Alright I've been asking a lot of questions lately but I like to get opinions before I start spening money.

So looking at the backend of my car, I think wow, how boring. My only plan I currently have for my rear of my car is I am going to be ordering an Si spoiler in the next few weeks. It is a nice looking spoiler, a nice height to it, looks oem, and doesn't have a ricey look to it. But besides that the rear of my car looks like any other stock Civic on the road. I still want to take off my Civic and Ex emblem but nothing special. I am also thinking about getting a rear lip but they aren't really anything special and kind of unnecessary.

SO to the question, I love the look of smoked tails so what is better.

-Go with the lens spray paint like stuff that allows light through? A guy on craigslist is advertising he does tail light smoking professionaly and would charge me $55 for the rears but it looks super dark and worries me with police since I'll probably get pulled over for not bright enough tails since they love seeing a senior in high school in a good looking car. (Haters!)

-OR buy the tint sheets made for tail lights and slap that on the back? And I'm sure there is a difference so I don't know why I am asking but would buying cheap tint from like WalMart and slapping that on them work just as well?

I was thinking of only smoking out the red, and leaving the white normal so the contrast would be nice.

Give me your opinion or suggestions, thanks!

 

My vote is spray it with VHT Niteshades. You can get it exactly as dark as you want it, and it's something along the lines or $12/can.

I'll let the pic speak for itself. $15 in materials and about 2 hours' time.

 

tint spray, use VHT Nightshade. the tint film tends to peel off. and do it yourself not too hard instead of paying that guy $55 to do it

 

Hmm I'll try and pick up another set of tails on CL then just incase... does it go on pretty evenly or does it take a lot of time to get it an even darkness?

 

What tails do you have? I would strongly suggest 50/50 smoke if your do this... pure black civic tails look ghetto as hell IMO... Addiciton2bass had a DIY on it i think...

Just mask either the red or white part off and smoke the other half...

 

It goes on fairly evenly, but I'd recommend doing thing coats. It'll take a few coats to get the whole light an even shade. The nice thing about the spray is if you don't think it's dark enough, spray some more. If it gets too dark, wet-sand it a little. Repeat as necessary. If you have a little experience with spray paint and wet sanding, it shouldn't be too hard to get it looking good.

 

I have a 97 so I have the squarish half and half tails. I don't want my tails completely black... that looks awful. I just want it dark enough that it is more noticeable and I was thinking of smoking the red and leaving the white.

 

my opinion is to get the tail lights from a 1999 or 2000 civic where the top is red and the bottom is white. and smoke the red part and do a very light coat on the white part

 

fyi the VHT is very thin
i was warned too but the first coat i did it still ran
but if you end up getting the runs just sand it off and start over takes 10 min more

 

I did the spray and it was easy. After the 2nd coat (nice light tint) you should be happy with it. sometimes a 3rd coat can look really dark. Take it slow with the can cause i didn't and it came out a little sloppy plus another mistake that I made was not taking off the tails and doing it on a non windy day. So much easier when u take them off but u don't have to.