So the day came and it was time to prep my car for a ‘car ownership transfer’. Instead of sending my car to the typical ‘runner’ who would charge a hefty sum to take care of the puspakom inspection, followed by a name transfer at the JPJ office, I decided to do everything on my own with the new car owner.

Oh Em Gee… I’ve got TINT! Will they tear it???
The first thing that came to my mind was my car window tint. When I got it installed, I was told that my tint adheres to JPJ’s regulations – which is a minimum of 50% VLT (visible light transmission) for side and rear windows while you need a minimum of 70% VLT for the front windshield.

That said, I’ve heard of nightmares from various forums saying how scary the experience is with the less than friendly Puspakom officers and how pitiful some witnessed owners of vehicles tearing their own tint for the entire car – that could potentially cost thousands of ringgit; depending on how much your tint costs. Then there are also other people who claimed that they had the smoothest experience with Puspakom inspection – their car was tinted but the car passed all tests and he just got the ‘fit for car transfer ownership certificate’!

I literally had nightmares thinking about it.

It’s good to go for a tint that has so called ‘JPJ guarantee’
I immediately called up my tint company, told them what I was about to do and they told me not to worry. I was like “WHAT? NOT TO WORRY???? I’ve got to PULL OUT MY TINT!”. According to the guy in charge, there’s a chance my windscreen tint will not pass the test but my tint has some form of guarantee ensures a free replacement should my car’s tint gets peeled off! YAY!

The journey began…
I drove to Puspakom Padang Jawa in Shah Alam, went through the guard post who directed me to the non-commercial vehicle lane… this was around 2pm… I was expecting a loooooooonnnng line.

To my surprise… I was car number 2!

After the uncle infront of me got into the testing zone, I went to the counter, got a form that looked like this…

Filled it up… paid 30 bucks and headed to the inspection zone…

That’s where I was told to stop taking pictures because cameras were forbidden in the area…

It was a SUPER pleasant experience!
The rest of the journey was surprisingly SUPER pleasant! I was immediately greeted by a friendly inspection officer, he took over my car and asked me to wait at the ‘customer zone’. 15 minutes later, he came back and said all my windows passed the VLT test except for the front windscreen (apparently some windscreens come pre-tinted so combined with the added tint, far exceeds the VLT requirement) and started apologizing saying that he would love to help me peel the tint off but it was their policy to not meddle with customer’s car. All he handed me was a screwdriver which was a REALLY useful tool for the peeling process. Trust me, it does sound brutal but you will NEED the screw driver – it won’t damage your windscreen, just do it gently…

I suppose I wasn’t shocked as I was kinda prepared and the overall experience was… pleasant After peeling half my windscreen, my car was certified for transfer and got the certificate. All done in 45 minutes.

So remember, bring 2 things when you want to do this sort of inspection…

• Your original car grant
• 50 bucks – the change can be used for teh tarik

Oh yeah, just one more thing, if you plan to remove the tint before dropping by Puspakom, you can always do this at home…

Would I want to go through another experience like that?
No. Was Puspakom really that scary? No. Just follow the rules, respect the system and all will go well. Trust me, I’ve done it.