Four smoke levels over one real headlight, plus a straight answer on what each step costs you in light output and in legal exposure. $200 per set, installed in our Kent bay.
Headlight tint is a translucent film laid over the outside of the lens. It never goes inside the housing, never touches the bulb or the reflector, and it is not paint. The lamp keeps doing its job. The film only decides how much of its brightness, and how much of the chrome detail behind the glass, anyone else gets to see.
Every argument about lamp tint is really an argument about density, so start there. Drag the slider. The photograph is a real headlight on a satin black Charger we wrapped, and each step is one of the four densities we install, from a factory-looking light smoke to a blackout that arrives on a trailer.
Your lamp exactly as it left the factory. Everything below is measured against this.
Worth a proper look before you decide anything. On most modern cars the lens is the brightest and busiest object at either end of the vehicle, and a lot of what owners actually dislike is the chrome reflector detail sitting behind the glass rather than the brightness itself.
The level we recommend on anything you drive on the street, and the one we install most.
It takes the glare off the lens and quiets the reflector behind it, so the lamp reads as a factory-optional trim package rather than as a modification. Lit or unlit, day or night, the lamps still read unmistakably as lamps. This is the setting we default to when someone wants the edge taken off the lens without turning it into a modification.
Where most smoked taillight jobs land, and about as far as we like to go on the front of a daily driver.
The lens reads charcoal when the lights are off and still punches through clearly when they are on, which is the trade most people are actually looking for. We want to see your specific housing before we agree to this up front, because it suits a bright modern LED unit far better than an older halogen one.
A real reduction in what leaves the lamp, and a real change in how visible you are after dark.
The lens goes close to black when unlit, which is precisely the look people walk in asking for. We will install it. We will also say plainly, first, that this is a look you are buying and a risk you are taking on a car you drive at night in the rain.
This belongs on a show car, not on anything that gets driven after sunset.
From a few feet away the lamp reads as a solid black panel. It is stunning under event lighting and indefensible on a wet freeway in December. If you ask for it on a car you commute in, we are going to tell you straight that it belongs on something trailered, and then show you the medium instead.
You will not find a percentage anywhere on this page, and that is deliberate. Window film is sold by VLT because the state writes a number into the law and every manufacturer measures against it. Lamp film is not, we have never measured our own, and a shop quoting an exact figure for a headlight is repeating a number nobody verified. Lamp density gets judged by eye, in daylight and again after dark.
It depends on how dark you go, and anyone handing you a flat yes or no is guessing. Here is the part most articles get wrong. Washington's tint statute, RCW 46.37.430, is a glass law. It sets the 24% VLT floor for side and rear windows, caps reflectivity at 35%, bans red, amber and yellow film and carves out the visor strip at the top of the windshield. It says nothing whatsoever about headlights or taillights, so the number you read in a window tint article does not transfer to a lamp.
Lamps fall under the state's vehicle lighting rules instead, and those are written around function rather than percentage: your headlights and taillights have to stay visible and do the job they were built to do. There is no published figure to hit. What there is instead is an officer's judgment at the roadside, and that risk grows with every step of the slider above.
We install film for a living, we are not attorneys, and none of this is legal advice. What we can tell you is how we behave. We will put a light or medium smoke on a daily driver and stand behind it. Ask for the dark end on a car you commute in through a Kent winter and we will say out loud that you are buying a look and taking on a risk.
Yes. Any film over a lens absorbs some light, which is what makes it a film rather than a sheet of clear plastic. The honest question is not whether output drops. It is whether you will ever notice.
At a light smoke on a modern LED headlight, most drivers do not. LED units throw a hard-edged beam, and the first thing a light film takes away is the glare bloom around the housing rather than the useful light landing on the road. At the dark end of the slider you will notice, and you will notice it on an unlit road, at night, in the rain. Your lamp matters more here than the film does, which is why we want to see the car before recommending a density.
Taillights are their own conversation. Nobody smokes a taillight to see better; the point is that the back of a car reads cleaner with the red hidden until it lights up. But your taillights are what the driver behind you reads in the dark, and your brake lights are what stops them arriving in your trunk. It is the version of this job we most often talk a customer down a step on.
There are two ways to darken a lamp: a film cut and squeegeed onto the outside of the lens, or a tinted aerosol sprayed straight onto it. We only do the first.
Film is reversible. It sits on top of the lens, so it comes off and what is underneath is the lens you started with. Change your mind, sell the car, hand back a lease, or decide the level you picked is too much for your commute, and that is a removal appointment rather than a bodywork bill. Density is uniform edge to edge because the material is manufactured to a spec.
Spray is not reversible in any practical sense. Modern lamp lenses are polycarbonate with a factory UV hard coat on the outside, and that coat is the only thing standing between your lens and the sun. Aerosol tint goes on top of it, and getting it back off means sanding, which takes the hard coat with it. Bare polycarbonate hazes and yellows from there on. Density is also built up in passes rather than manufactured, so it goes blotchy in the recesses and heavy where the spray fan overlaps.
There is a version of this job that costs forty dollars in a parking lot and a version that costs $200 in a clean, heated bay. They are not the same job, and only one of them lets you change your mind.
Tinted lamps are the cheapest single change that alters the character of a car's face, which is why they almost never get done alone. The lamps stop being the brightest object at either end, and the moment they do, every remaining piece of factory chrome starts shouting.
That is the usual sequence in our shop. Someone books a set of smoked taillights, sees the rear end, and comes back for a chrome delete: window trim, badges, grille surround and rocker strips, all wrapped in gloss, satin or matte black so the car reads as one object instead of a body wearing jewelry. On an SUV that scales up to a roof and pillar blackout at $1,250, and mirror caps go black for $200.
Window tint is the third leg. Smoked lamps with bright factory glass look unfinished from ten feet away, and dark glass over untouched chrome lamps looks like a rental somebody tinted. Worth knowing that the glass and the lamps are different products despite the shared word: our window film is STEK LunaRay SMART graphene ceramic, and it is priced on its own scale.
The one rule we hold to across all of it: keep the front lighter than the back. A light smoke up front with a step darker at the rear looks intentional, and it keeps your headlights doing the work they were installed to do.
$200 per set. A set means both lamps at one end of the car, so it works out like this.
| What you are having done | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Headlights (pair) | $200 | Any smoke level. We recommend a light smoke on a street-driven car. |
| Taillights (pair) | $200 | The more popular of the two, and the one that tolerates a step darker. |
| Both ends, same vehicle | $400 | Two sets. Front usually goes a step lighter than the rear. |
| Mirror caps, wrapped black | $200 | The most common thing customers add on the same visit. |
| SUV roof and pillar blackout | $1,250 | The full blackout treatment that smoked lamps usually start. |
The price does not move with the density you choose, because a light smoke and a blackout use the same material and take the same work. It does not move with your ZIP code either, so a car driven down from Seattle is quoted exactly like one from two blocks away.
What we cannot flat-rate is a lamp sprayed by someone else, or a lens already hazed with age. Film needs a clean, sound surface to bond to, and film over a failing lens buys a dark lamp for a few months and a peeling one after that. You will hear about it at the walk-around, before anything is quoted. Most sets go on in a single visit.
The chrome delete page shows what the same car looks like once the brightwork is handled, and the window tint service page covers the ceramic film we install on glass. Glass pricing lives on the window tint cost page.
If you landed here trying to work out what is actually legal in this state, Washington tint laws explains RCW 46.37.430 properly rather than in headlines, and tint percentages shows what each VLT number looks like through glass, which is the closest honest reference point when you are trying to picture a density. Every accent price on the site, lamp tint included, is in the wrap cost guide.
It depends on how dark you go, and anyone giving you a flat yes or no is guessing. Washington's tint statute, RCW 46.37.430, is a glass law: it sets the 24% VLT floor for side and rear windows, caps reflectivity at 35%, bans red, amber and yellow film and carves out the windshield visor strip. It says nothing about headlights or taillights, so the number you read in a window tint article does not transfer to a lamp. Lamps fall under the state's vehicle lighting rules instead, which are about function rather than percentage: your lights have to stay visible and do the job they were built to do. That cuts both ways. Nothing declares a light smoke prohibited, and nothing protects a blackout from an equipment citation. It is exactly why we recommend a light smoke on anything street-driven.
It is $200 per set. A set is both lamps at one end of the car, so a pair of headlights is $200, a pair of taillights is $200, and doing both ends of the same vehicle is $400. The price does not change with the density you pick, because a light smoke and a blackout use the same material and take the same work, and it does not change with your ZIP code either. Every accent price we publish, lamp tint included, is listed in the wrap cost guide.
Yes, to some degree, because any film over a lens absorbs light. That is what makes it a film rather than a sheet of clear plastic. The honest question is whether you will notice. At a light smoke on a modern LED headlight, most drivers do not, because what comes off first is the glare bloom around the housing rather than the useful light on the road. At the dark end you will notice, and you will notice it on an unlit road at night in the rain, which describes a great deal of the driving around here between October and April. What kind of lamp you have matters more than the film does: an LED projector has output to spare, and an older halogen housing has less margin and runs hotter at the lens.
Yes, and that reversibility is the whole reason we use film rather than spray. The film sits on the outside of the lens, so it comes off and leaves you with the lens you started with. Sprayed-on lamp tint is a different story: it bonds into the factory UV hard coat on the polycarbonate lens, and taking it off means sanding, which takes that hard coat with it. A lens with no UV protection left hazes and yellows from there on. If you lease your car, or you think you might change your mind, film is the version you want.
Same film, same $200 per set, opposite priorities. Up front you are trading away light you use to see with, so we stay light. At the rear you are hiding red until it lights up, which looks fantastic, but your taillights and brake lights are what the driver behind you reads in the dark. Smoked tail lights are the most requested version of this job and the one where we most often talk a customer down a step. Our general rule is that the front should sit a step lighter than the rear.
Yes, and most of ours are done exactly that way. Lamp tint is accent work, and it is the most common add-on to a chrome delete or a window tint booking, because smoked lamps are what makes the leftover factory brightwork start shouting. Tell us everything you want done when you request the quote and we will give you the schedule with the price. The shop is at 8620 S 228th St in Kent, about 30 minutes from Seattle on I-5 or Highway 167 and about 30 minutes from Tacoma on Highway 167.
