First of all I want to thank everyone that answered my questions last time. I bought a new '03 black Maxima, I live in the metro Atlanta area and it is hot as crap. I was wondering about window tinting. Is it relatively cheap? Do most places do a good job? Does anyone know of any reliable places to do it in Atlanta? Anyone know the laws in Georgia on window tinting? I wanted to get all the windows done, possible 33% but I don't know about the winshield, I want to get that done too, but my girlfriend assures me that I will look like a pimp or a fast and furious wannabee. Also, I was going to get some Lund Ventshades, anyone have any experience with these? Supposedly they make two kinds, one fits in the window track and the other tapes to the outside of the window frame. I think the one that fits in the window track would look the best but I don't want it to interfere with my windows going up and down and I'm afraid it might.

Just out of curiosity, i got the automatic, but let's just say I might want to show it off a little at a green light. Is it best to start out in Drive or first gear and then move up through the gears. I had it in 3rd gear the first weekend I got it because I didn't notice the their was a difference between 3rd and Drive, yeah, I know, i'm an idiot. Hope it didn't mess anything up.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Two.

1. Read the FAQ's
2. Use the search function

 

If you want to drive it like a shiftable auto, you need to shift 1-2-3-4 manually @ approx 6K RPM (it has a bit of a lag and shifts right at redline). As for places in Atlanta that do a good tint job, I dunno. I use my buddy's shop (paint/body/mods), but he's not open to the public for tinting.

 

JJS is the friendliest person on the org!!! I got my tint done in Athens(UGA) and they suck. I still small bubbles after they stated that i would disappear in the heat... but manually shifiting kills your tranny. Stay away from it, but if you did do it that way take quicksilver's advice.

 

Oh, shut the hell up!!!!



j/k

 

Do the valve body mod and run a tranny cooler and you'll be good to go for the most part

 

 

Formula One tints ALL THE WAY BABY!!! The limit in tints is 35% in Georgia. I prefer 18%...

 

I manually shift almost all the time, and so far so good. I have over 60k on my car, a tranny cooler, and I use ONLY synthetic tranny fluid. Shifting manually allows you to take advantage of the extra 500 RPM you get at top end, that's about it. I have heard that many people say it will kill your tranny if you manually shift but logically I don't see how that can be. Whether you shift manually or you let the tranny shift itself, it will shift. It's not like it will take less time for it to shift from one gear to another. It will lag the same amount of time. You'd probably get the same effect if you go WOT. You should DEFINITELY get a tranny cooler and make sure you use synthetic tranny oil anyways if you plan to drive your car hard. Oh yeah, and another thing you can do with manual shifting is that you can skip gears when you're down shifting. For example if you're on 3rd gear at 35mph, you can downshift to first (this is the ONLY case where manual shifting would really kill your tranny, but if you have a tranny cooler and use synthetic oil it wouldn't be that bad for the tranny). I do that quite often and so far so good.

 

Naerok - are you sure about that? The auto tranny does the same shift whether the computer shifts it or you do, so shifting in normal patterns should have no effect.

That said, doing stupid shift tricks (radical downshifting, LOTS of shifting at WOT etc.) could definitely have an impact...

 

there are tonnes of places that do window tinting these days. It's a very profitable service. Anyway, all you need to do is look under "glass" section of your yellow pages... if there are enough tint places, they may have a section dedicated to "tint" alone.

In Buffalo, NY, it cost me $100 for all around (except windshield)30% black tint. It was done pretty well except for a couple of air bubbles that could be popped easily.

 

When you're trying to pass someone up, downshifting by 2 gears comes in handy. Also, making use of the extra 500 RPM top end will shave time off the quarter mile. I don't think that's stupid, unless you are doing it for no apparent reason, or if you do it wrong.