Ever since I had Xpel PPF added to my car I’ve been eyeing Gtechniq Halo and CQuartz Skin. Since I blew my budget on Xpel I need some time to recover and in the meantime I went with a moderate SiO2 protection solution Fictech One and Fictech Supercharged Ceramic Booster.
In my opinion these spray on wipe off SiO2 products aren’t as durable as I like. Perhaps the 20% SiO2 content in One this is to be expected but I’m not sure what to think. Perhaps they don’t bond well with Xpel, I’m not sure. Water beading is pretty good after application but winter road traffic film seems to destroy the beading on lower half of doors and rocker panels. So it’s about maintenance wash and respray of Supercharged as a topper.
Usually after a few months I get the itch to try something new. Between Halo and Skin I went with Halo based on the 2 year durability claim and the helpful development video posted by Gtechniq to show how it performs against contact washes and UV exposure.
It’s too early for me to say much about Halo. I applied two coats and after 12 hours of curing the surface is very slick. The first coat needed to be applied thicker than what I’m used to to spread it around. It also took a lot of passes to buff and level out. Although it didn’t fight me like a Sonax PNS does the product needed multiple passes. The second coat was more joyful to apply. Easy to use less and spread around and less passes to buff out.
I’ll post updates of water behavior with Halo as the weeks pass. For now I’ll share my base case — the stripped PPF water sheeting off the hood, the Fictech coated rear door vs stripped front door.
https://youtu.be/eZv76czRmKg
https://youtu.be/Xzee3Q1lLF4
Halo coating after 12 hours of curing. I would say the gloss was increased but nothing crazy.
In my opinion these spray on wipe off SiO2 products aren’t as durable as I like. Perhaps the 20% SiO2 content in One this is to be expected but I’m not sure what to think. Perhaps they don’t bond well with Xpel, I’m not sure. Water beading is pretty good after application but winter road traffic film seems to destroy the beading on lower half of doors and rocker panels. So it’s about maintenance wash and respray of Supercharged as a topper.
Usually after a few months I get the itch to try something new. Between Halo and Skin I went with Halo based on the 2 year durability claim and the helpful development video posted by Gtechniq to show how it performs against contact washes and UV exposure.
It’s too early for me to say much about Halo. I applied two coats and after 12 hours of curing the surface is very slick. The first coat needed to be applied thicker than what I’m used to to spread it around. It also took a lot of passes to buff and level out. Although it didn’t fight me like a Sonax PNS does the product needed multiple passes. The second coat was more joyful to apply. Easy to use less and spread around and less passes to buff out.
I’ll post updates of water behavior with Halo as the weeks pass. For now I’ll share my base case — the stripped PPF water sheeting off the hood, the Fictech coated rear door vs stripped front door.
https://youtu.be/eZv76czRmKg
https://youtu.be/Xzee3Q1lLF4
Halo coating after 12 hours of curing. I would say the gloss was increased but nothing crazy.
