Bigpower

I got pulled over today for my window tints, they were on the car when i brought it, (over 1.5 years ago now)

the officer brought out a light tester thing, and used a pice of glass that he said let 63.9% light through, and placed it between these two sensors, and calibrated it by twisting a know at the end.
just before this he droped the glass on the grass.

he tested my windows and he said they let 50% light through, and said i can have a

Well as the owner of an MOT station, that is a bit worrying........

We have no way of checking the level of tint on glass, as it is not currently in the MOT test, so it is going to be up to an individual testers opinion.

With number plates, the characters have to be correctly formed, not italic and be correctly spaced etc. Character height and number plate size is not currently part of the test, as long as the plate characters can be clearly seen from a distance of 20 metres.

So the Police shouldn't be issuing these defect notices to be checked by an MOT station.

what would you say do? change the plate to a bigger one, and then see what the mot ststion says about the window tints?

or what would you recomend?

Well as far as I know, anything darker than a standard factory tint on the front windscreen and front drivers and passengers windows is going to fail the light test.

If the windows don't look much darker than standard, you could try putting on the larger number plate and popping in to your local MOT station and see what happens.

It also depends what they have put on the defect form........

I have had cars presented with the form saying "Exhaust"........but it doesn't say if it's too loud, blowing, insecure etc. so if it has an exhaust, I just stamp the form

it says

1, front number plate
2, window tints

how far is your gargae from cambridge?

DaOne wrote:it says

1, front number plate
2, window tints

how far is your gargae from cambridge?

1. Well I would look at it and if the plate was readable from 20 metres - OK

2. Window tints? - yep OK

It does make a mockery of the vehicle defect retification system if the forms cannot be completed properly :roll:

My garage is in Colchester CO1 1BP not sure how far that is from Cambridge, but it's a fair way.

say i go the a mot station tomorrow, and put my stsndard palte back on, and leave the windows how they are, they say it is ok, stamp the paper etc, i send it off, and in a few weeks time get pulled again, where do i stand? as they prob check them again with the light dector thing etc etc, or can i say a mot station said it was fine?

Ian, everything you need to know is here ....

http://www.bigpower.co.uk/forum/viewtop ... light=tint

Thanks to Andy for originally posting this info ...

Amendments to Legislation During the early part of 2004, Section 32 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations will be amended to include

looks like im buggered then, better take them off.

is silly why i hvae to go to a mot station to have them checked though, as most mot stations do not the the testing equpiment

stuck on my standard plate, and removed the window tints, and posted off the form today, hopefully keep the police happy.


first of all this morning, i went down to my local mot station, and they did not this anything was wrong with the tints, and thought the officer was being to picky.

but at the end of the day, there are rules, and we have to follow them to stay on the good side of the law, even when they are as silly as this.