take your time so you don't break clips.

 

It's definitely not a full day's project, but it might take you an hour or so to do. All you need is your hands and a 13mm wrench for the nuts holding the rear seat backs in if I recall correctly. I actually removed everything in the parking lot before getting my tint done, just so the shop could tint the entire rear window without that ugly cutout.


Oh, and +100 for getting your roof wrapped in gloss black! That would definitely complete the look, especially if you are going to keep the rear window tinted without any tint on the side windows.

 

Noted.

I'm also toying with the idea of self-tinting the door glass.

And the cut-out... I want to retain an untinted brake light, and I'm not keen on having the tint re-done. So I'm thinking hard now about replacing the plastic surround with the black version. They can easily be had on eBay for $40.

Mine is beige.

 

I've also been wanting to add a 3rd brake light up under the window spoiler and removing the OEM one altogether. Similar to what Audi has on the S7/RS7. Something like what's been done on this Bimmer.

 

Hmmm. I'm not even sure what color my upper rear brake light housing is, since it's been so long since I've really even noticed it. Heading out to check it now.

edit: just checked and mine has the stone gray/taupe colored housing which matches the rear deck.

 

Cheers old sport

 

Time to swap in the summer wheels.

[edit] /done

Winter wheels, snow tires, 15mm wheel spacer adapters... all off the car and tucked away until Thanksgiving weekend.

OMG OMG OMG... I forgot how truly awesome it is to drive on these PSS.

Granted, I have like 3-4mm rear tread. Yikes. And while the front tread is fine, all four tires have inside camber wear, which kind of freaks me out. But whatever. Racecar.

 

I think it looks great John!!