New and Busted: Thunder Blue 07 VW EOS Luxury with dynaudio, beige interior, and a leaky roof.

New Hotness: Thunder Blue 08 VW EOS Lux with dynaudio, moonrock grey interior, and better seals!

Can you post a picture of it? That's a little hard to believe that the interior of a convertible melted after being in the sun for about ½ hour.

I'd bet on that in a second.

No, not hard to believe at all. I once parked my motorcycle in front of a large commercial garage door that had been 'tinted' with reflective film. When I came back (about a half an hour later) there was smoke rising from the vinyl seat cover of the motorcycle - the vinyl had totally melted, and the cover was destroyed. The cause of the problem was that one of the (plastic) windows on the garage door was slightly concave, and it was focusing the bright sunlight right onto the seat of the motorcycle.

If the tinting material used on the car was reflective in any way, I can easily accept that the curved car window (convex on the inside) would concentrate sunlight in one spot and this would cause harm. This is why OEM window tints are never, ever reflective.

Michael

First question: Where are the radio / remote unlocking antennas located on the Eos? We have had a whole pile of problems arising from folks tinting the back window of the Phaeton. All of the car antennas (about 9 of them) are built into the rear glass of the Phaeton, and if the tinting material used has any metal content whatsoever, it totally screws up the performance of all the antennas (AM, FM, TV, keyless entry, phone, GPS, parking heater, etc.).

Michael

[img]http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o225/mliggett/Eos/DSC00317.jpg[img]

[img]http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o225/mliggett/Eos/DSC00313.jpg[img]

i'm a strickly stock kind of girl.
.........another reason why.

07 EOS island grey/black/2.0T-- 6MT----no DSG for MY happy feet

That looks exactly like what happened to my motorcycle seat, except that the damage to the motorcycle seat was in a round patch about 4 inches across.

It's quite clear from the shape of the damaged area on your car (exactly parallel to the window glass) that the sun reflected off of the film on the inside of the window glass, and was focused by the concave film directly onto the melted area.

Darn sorry that it happened to you. Thanks, though, for your courtesy in sharing the photos with us.

Michael

Here's where I am puzzled. Even with a concave shape, any light or waves bounced off the surface are perpendicular to that paricular spot. It would seem that light hitting the concave inside shape of the window would cause a dispersed pattern, maybe getting generally hot or burning a round configuration like the other poster mentioned; but not something focused to a couple millimeters following the curved shape of the door panel. Again, I don't know what happened but it is very odd. I would definitely ask the person who performed the work more questions.

07 EOS island grey/black/2.0T-- 6MT----no DSG for MY happy feet

Michael

Damage from Sun Reflections

600 megapixels I don't think that would cause a poor picture. Must have been dust on the lense

ask bjorngra----he seems to be the resident eos site photographer of which i am very thankful

07 EOS island grey/black/2.0T-- 6MT----no DSG for MY happy feet

Michael

2007 Eos 2.0T Sport, Eismeer/Cornsilk, DSG, DynAudio D.O.B 8-1-2006

Anyway can you tell us whether the tint you had put on was metalic, what color it was, etc. I'd like to put some tint on mine, but I need to know it won't do that before I do, and other users hadn't had that problem when tinting their cars.

Anyone else want to chime in on tint they have had good success with. And by success, I mean it keeps the sun out AND doesn't destroy the interior of the car

Hi Giles:

Actually, I disagree quite strongly with you on this one. I think it was very gracious of VW to agree to replace the door panel. There is no design fault of any kind with the vehicle. The owner put a reflective film on the inside of a concave surface. The reflection of the sun coming off the film was concentrated in one spot, and it burned through the covering of the door panel.

If you put two Eos side by side on that day, one that was pure stock, exactly the way it left the factory, and the other the one that had the reflective tinting film installed on it, and the only one that encountered problems was the one with the aftermarket film on it, what conclusion would you come to with respect to responsibility for the damage?

C'mon, let's not forget that as adults, we have an obligation to take responsibility for our own actions, regardless of how hard the thousands of ambulance-chasing tort lawyers in America try to convince us otherwise.

Michael

What you are saying is like suggesting Pinto owners were at fault for driving their cars where people could rear-end them causing their cars to explode, instead of it being a design flaw in the car that caused the fires.

As far as I know, the OP has never said the tint was more reflective than any other tint on the market. Tinting windows could also by no means be said to be beyond the normal boundaries of acceptable use (unlike say chipping an engine).

I would suggest that the reason they agreed to the repairs and are interested in testing the material, is that they are concerned that their material is under-designed for the application. If they were just trying to placate him, they would have just replaced the door, and nothing further.

Giles

I'd be honored if our "great" republic would learn to take the moral high road that exists in other countries, and I am glad we have a moderator that reminds us of this.

I had politely ignored the inflammatory 'lawsuit happy Americans' comment because it has nothing whatsoever to do with the discussion. Nobody is talking about suing anyone.

I am simply saying that if you take 10 different convertibles, put the same tint on all ten, and the Eos is the only one with a melted door panel, it is a design defect in the Eos, and is not the person who put the tint on the car's fault. There is and should be a reasonable expectation that you can tint your windows without the windows melting your door panel.

Perhaps there are not so many people that tint their windows in Canada, but in the southern states, it is a veritable imperative if you don't want your car interior to self-combust in the summer time.