Does anyone know how this option in installed or what it's made of? I ordered it but have no idea what it really is

 

Then why did you order it?

I think you're probably referring to the checkerd vinyl decal that covers the top of the sunroof. Good for cutting down on that direct sunlight into the car.

About $100-150?

 

I ordered it because I liked the look of it. I'm guessing that the decal completely blocks out the "moon roof" i.e. you can't see through it with the roof closed. I thought it might have been an insert. Just looking to find out for sure.

 

No, I think the decal still lets in partial sun... it just cuts down on it overall...
not that I have one, but am thinking about it.

 

The black is perforated the white isn't (going by memory of a brochure)

 

Does anyone have this in a sunny state? I was wondering if the graphic did away with the need for tinting on the sunroof.

 

My full roof graphic in non-perforated. It still allows in some light, but not much. And you can see the checkers through the glass but nothing else. Of course, the idea of a sunroof really isn't to be looking out of it now, is it ?

 

Well I'm right next door to ya in Louisiana and I will have it in a couple of weeks so i'll post once I have it installed. lol Now my question is has anyone put one of these baby's on themselves and if so, how hard is it?? I heard from a couple of people that the sunroof decal wasn't hard at all but I wanted to be sure that it's something me and a friend could do pretty easy. I've tinted windows before with pretty good results so I don't think this should be any harder.

 

Installing vinyl is fairly easy. I did it last year part time and there aren't really any major tricks to doing it. We did perforated, stripes, controlTAC and other graphics on cars to boats to cube vans. Generally, it's easy to do. Tools needed: masking tape, x-acto knife, something stiff but not sharp (something like a credit card with tissue on the end of it) to squeegee, rubbing alcohol, windex, paper towel and a friend.
Here are the steps:

1. Clean, clean, clean your area. We started with windex then did isopropal alcohol. Make sure your area is free of any debris before you start.

2. Layout your graphic well. You only really get one chance at it. Measure a few times and lay down a strip of masking tape right down the middle so it holds on well. You will be laying the graphic in halves so the strip serves two purposes, to anchor the graphic and to mark half if you need to space it properly.

3. Lift up half of the graphic, and peel back the backing paper as you lay one half upside down on the other. Once the backing is separated all the way to the masking tape, cut off the backing paper and toss it unless you're doing the job yourself.

4. Using a partner or a partially peeled backing paper for stability, hover the graphic above the area it's going to lay on. Slowly squeegee from the center outwards going up and down zig zagging towards the outer end of the graphic. Only ever lay half of the width of your squeegee because if you go too far you will leave bubbles behind. Continue zig zagging until you have layed the whole half down.

5. Do the other side in a similar fashion.

If you run into bubbles or wrinkles, lift up the offending area immediately! It is best to pull quickly than slowly, you shouldn't be able to rip the vinyl no matter how hard you tug. Little bubbles will disappear when the sun hits them but bubbles that actually are 3D need to be removed unless you don't mind popping them with an x-acto and squeegeeing out the bubble into the hole you just made.

Good luck and remember you HAVE TO do it dry so caution is your friend.

 

I have the OEM Checkered graphic. It is not a solid piece of vinyl. It consists of individual White Squares - the black squares are actually sunroof itself.

I love the look, but if I had to do it over again, I would NOT order the OEM graphic - too many edges to potentially lift up. My MINI is only 4 weeks old with 2000 miles, and I see one of the squares lifting up. Called the dealer and they are going to replace the graphic, but I'm afraid it's just going to happen again.

The Graphic itself was $100-$150, but installation was $200 plus. Personally, if I were you, I would purchase a solid roof checker graphic and spend the installation cost on that. It's just a waste to spend it on the OEM graphic.

 

^ Concur ! If the OEM graphic is individual white squares, stay away !

Not only would they have the potential to lift up on all those many, many corners, but it would be a headache to clean. You should be treating vinyl with UV protectant products just like you do paint. Imagine all the polish/wax that would get stuck on those edges. :impatient :impatient :impatient

Get an aftermarket full vinyl decal.

 

Then that answers my question about the necessity of a tint with it since I assume a full decal would block a very high percentage of the sunlight. I was wondering about the dealer installed that just the white squares.

 

Sorry, I didn't know what the OEM stuff was. If it was me, personally, I'd go with a printed perforated vinyl. I'm getting sport stripes on my car and I'll probably remove the roof stripes and reapply a white perf sheet to the sunroof with the stripes printed on it. It would probably look just like a white roof with stripes then.

 

Word of caution on the perforated vinyl. Actually, two points:

1. It requires special care.

2. It's life expectancy is about half that of full vinyl, maybe less. Depending how well you take care of it, the weather conditions it's subjected to, whether the car is garaged... it may last as little as 18 months and you'll be lucky to get 3 years out of it.

You have to weigh that against the advantage it offers, which is, it allows a lot more light to come through and you can see through it.

 

If you overlaminate perf I believe it increases it's life. You could put clear vinyl on top of it. You could probably get nearly the same life out of it but I think the colors fade quickly.