How to Measure Car Windows for Custom Sun Shades (and When You Don't Need To)

Start here, because it saves most people a job: if we already cut a pattern for your car, you don't need to measure anything. Order by make, model and year and the shade arrives cut to that vehicle's window shape. We hold 474 fits.

Measuring matters in three situations — checking whether a listed year bracket covers your car, working out which windows you actually want covered, and giving us numbers for a vehicle we haven't patterned yet. Here's how to do each.

First: check whether you need to measure at all

Search your make and model. If your car and year appear, stop — order the set and skip the tape measure.

Year brackets are the thing to read carefully. A listing that says 2017–2022 means the shade is cut for the body shape used across those years. If your car is a 2023 and the next bracket starts at 2023, take the newer one. If you sit right on a changeover year and you're not sure which side you're on, send the VIN and we'll check the build date — that's faster and more reliable than measuring.

Working out which windows you want

This is the measuring most people actually need, and it isn't with a tape. It's counting glass.

Stand at the side of your car and count the separate pieces of glass behind the front doors:

• Rear door windows — the ones that wind down. Almost every car has two.
• Quarter windows — small fixed panes behind the rear doors, at the C-pillar. Common on SUVs and hatches. Easy to miss, because they look like trim until you notice you can see through them.
• Third-row side windows — only on seven-seaters, alongside the back row.
• Boot or tailgate glass — the rear screen on a hatch, wagon or SUV.

The quarter window is the one people overlook. If your car has one and you buy a door-only set, you'll have a bright strip of unshaded glass right beside a rear passenger's head. Worth thirty seconds of looking before you order.

If we haven't patterned your car

This is where a tape measure earns its keep. Three measurements per window, taken from inside the car with the window fully up.

Height. From the bottom of the visible glass, where it disappears into the door, straight up to the top of the glass. Take it at the tallest point, not the middle.

Width at the top. Along the top edge of the glass, front to back.

Width at the bottom. Along the bottom edge where the glass meets the door.

Those last two are usually different, and the difference is the whole point — it tells us how much the window tapers. A window that's 60cm wide at the bottom and 45cm at the top is a completely different shape to a rectangle of the same height.

A few practical notes:

• Measure the glass opening, not the door card or the rubber seal.
• Use a soft tape rather than a steel rule, so it follows any curve.
• Centimetres are fine. We don't need millimetre precision from you — the pattern gets cut properly at our end.
• Photograph the window straight on from inside with the door open, and include the whole frame. That picture tells us more than the numbers do.

What to send

Make, model, year, body style (hatch, sedan, wagon, dual-cab), your three measurements per window, and the straight-on photos. VIN if you have it handy.

The body style catches more errors than anything else. A Mazda 3 hatch and a Mazda 3 sedan from the same year have different rear glass; so do the Ford Focus hatch and sedan, and the Hyundai i10 hatch and sedan. If the listing doesn't say which one it is, ask.

Why we cut per vehicle rather than by size

A rear door window is rarely a rectangle. It curves along the top following the roofline, kinks at the back where it meets the quarter glass, and on most SUVs the beltline rises from front to rear, so even the left and right sides of the same car aren't identical — they're mirrored.

A shade cut from a measured pattern sits against the seal the whole way round. A rectangle stretched over that shape leaves wedges in the top corners, which is the highest part of the window and the exact spot low afternoon sun comes through.

That's the difference you're paying for, and it's why the measurements above ask for two widths rather than one.

Common questions

Do I need to remove anything to measure? No. Window up, door open, measure the glass.

My car is a rare import. Send measurements and photos. Cross-market twins are common — plenty of cars are sold under two names and share glass, so yours may already be patterned under a name you don't recognise.

How long does a new pattern take? Ask when you send the measurements; it depends on the queue at the time.

Can I measure from outside the car? You'll get close, but the seal and trim make it easy to over-measure. Inside, window up, is more accurate.

Start with the catalogue

Search your vehicle first — with 474 fits there's a good chance the measuring is already done.

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