Silica Spray Showdown: McKee's v. Gyeon v. CarPro

[kevincwelch]

what camera are you using?

Pixel XL (phone)

[Cruzscarwash]

i need more skill, I have the same and my pics never look that awesome

[runrun411]

Is there a date on the big reveal?

[kevincwelch]

Is there a date on the big reveal?

When they aren't working so well, I will progressively reveal. Right now they seem to be neck and neck. It's been 3 weeks since application.

[vobro]

At least we've had some steady rain to show exactly how these products hold up! The sun came out today and seeing it felt foreign

[runrun411]

When they aren't working so well, I will progressively reveal. Right now they seem to be neck and neck. It's been 3 weeks since application.

How are the lower side panels holding up?

[kevincwelch]

If you are referring to the lower side panels of the hood, they look about the same as the horizontal portions of the hood.

(Sent via my mobile device...)

[WRAPT C5Z06]

Pretty cool that they've all kinda evened out.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kevincwelch]

That fact that they've evened out is reassuring in a way, and it does seem to suggest a suspicion that many people have -- that these silica products originate from a common source (Korea, among others) and possibly all contain the same active components. I'm sure there are variations in the prep and concentration of silica. But, what looks even now may start to reveal very different longer term outcomes.

[kevincwelch]

Ok.

So we are now at 1 month s/p application of the three silica sprays to the hood of my wife's Highlander.

Over the past week, we had a couple days of hard rain and the usual driving on the interstate into Chicago for kid transportation and car pooling. In other words, regular life.

I took the car to the coin op today and sprayed everything BUT the hood with their cleaner, and I rinsed the entire car with their spot free rinse.

There was absolutely minimal sheeting of the water off the hood. I mean MINIMAL. Looked like it did before application.

On the other hand, it wasn't really clean.

Here are the pictures of the beading.

Panel A/Product A





Panel B/Product B




Panel C/Product C




None of those beads flew off the hood when driving home (35mph). The beads were flat with obtuse angles.

I took the car home and cleaned it with McKees N914. Here is the beading on a clean hood.

A




B




C




So, maybe there is some protection left. Still beads, albeit not great.

Water sheeting test is below. Water still rolls off the hood in all three panels and leaves the hood fairly dry. Not as speedy as it was immediately after. But, it's decent.



They all look about the same. Maybe B is ahead. Hard to say.

This whole experiment has forced me to think about the question: "what is protection?" How do we really measure the level of protection? Does something that protects our clearcoat have to have perfect beads? Are disorganized beads a sign of protection? How fast does water sheeting have to be?

I would say that if a last step product exhibits any of these characteristics, it is protecting the paint. A perfectly rounded bead may be attractive to us, but that does not mean that an irregular water bead isn't a sign of protection.




(Sent via my mobile device...)