Are ceramic tint actually that much better than regular tint?

[paulchou]

Serious question. I know what the marketing material says - ceramic blocks UV and offers better overall heat rejection than regular tint blah blah blah, but bare with me.

So I was cleaning my garage today and found a receipt for an old tint job I got for my accord back in 2009. It used SolarGard HP Charcoal 32 and 13. Out of curiosity, I looked up the data sheet, and - to my surprise - found their TSER (Total Sun Energy Rejection - most important #) to be 53% and 57%, respectively. Obviously this is not as good as the 3M Ceramic IR series I recently got for my Tesla, which offers 60%, and 63%, at similar VLT levels. And both blocks UV roughly the same. Btw., pay no attention to IRER as from my understanding it is a made up marketing # that differs from manufacturer to manufacturer.

But here's the real kicker - I paid $150 for SolarGard vs. $400 for the ceramic tint recently. For ~10% better TSER I am now paying 160% more $$?!? Sure there's inflation to consider I guess I am just underwhelmed by the additional performance ceramic tint offers given the much pricier $$?

Have we all been duped by the ceramic tint marketing material or has the inflation been that dramatic in the last 12 years or so for tint jobs? What am I missing?

For the record the SolarGard tint still looks great today. No issue whatsoever.

HP Charcoal

Solar Gard High Performance (HP) Charcoal window films feature a classic look. Manufactured with vacuum sputter-metalized technology to reject the sun's

www.solargard.com

https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1752329O/3m-automotive-window-film-ceramic-ir-series-brochure.pdf&fn=AWF-Ceramic-IR-Brochure-DIGITAL-75-5100-2770-1-v2_R5.pdf

 

[ucmndd]

IMO generally yes, the car tint/PPF/ceramic coating/blah blah industry is chock full of snake oil and impossible to prove claims.

 

[paulchou]

At least based on brochures, it seems that the higher the VLT level (say 70%), the more ceramic seems to shine through - 3M ceramic at 70% VLT rejects almost as much total solar energy as SolarGard at 32% VLT (51% vs. 53%). However, as the tint gets dark (lower VLT), the incremental benefit of ceramic tint diminishes. At 5% VLT, ceramic TSER is 66% vs. SolarGard at 58% - it is still significant, but practically speaking it probably just means you car will heat up to 100 degrees 2 mins slower under hot sun w/ no AC.

So bottomline, if you are going to get light tint and care about heat rejection, then ceramic is probably worth it, but if you are getting very dark tint anyway, you may want to weight the cost/benefit.

 

[father_of_6]

Keeping a dirty windshield also blocks UV but costs *way* less.

 

[jessemiller]

Just did a quick search. Average hourly wage in MN is up roughly 100% since 2009 (most of the expense for tint is labor). Energy prices are up significantly more than that. Inflation is up roughly 40% between 2009 and 2021.

Seems pretty reasonable to me.

 

[pengy]

Just like with any product, the top of the line will get you diminishing returns for the cost. For tint in general I just go with the "lower end" ceramic, except on the windshield, where a few percentage points on a 70/80% tint makes a good enough difference to justify the extra cost in material. Just my personal preference though.

 

[salvadorsantan]

I have used the most expensive Xpel XR Prime Plus and the one bellow Xpel XR, both ceramic one with a better heat rejection than the other but in the real world, under the sun in a hot car, hard to tell the difference between one and the other.

Going with the mid tier Xpel XR on the S this weekend.