While working on the brakes I blundered into my DS wing mirror and broke it off. Crummy wee pot-metal ball joint mounting, perhaps made deliberately weak to avoid pedestrian injury, is proving tricky to fix in a way that’ll allow and hold adjustment, concentrating my mind on the fact that I couldn’t see properly through the back window due to bubbling of the anti-sun plastic film. This is probably a common problem on older cars here in Taiwan.

Cue an Internyet search. IIRC I looked here

https://cartreatments.com/how-to-remove-window-tint/

and went for a combination of

Method 3 “Solar Peel” – you put black plastic from a rubbish bag over the outside of the glass which heats up in the sun (usually reliable here) and transfers that heat to the glass, softening the glue.

Method 4 Wet Newspapers You wet the inside of the window with “soapy water” (whatever that means. I used washing-up detergent) apply newspapers, keep the newspaper wet for an hour, and peel off the film. Some sources suggest the film just comes away with the newspaper, which I didn’t believe for a second.

I didn’t have newspaper (Sooo Last Century) but I have an unlimited supply of old test papers, so I used them.

Wasn’t very convinced by either of these methods but I had 2 secret weapons. GF’s hair dryer, and lots of old brake fluid. The recommended solvents are Household Ammonia (which I didn’t have and probably wouldn’t be able to buy here) and ethanol (which is hard to find due to the Novelty Exploding Cigar Virus Panic).

Brake fluid might be too risky if you had paint you cared about, but I don’t carry that burden.

Sho nuf, shortly after the black plastic was applied, the normally reliable sun clouded over and a stiff breeze blew up.

After an hour or two I abandoned the solar energy program and started peeling with the hair dryer, working brake fluid in behind the lifted edge with a brush. The film peeled fairly easily but I wasn’t convinced the brake fluid was doing anything, so stopped using it about a quarter of the way down. This was probably a mistake, since there was a lot more glue left behind on the lower part of the hatch.

Lessons Learned.

I think its best to apply heat to the outside of the glass, so the glue line fails on the glass surface, perhaps aided by applied solvent. Heating the film on the inside alone (as with the hair dryer) means the glue line fails on the plastic inside surface, leaving a lot of glue on the glass. Duh!

Brake fluid isn’t an effective glue remover, though it may do some softening. I tried petrol and “Cleaning Naptha”, which apparently did nothing

Since it was a hatch, I had the luxury of varying its angle and could have heated the outside with hot water and towels. I did this for the glue removal, leaving paper soaked in brake fluid on the inside of the glass overnight. Still involved a lot of hairdryer and razor blade tedium to get (nearly) all the glue off.

According to the Internyet, a steamer is favourite. I don’t have a steamer.

Same words with pictures here.

https://tw.forumosa.com/t/has-anyone-ever-removed-window-tint-from-their-car/84152/11