Tutorial and Review: eBay VIP Curtains

I wanted a pair of VIP curtains since I found out they existed. At the same time, I told myself I would only reward myself if I make it far with this car. Well, I can honestly say I did. Here are the glorious curtains.

For $15 curtains (you get two, same length), these are very nice. I can see how a Function Junction curtain is better but not $200 better. They fit so well with the color scheme that it's perfect. I didn't want black originally but it crept its way in and it actually looks good matched with beige.

And I really have been putting some tender loving care into this vehicle. Not long ago, it started misfiring again but only rarely at idle. I knew what it was; I had noticed a small amount of corrosion on the driver's side distributor cap. It was only located where the smaller coil pack connects. Today when I unplugged the wire, I was astounded at how much corrosion there was.

There is a trick to clean corrosion in tight spaces like that and it works to clean up battery terminals too. You need about 600 grit sandpaper - something pretty abrasive. In this case, let's use one of the connecting holes of a distributor cap as an example. You roll up a piece of sandpaper, small enough to fit in the hole, and you stick it in and twist. Every time you do this, some corrosion will come off. Close your eyes and blow it out of the hole - it will become loose.

The idea is that one or more of the metal parts at the bottom of these caps can corrode and impede the flow of electricity. You can see the metal at the bottom of these and there are no signs of corrosion in the picture above. I will put this in a separate tutorial article. Look for it next to this one. I want to get back to this product review.

Brain damage... Sucks...

So the curtains are actually pretty awesome but being $15.00 with free shipping on eBay, they have very minor flaws. They work like a curtain in your house would work. For each curtain, there's two tracks. One on top and one on the bottom. There are these balls attached to the curtains that you essentially install onto the railing by putting the balls in one by one through a special hole which can later be sealed. It's a very simple idea. It's harder to describe than to figure out just by looking at it.

Anyway, the curtains slide nicely along the rails. The balls are bigger than the hole going all the way through these rails, allowing the curtains to slide because they're attached with something that is small enough to travel along the small hole that is the rail but the ball is bigger, keeping it from falling out.

I hope I didn't lose you. Once you insert your balls into the holes, then you can plug them so your curtains don't come out of the rail. You can plug your holes, I mean. While the curtain is railing you. I'm sorry, what I mean is this will allow you to close (and open) your curtains for some privacy dude... Come on...

(If I confused you, sorry - that was a very bad joke and I had to make it.)

The only problem I had with the curtains is that they don't bend right so to get enough length onto a car door that didn't have a nearly long-enough straight line where I could adhere the railing, I had to cut a part of the two top rails off because the bend was too much for the adhesive to hold. What I left still had about a third of a foot that had to bend around the top of the window. Well, the double sided 3M tape that comes with the rails works okay but you really will need some super glue. Actually, go ahead and just use the double sided tape first so you get a feeling for the install and when it inevitably pops off, fix it by adding super glue. (You can scrape it off later.)

Start at one end and press it down from one side to the curved side. Keep it curved and pressed against the surface. The problem is, when you get to that 3-5 inch curved part of the window, the rail will initially adhere properly but then it will come off a little at the bend.

This is after cutting off about six inches but not cutting Vs into the rail and adhering it with the double sided tape it originally comes with. Do it right the first time...

The solution is to cut Vs into the sides of the rails. My rails came off the very next day because of the opposite force of the bent plastic railing pushing back against the bent surface. What you need to do is modify them.

You will have to cut off a part of the top railing, like I mentioned, but you also need to get some wire cutters and cut Vs into the railing where it bends. This way, it somewhat follows the curvature of the top window frame. Not perfectly but well enough that with some super glue - yes, you need better adhesive - you can get it to look right.

My finished modified rail looks like crap but it's okay because the tops of the curtains actually hide it. Don't be a dummy like me, though. Find that spot where the most pressure would be at that bend and cut the Vs into both sides of the rail. For the back windows of an LS400, a good spot to cut is about 6 inches from the edge closest to the bend.

This is what will happen otherwise, as I mentioned...

And this is how you need to cut the Vs:

Just by doing that simple modification, you won't need to cut off so much and it will actually look nice. And unless your car has an abnormally long straight window at the top of any of your doors, you need to do this. So that's the drawback of cheap curtains. I imagine the "good" $200 ones bend easily but I'll probably never find out because these work fine after you add super glue and cut it.

Other than that, they were great, they work great, hold up to wind even without the plugs installed yet, and add a lot of flair to my car. Plus they're $15... Come on now.

THANK you for reading. I hope it wasn't too long; didn't read. This is a great product and I recommend it to anyone wanting VIP curtains.

One last thing that I wondered myself is if they would be visible from the outside through illegal-level tint and surprisingly, you can. It adds a super nice effect. It probably wouldn't show up as much if it was black.