William Ford
Today, we’re going to be reviewing two ceramic spray coatings. The very first one is the HydroSilex recharge, which has been tested before in sort of that. Little wipe moist towel lead form that they sent us in the past. Now HydroSilex did provide me this bottle for free, and they told me that i would like it more than the other applicator that they had, which i really didn’t care for. It didn’t work out well now this little bottle promises to have self-cleaning properties, hydrophobic properties and something they call mirror effect, not quite sure what that is, but i think they mean glossy, probably now the other product we’re testing today is the wolfgang uber ceramic spray coating.
It promises up to a year of protection, and it says that it’ll provide a hard glossy hydrophobic surface for you to wash. We’Ve got our test hood here, and the very first thing we’re gon na do is judge ease of application of these two products. We’Re gon na apply the two products we’re gon na put the HydroSilex on the side and we’re gon na put the wolfgang on this side, and then i’m gon na give you my sort of subjective opinion on how easy the product was to use.
And then i will tell you a pass fail, a one point or zero points. One of the things i like to do is to read the warnings to give you guys an idea of other protection requirements, they’re talking about serious eye, irritation, they’re, saying, wear protective clothing and gloves and they’re saying it’s harmful if swallowed, so nothing crazy, we’re gon na Take our bottle here and give it a nice shake.
They said a fine mist, few sprays and just kind of buff it in now we’re going to flip the towel to a clean side and finish it off now. This little bottle has much more serious warnings for us, and it says it’s flammable liquid and vapor may be fatal if swallowed or and enters airways suspected of damaging fertility, ground and bond container and receiving equipment, use, explosion. Proof, electrical ventilation and lighting equipment use only non-sparking tools if inhaled if breathing is irregular or stopped immediately seek medical assistance, wow pretty heavy duty stuff. I would definitely wear a respirator for this and then it says to use a microfiber towel to wipe surface until flashing rainbow appearance is completed. So i think it’s just like the HydroSilex hydro stylex.
We just wipe it off. That’S how i’m interpreting that flip our towel. Let’S give our first points of the article and we’re going to start with the HydroSilex . I have to say guys this stuff. It works pretty well in terms of application, i sprayed it on and it wiped off real easy.
I would say this is easier than the wolfgang and we’re definitely giving it a point now back to our wolfgang. I still think this was easy to use, but not as easy as the HydroSilex now look having a wear. Respirator is not a deal killer when it comes to use of application. In fact, i sort of expect it for products like these coatings. The thing that makes me not like it as much as the hydrocylex is the amount of wiping i had to do as it was flashing out of the paint.
Now. Maybe i was only supposed to do like one little spreads, but there aren’t really instructions to tell you that on here, so i’m still going to give it a point. It’S still a pass. This is my gloss testing panel. Now it may look a little unorthodox and i’ve explained in prior articles why i use this piece of glass instead of a car hood.
I’M not gon na bore you with that on this article , but i will link a article where i explained it. The way this test works is that the panel has a base class of 94 gloss units. Now i have applied the product over 24 hours ago to this surface here and we will see how much the gloss has changed from that 94 gloss units to help us with measurements. We’Re going to use this gloss meter, but first we need to calibrate it. So we’re going to turn it on we’re going to delete any past readings, we’re going to hit the calibration button and we’re firing it off at 20 degrees.
So we should see this hold at 104. Now, what we’ll do is we’ll take five measurements and then average them out for this side of the panel to give us our delta, our change and gloss. So, let’s start in this top corner here here it looks like we’re seeing about 92 a little bit more 92.2 yeah seems fair, yeah 93.5, it’s hanging in there.
Let’S do the middle, so in the middle, we’re seeing about 93.3 and then over in this corner. We’Re also getting 93 3 looks like about 93 over here now. We can see that we scored 465.3 we’re gon na divide that by five for an average of 93.
6 and then we’ll take our 93.06 and we’re going to subtract 94 And that will round down to 0 9, so we’re going to subtract 0.9 points from the wolfgang score for losing a little bit of that gloss. Now, picking up on this side, we’re going to start our measurements and it looks like our first reading is going to be sort of that 91.3.
Let’S be generous, looks like about 90.5 we’re seeing about 92 in the middle and then we’re seeing about 91.3 on this side and about 91 3 on that side over there, so our total here was 456.4. We will divide that by five we’re going to subtract 94 and that’s gon na round down on 2.
negative 2.7. So what we’re going to do now is a little isopropyl alcohol test. I don’t score this, it’s kind of from my own interest, because i often use and as many detailers often use isopropyl alcohol to remove wax. So, let’s spray both of these down and see how they bear now, you can see that the isopropyl alcohol has beaded up a little bit like water.
Now iso will never bead exactly like water. It’S not going to give you those big, deep contact angle. Like you see with water, just because it doesn’t have the cohesion of water and we’ll know, the wax is gone when it stops beating, because water will always beat a little but isopropyl alcohol on a surface without a wax. It really doesn’t want to bead at all. Now we’re going to wipe up the hydrocylex side and we’ll spray on.
We can see a big difference already you’ll notice that there are big patches where there’s really no more beading going on with the hydrocylex. It has kind of failed in the middle here, and you could see that this has started to fail a lot too wow big result here, guys, i would say the hydrocylex is totally done. There is hardly any any beating at all on this side, we’re still seeing a little bit of beating. Aren’T we there’s big splotches, it kind of looks like the hydrocylix did the last time, and i would say it’s fair to say. Fourth time did do the trick for us: let’s see how our gloss score is with the wax wiped off with the isopropyl and we’re seeing 94.
over here, and let’s take a look here and 94 1, if you’ve enjoyed the article , thus far, i’d love it. If you click the subscribe button, there’s going to be more of these soon, of course, a like or a nice comment goes a long way too. I love interacting with all you guys. It makes me feel like we have our own little community and, of course, if you have ideas for products to test or test methodologies, let me know just any kind of discussion. It’S all fun.
I do try to talk to everyone, and i also wanted to remind you guys that there are amazon, affiliate links down below in the description. I get a very small commission if you click through and purchase any of the products we’re looking at today or anything at all on amazon, any shopping you’re. Doing i get a little bit of credit. It helps the channel doesn’t cost you a penny. The panel has now cured for 24 hours and we’re ready to do our slickness testing as well as kind of a visual appeal test, and both of these are going to be pass fail.
Just like ease of application, we’re first going to start with the hydro silex side and i’m going to run my hand across here and give you my opinion on how slick i think the product is now slickness does have value, because it helps safely clean. Your car of debris, when you’re doing your washes now. My first impression is that this is reasonably slick. It’S not the slickest thing in the world. I did test their little ceramic coating wipes in the past and that product i think, didn’t go on as thick and as a result, it was less slick.
This feels pretty reasonable. I’M not saying it’s amazing, it’s not the slickest thing. We’Ve tried, but it’s not bad. It’S definitely getting the point for slickness and i’m happy with that. Now.
Moving on to the wolfgang coating, i’m really kind of not happy with this. It feels tacky, i’m gon na, compare it a little to the unsheated surface and yeah okay. It is slicker than the untreated portion back here like this really sticks and this only kind of sticks, but i don’t know guys i i would expect more. I think i have to give it zero points and a fail. Visual appeal is also subjectively ranked.
Like i mentioned, it’s really just based on how i feel about the product when i look at it and when i compare it to the untreated portion on the back now in the past, when i was testing the wipes, this hydrocylix product didn’t fare. Well, in my visual test, i felt that it was kind of ashy and it didn’t really look that great and to tell you the truth, i still think it’s a little ashy. I just don’t think it’s quite as brilliant as the wolf king, for example, having applied it with the spray.
Instead of the little wipe it came on thicker and it kind of darkened, the paint a bit i have put down a little terry cloth and on the left side of the left edge is where the product is and on the right side of the left edge Is where the control is, and there is a visible line, i can see it in my scope right now and i do think it looks better than the bear paint and i’ll try to zoom in a little and give you another shot here. Hopefully, you can see that line as well, so guys overall, i’m still going to give the hydro silex over here a point for the visual appeal.
I think it passed now looking at the wolfgang product. It also has a defined edge. You can similarly see it on the left side of the cloth and i’m hoping it’ll come through on youtube zoom in a little give you a tighter shot. Personally, i would say i like the wolf gang over here more when i’m looking at it with my eye and again, this is really hard to show on youtube because youtube has that 8-bit compression, but man you can really tell this stuff. Just has more of that sort of candy quality that little bit of extra pop that i just don’t see on the hydro silac side.
So again, i’m gon na give this a pass, and one point guys it has been raining like crazy, we’re gon na. Do this kind of halfway inside the garage you’ve seen me do this before we’ve got ta persevere. So, let’s start our durability testing and what we do here is use our atoms foam cannon to apply a whole bunch of foam to both the surfaces and then give them a nice wash with the same pad that we’ve used every time and also the shampoo that We’Re using is also the adam’s blue and we’ve used that in every test in the past.
So as we wash, we see this durability start to fail and the way we determine that the durability, or rather the product has failed, is that it starts to look just like your car would look once the wax is worn off. You get these big splotches of non-hydrophobic areas and we count the amount of washes that we do per side and then we score.
We give one point for every wash, let’s see just how hydrophobic these two are: let’s start with a wolf gang that is pretty hydrophobic. Let’S take a look at the hydrocylex all right: this is this is definitely working and the base hydrophobicity seems better than the little wipes that they gave me the little coating wipes again. Maybe it’s just because the product applied thicker with a spray than a white we’re gon na, be using this adam’s blue, shampoo, it’s ph neutral and it’s one of the milder shampoos that i’ve tested. And if you want to see that shampoo test, i will link you right up here in your top corner nice and slick on the hydrocylic side. Definitely like it more than the wipes.
Now, let’s do our first rinse all right now that we’ve done our rinse. Let’S take a look and see if our products are still working and take a look at that control surface. I bet you will see just how bad it has gotten from one wash because it had nothing protecting it. Let’S look at the hydrocylex so much the same with the control side, but it kind of looks like the hydrocylex took a bit of a hit. Let’S look at the wolf gang first perfect compared to the control.
Let’S take a look at the hydrocylex. You can see how it’s starting to look like it’s hard to see the light on the control. Look at look at the control line on the bottom and let’s look at the control line on the wolfgang all right. Let’S test the wolfgang now, let’s look at the hydrocylex, i’m gon na be generous and give it one more wash. Let’S look at the hydrocelex.
That’S done guys. I don’t even know where the control is anymore. Being very generous. We’Re gon na give four washes and four points to the hydrocylix so guys that wolfgang seems like a beast. What i’m gon na do now is give you milestone.
Updates. We are ready to see if wash number 12 has worked out and if we can say that a year of protection with the wolfgang coating is plausible, and now let’s see how it’s performing, i think it’s still working great guys. Now you can see that there’s just a little bit of fade, it’s not quite as perfectly hydrophobic as it was in the beginning, all right guys. I just finished the 28th wash and let me show you what the wolfgang looks like. So we can definitely see it’s starting to fail.
What was interesting is there seemed to be these plateaus like around the 18th wash it just took a big hit and then it kind of stayed the same. Let’S see if number 37 did the trick, let’s see if our wolf gang is still working yeah, guys, i’m gon na call it a 37 That wolf gang is a beast. 37 is a great score, it’s time to do a little wrap up and give you my final thoughts on these products. Let’S start with that wolfgang. What did i like?
Well, i thought that the product had a really good durability. Is it the best ceramic coating durability we’ve seen no, but it’s solid for a product that doesn’t have a difficult application. Furthermore, i really liked how it looked. Sometimes ceramic products are a little thin and they don’t give you that nice deep candy kind of look this dead, the application fairly easy, not the easiest that we’ve had. You know a little tacky a little a little more work to rub off, but not bad.
I think if you use a little less it’ll probably be easier. Now, where i really struggled with the product was around the slickness, the slickness just isn’t there. I had to fail it. Let’S switch over the hydro silence this one. You know i had high hopes the guys at hydrocylex when they sent me this bottle.
They said oh you’ll, like this better than the wipes and in some ways it is surely better. The gloss wasn’t too big of a hit. The slickness was much better and the durability did double. However, it doubled from two to four washes. What’S up with the durability, you know, that’s four washes for a coating.
That’S insanity, i don’t know what they’re doing wrong, but they need to figure that out. You know, and products like these are, unfortunately why a lot of people new to detailing i’m talking about home enthusiasts, not professionals which i’m not a professional, i’m a home enthusiast.
They believe a lot of them that products are bunk, they will go, buy the cheapest one because they say well, it’s just like hair shampoo, it’s all the same stuff, but we know that well and i’m sure, if you ask you know most. Ladies out there there are fancy hair shampoos that, i guess must do something i’m a guy – i don’t really know, but there are waxes and coatings and polymer, sealants and stuff that are amazing. They work way better than the other stuff and i have to say something like hydrocylex with this product will turn people off from coatings and it’ll turn people off from high-end boutique products like this, because it will just confirm their bias of oh, it’s all bs.
It’S all nonsense, just buy the cheapest thing at walmart. Well, guys i feel like i might be rambling a bit now, but i just want to clarify: i’m definitely not mad at anybody at hydrocylex everybody. I’Ve worked with. There has been really nice they’ve furnished me samples, which is always great. I will test anything else.
They want me to test if you’ve managed to watch through my ramble. I hope you’ve had a great holiday season great christmas, great new years and let’s see what 2021 brings us. Hopefully lots of cool new products to test, and hopefully we’ll be there together to do it.
