Which is more cost-effective to protect car paint, invisible car clothing or crystal plating?

Many car enthusiasts have been asking the editor in the Tuhu Car Owners Group about the comparison and selection of crystal-plated and invisible car covers. For example, the most common one, how long is the protection period of crystal plating? Do I need to replace the invisible car cover after applying it? Which one is better among them? and other similar topics.

Let’s talk to you about this topic today. First of all, it must be clear that both crystal plating and film are beneficial to improving the protection of car paint.

Crystal-plated? VS? Invisible car jacket:

One is hard and one is soft, one is short and one is long

So what is the difference between the two? Let’s look at it from a few different angles.

First of all, in terms of price, crystal plating is cheap but film is expensive. Secondly, from the perspective of durability, the protection time of crystal coating is generally a little more than one year, and the limit is no more than one and a half years, while the film can basically last for a long time. Finally, from the perspective of product principles, crystal plating is "hard Qigong", relying on hardness or "hardness" to scratch and scratch, while film sticking is "Tai Chi", which uses softness to overcome hardness and relies on flexibility to win.

As for the car crystal plating, the editor has specifically mentioned it before, whether it is the principle, the process of chemical reaction, the type of crystal plating, the protective effect, etc.

For example, the "silica" inorganic family of the SONAX crystal series and the "amorphous" technology of Weisong are both representative works in the crystal plating industry. We will expand on the details of their technical principles one by one in the future, so today we will mainly talk about invisible car clothing.

What is an invisible car jacket?

In the most popular terms, invisible car clothing is "wrapping the car with a layer of plastic film". If we take the metaphor in a more popular direction, it is the "plastic wrapping" of photos at home. . If the photo has been left in the air for a long time, it will turn yellow and become damp, so the plastic seal should be done properly! It can last for many years.

Of course, products like invisible car clothing have also gone through many iterations of raw materials. The earliest invisible car clothing was made of PVC layer. In fact, everyone should be very familiar with this material. It is commonly known as "soft glass" used to pad desktops at home.

However, with the formalization of the car clothing industry, this kind of early PVC car clothing should be almost rare now. Today's regular car jackets are basically made of TPU-based materials. The Chinese name of TPU is "polyurethane", commonly known as "beef tendon". In fact, some students who are familiar with the shoe industry should know this material.

This is a substance between rubber and plastic, so it is also called "elastomer" in industry. It is essentially plastic, so it has the characteristics of plastic such as lightness, strength, and a certain hardness. At the same time, it has the characteristics of flexibility and ultra-high elasticity of rubber. The wear resistance is dozens of times better than rubber, and it is "smoother" than rubber.

After simply attaching this material to the car shell, the car shell will have an extra layer of protection. So it is this layer of TPU film that plays a protective role. Many car owners have expressed how strong the protective capability of a layer of film can be. If you don’t understand the toughness of TPU material, can you understand it by looking at the picture above?

Of course, TPU is not the end of car clothing. Today's invisible car clothing has actually made some articles outside of TPU. The more mainstream one is "memory coating" technology. This technology, to put it bluntly, means that after the vehicle encounters a scratch, the TPU film uses its own "Tai Chi" to protect the paint, but the TPU film itself leaves scratches.

For example, Tuhu's self-operated "Tuyu 2nd Generation" car cover is equipped with a "temperature-controlled memory recovery organic material coating". Once scratches are left, rinse them with hot water. , wait a moment, and the scratches on the diaphragm will disappear.

How to choose crystal-plated or invisible car clothing?

As for the principle of invisible car clothing, I believe everyone should have a thorough understanding by now. So how should we ordinary consumers choose?

In terms of durability, crystal plating is basically once a year, and the single price is cheap; invisible car clothing can be used for a long time after one construction, but the price is relatively expensive. How to choose? I think it depends on your actual needs and the situation of the vehicle.

Generally speaking, most luxury cars, high-end cars, sports cars, etc. will directly choose invisible car covers.

So for relatively ordinary family cars (for example, less than 300,000 yuan), crystal coating is actually enough to provide good protection.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.