Please, help me choose a film.

readthebook · April 22, 2020

We picked up a 2019 AllTrack. Great Falls Green with VW's black "v-tex" leatherette.

Car will not be garaged almost ever. For all films listed below I'm leaning toward 35-40% range and have listed TSER accordingly.

Heat reduction is important with the black leatherette interior, but so is clarity and not having weird coloration.

I am not planning to do the windshield at this time.

I can get the following films for around $325-400 out the door here in the Bay Area:

Llumar ATR: TSER 41-44

SolarGard Ultra Performance: TSER 40-53

SolarGard Charcoal: TSER 50-53

SunTek CXP: TSER 50-53

Now, I've seen SunTek trashed on this board, but have had it on 3 cars (also VWs) for 9 combined years with only one issue. The passenger window on a car that had SunTek Carbon (not CXP) began to get a lot of wavy distortion after 4.5 years, but no issues I've seen reported here (scratching/de-lamination) on any car. I also trust the installer very very much as he has done three of my cars and 4-5 of my friends cars, all with SunTek. He's a very good guy with a very clean shop and has re-done two windows for me free of charge without first setting that expectation when our cars have been broken into twice in the last 7 years. He's been tinting for over 20 years, but he only does SunTek.

For $525 out the door:

SolarGard Vortex IR: TSER 53

Llumar CTX: TSER 47-48

For $675 out the door:

3m Crystalline: TSER 60 (40%)

Huper Optik: TSER 53 (40%) and TSER 60 (30%, though I'm not sure I want to go that dark)

For $700 out the door

Pinnacle F1: TSER 53-55

Pretty wide price range with similar TSER's across many of the films and some of the brands all owned by the same parent company, Eastman. Just confused as to what direction I should really go. As you can see I've been a SunTek guy for a few years but, I'm thinking it's time for a change.

Thanks!

DynamicATL · April 23, 2020

If you have been happy with Suntek and feel comfortable with the installer, go that route. CXP (Carbon XP) is the same film as Carbon just with more heat rejection. If you want more heat rejection than CXP, they also have a Ceramic called CIR. 3M Crystalline and Huper Ceramic are probably the best deals since those prices are low for CA...shops I know in CA are closer to the $1000 range for those films. The absolute worst deal is F1 Pinnacle being that is higher than 3M/Huper and is nowhere near as much heat rejection. They do have a Stratos line which is what I would expect in that price range. Suntek/Llumar/F1 is a traditional charcoal appearance, Crystalline will have a brownish hue, Huper Ceramic will have a slight reflective appearance.

Edited April 23, 2020 by DynamicATL

DynamicATL · April 23, 2020

We done a few Allroads but I would have to really dig to find them, so here is a few GTIs for example.

Llumar CTX

Edited April 23, 2020 by DynamicATL

DynamicATL · April 23, 2020

Another in CTX

DynamicATL · April 23, 2020

Llumar ATR

readthebook · April 23, 2020

10 hours ago, DynamicATL said:

If you have been happy with Suntek and feel comfortable with the installer, go that route. CXP (Carbon XP) is the same film as Carbon just with more heat rejection. If you want more heat rejection than CXP, they also have a Ceramic called CIR. 3M Crystalline and Huper Ceramic are probably the best deals since those prices are low for CA...shops I know in CA are closer to the $1000 range for those films. The absolute worst deal is F1 Pinnacle being that is higher than 3M/Huper and is nowhere near as much heat rejection. They do have a Stratos line which is what I would expect in that price range. Suntek/Llumar/F1 is a traditional charcoal appearance, Crystalline will have a brownish hue, Huper Ceramic will have a slight reflective appearance.

Thanks so much for your response/pics. The F1 sounded way high to me too. Wished I could find someone more reasonable with that film around here because that's kind of what I thought I might go with.

Both the Crystalline and Huper are offered by the same shop and I have no reason not to trust them. A car nut co-worker has had a number of cars tinted there since the 90's and the work is great. They've been in business since the 80s. He has also used the guy I have used before a few times and was happy with him too. Choosing between the films from them, I'd go with the Crystalline.

I am familiar with the CIR from SunTek as I considered it previously, but reviews said it had quite a blue hue from inside the vehicle, which I'm not all that crazy about. I think my installer was at around $450-500 out the door for that iirc.

Now, the real question is, is the 3m Crystalline really worth just over 2x the price of the SunTek CXP I've been happy with? Are the benefits really 2x worth it?

Nothing good to say about the SolarGard option? Thanks again.

DynamicATL · April 23, 2020

1 hour ago, readthebook said:

Now, the real question is, is the 3m Crystalline really worth just over 2x the price of the SunTek CXP I've been happy with? Are the benefits really 2x worth it?

Absolutely. We sell both Llumar/3M and was previously a Huper dealer. I had Huper Ceramic on one of my cars and switched to Crystalline when we picked up 3M. I felt a huge difference in heat rejection...my tinter said the same thing when he switched his vehicle too. Unlike Ceramic films that absorb the heat, Crystalline redirects a good portion of it away from the vehicle. This means less radiating heat inside the vehicle when the it is not moving. The only downside with Crystalline is the color, some people don't like it. Personally, the only shade I don't like is the 20% since the brown hue is very noticeable.

With that being said, since your coming from Suntek Carbon you will be happy with CXP or any of the Ceramic options since it will block more heat. So you don't have to go to the most expensive, the others will be a dramatic jump and noticeable. Think of Crystalline as a car that top speed is 230 and the others are 190...either way you're getting a fast car.

As for Solar Gard, I personally never used it so can't say much about it. I've always thought of it as a mid-grade film like Suntek but never heard any bad stories about it.

April 24, 2020

If you are used to Carbon or CXP the CIR film from SunTek will feel totally blue in the 35% range. It’s a good film, I think performance for the price is very competitive. But it’ll be bluer than you think. One of the reasons we switched to Xpel (admittedly a small portion of the reason) we just were not 100% loving the hues of the SunTek films. Carbon in my opinion was the most neutral. CXP got more green-y, and CIR could have been sold as a blue-black film if they had wished to brand it that way.

civicrice · April 25, 2020

On 4/23/2020 at 7:29 PM, Guest Michael said:

If you are used to Carbon or CXP the CIR film from SunTek will feel totally blue in the 35% range. It’s a good film, I think performance for the price is very competitive. But it’ll be bluer than you think. One of the reasons we switched to Xpel (admittedly a small portion of the reason) we just were not 100% loving the hues of the SunTek films. Carbon in my opinion was the most neutral. CXP got more green-y, and CIR could have been sold as a blue-black film if they had wished to brand it that way.

how are the hues for the xpel film. from some pictures i have seen xpels looks more blue than anything. The CXP is definetely on the green side i remember a customer wanting to match his vw tiguan fronts to the back and we ended up using the cxp 35% to match the green hues lol

Mpameno81 · April 25, 2020

The XRPLUS has a blue hue, nothing like CIR, but I’d say it’s the most blue of the Xpel bunch. HP has a slight blue hue, but not so much that the average person would ever be able to notice it, it’s very very slight. Personally I think the regular XR line has the nicest black color. CS is very neutral as far as hues as well.