Tennessee tint, the AS-1 line, and the sticker your installer should leave on the new glass
Most of what governs a Chattanooga windshield is judgment. Crack length, obstruction, whether an officer thinks you can see well enough to drive. Tint is different. Tennessee actually wrote a number into the statute, and that number follows your glass through a replacement whether anyone reminds you or not.
T.C.A. § 55-9-107 sets the windshield rule at 70 percent light transmission, with an exception for the manufacturer's factory shade band at the top and a non-reflective strip allowed above what's called the AS-1 line. If your car predates a clearly marked AS-1 line, five inches down from the top of the glass is the guide installers use instead. Front side windows have their own number, 35 percent. Miss either one and you're looking at a Class C misdemeanor, the kind of stop that costs more in time than money but still shows up if you're already dealing with a cracked windshield on Brainerd Road at 7:40 in the morning.
What actually changes when the glass comes out
None of this matters much until the day your windshield gets replaced. The old glass had its tint strip cut to the right height, and probably a small sticker in the corner of the driver's window saying so. New glass has neither. Whoever installs your replacement is starting from a blank sheet on the tint question, and if they don't put the strip back in the right place, you're driving home legal on everything except the one thing a trooper can actually measure.
This is a bigger deal on this side of the state than it sounds. Chattanooga sits in a river bend, and a lot of the daily commute runs straight into low sun. East Ridge and Ooltewah drivers heading west on I-75 or I-24 in late afternoon are driving into it over Missionary Ridge. Hixson Pike and US-27 through Red Bank catch it heading north in the morning, with Signal Mountain throwing long shadow across the road right up until the sun clears the ridge. People run a tint strip along the top of the glass here for a real reason, not for looks. If your installer leaves that off after a replacement, you'll notice the first sunny commute.
The AS-1 line is the boundary, not a suggestion
The AS-1 line is etched or printed low on the driver's side of factory windshields, usually near the top corner. It marks where the manufacturer's own shaded band ends and where the driver's actual field of view through clear glass begins. Tennessee's exception for a tint strip only covers the area above that line. Anything applied below it, even a narrow strip meant to just knock down glare, falls under the 70 percent windshield rule and can put you over the limit.
On a lot of aftermarket and replacement windshields, the AS-1 line either isn't marked clearly or isn't marked at all. That's exactly why the statute allows the five-inch measurement as a fallback. A shop doing the work right measures down from the top of the new glass, keeps the strip inside that band, and doesn't guess.
Why the corner sticker matters more than it looks
T.C.A. § 55-9-107 compliance is supposed to be documented with a small sticker in the lower right corner of the driver's window. It's easy to treat as paperwork. It isn't. That sticker is what tells an officer, at a glance, that the tint on your car has already been checked against the statute, without a roadside light-meter test.
After a windshield replacement, that sticker is gone along with the old glass, because the sticker lives on the side window, but the tint strip it was certifying lives on the windshield that just got swapped out. If your shop redoes the strip but doesn't replace the sticker, you're compliant but unable to prove it fast. If they skip the strip and the sticker both, you're neither. Ask directly: will the tint strip be redone on the new windshield, and will the compliance sticker go back on after.
What a stop actually costs you
A Class C misdemeanor in Tennessee tops out with fines in the range of small dollars, not the kind of thing that changes your year. But it's still a stop, still a ticket if the officer writes it, and still something you're dealing with on top of whatever already happened to your windshield. Most drivers who get flagged for tint after a replacement aren't trying to break the rule. They just had new glass put in and nobody redid the strip. The fix costs almost nothing next to the fine, which is the frustrating part.
The Georgia line changes the answer, not the question
Fort Oglethorpe and Ringgold sit across the state line in Catoosa County, Georgia, and Georgia sets its own tint transmission numbers under its own code. If your car is registered in Georgia, T.C.A. § 55-9-107 isn't your rule at all, even if every mile you drive is inside the Chattanooga metro. The honest version of this article, for a Georgia-registered driver, is: check your own state's tint law, because Tennessee's 70 percent windshield figure and AS-1 guidance don't apply to a car plated south of the line. Where the car is registered decides which set of numbers matters, not which side of Ringgold Road the chip happened on.
Getting it right on replacement day
Ask before the work starts, not after. A shop replacing your windshield should be able to tell you, without hesitation, whether they're restoring a tint strip above the AS-1 line and reissuing the compliance sticker. If your car didn't have a strip before, say so, so nobody adds one you don't want. Cost for a replacement varies with the vehicle, whether the glass is OEM or aftermarket, and whether an ADAS camera behind the windshield needs recalibration afterward — ask about all three before you book, since they move together on newer vehicles.
A few questions that come up
Does the tint law apply to the whole windshield or just a strip? Just the strip above the AS-1 line, or five inches down where that line isn't marked. Below it, the full windshield has to pass the 70 percent standard.
Can I add tint to a windshield that never had it? You can, as long as it stays above the AS-1 line and the shop applies it correctly. Below the line, it isn't legal regardless of how light the film is.
What if my old sticker fell off before the windshield even cracked? Ask your installer to check the new strip's transmission and reissue a sticker anyway. It's a small thing to fix at the same appointment.
Does this differ if I'm registered in Georgia but drive in Chattanooga daily? Yes. Tennessee's statute governs Tennessee-registered vehicles. A Georgia-plated car follows Georgia's tint rules, which aren't covered here.
If your windshield needs replacing, ask about the tint strip and the sticker in the same call where you ask about the glass itself. It takes one question to find out, and it's easier to fix before the new windshield goes in than after you're pulled over on Gunbarrel Road wondering why the strip looks different than it used to.