Thank you for your input. Was hoping to do everything at one shop for convenience and don't mind paying some premium, but looks like I should scout out other options like V-Kool too to get top-end heat rejection which is important for family car.

I got quoted the following RM2,300 for a CR-V, is it worth it?

FWS: V-Kool Elite (VLT 73.2%, UV 99%, IRR 94%)
RWS: V-Kool REM40 (VLT 38%, UV 99%, TSER 49%)
Side: V-Kool REM40 with 5mil security film (VLT 40%, UV 99%, IRR 90%)

err, anyone?

I am free again, so ciong hei opinion ranting (long post again). Feel free to skip.

My 2 cents for layman (not technical, just casual user) is I roughly evaluate a tint heat performance by putting the back of my hand under the tint in hot sun. How hot is it on the back of my hands. I think most layman do that, no technically accurate at all, really pasar style but.....it worked for most.

Heat will always build up overtime no matter what tint used if park for long hours under hot sun. A good tint slows down the heat penetration thus slows down the heat buildup in the car. A good tints will contribute to heat reduction ON skin while you are in the car with direct noon sunlight shining directly on you. You will feel the heat but you won't feel the painful sting on the skin.

Just an example of how I see a good heat resistance between a good one with a bad one is lets say during the start, the temp is 24 for both tints, after half an hour, a good tint is 28, a bad one 32, 1 hours, a good one 32, a bad 38, 2 hours, a good one 36, bad one cooking at over 40. After 3 hours, both cooking. Of course, the car body also absorb heat and add in the heat. We are just talking about direct heat penetration thru glass that contribute the most heat direct into the car. So if you stay in the car under super hot sun, idling, waiting for half and hour, an hour (did that so many times, wifey go buy stuff), that is where good tints heat resistant effect comes maximum into play, air cond also no need switch so high vs bad or nor no tint. Sunlight no sting on skin, still feel the heat but MUCH lesser vs lousy ones.

So some say not worth to premium ones but for some like me who wants MAXIMUM comfort under hot sun, it is worth it....a bit wasteful tho, I admit the money can be better spend elsewhere but that is how I spend it, no regret on the tints, just regret when I think I can go each chicken so many times with the money I spend. They don't sleep in car....I do...sometimes...hahaha.

That is besides the protection accorded to a good tint UV protection of leather, dashboard, plastic, etc inside the car over the years. I kept my cars for decade or 2, trust me when I say my dashboard still looks very new, practically little to no fading, always parked under hot sun. All these are layman understanding that have no scientific data to backup...but that is how I see it.

Now why I preferred  a good metallized tints over ceramic (might not be correct but that is how I generally understand them, in layman term), metalized sputter tints like VKool Elite and Irispro Elite, Diamond and DX series reflect heat. If using silver sputter like VKool and Irispro DX, it has the best metal heat reflection. Ceramic absorb heat and disperse them. The weakness for ceramic (at least IMO), is ceramic worked great while it is moving, the wind will help disperse the heat, so do aircond but heat still get absorbed (some into the car before air-cond disperse them). Metallized sputter reflect some of them (not all lar, just the basic metallized attribute), so while heat still get thru into the car, when compared with ceramic, much less will get into it in the first place (at least on the same quality comparison, again no hard data, just basic understanding).

That is my own layman understanding (might not be accurate but I believe it is generally like that). Of course improvement of nano ceramic tech will upgrade the heat resistance but so do nano metallized sputter improvement. Good metallized sputter are generally more expensive due to the real metal used but also depends on quality of sputter, metal. There are some cheap metallized sputter but I don't trust those coz in general market, good metallized sputter with high quality material and sputter process (some good sputter used 6 micro layers for each metal sputter layer) will definitely cost more to produced. Some do hike up pricing due to brand names (proven reliability tho) but some like Irispro trying to build their brand names and try to penetrate the market with lower pricing (for metallized sputter pricing lar, still even supposedly lowered, it is still darn premium pricing compared to other branded ceramics).

Of course I can't dispute some expert that are into tints or r&D and tried out many tints like dwRK....hehe...If you asked a mechanic, they will always think not worth to buy new car coz they truly understand and know it is not really worth it at all...I am no mechanic, so I buy new car, keep life simple, just spend money..hahaha.

The website may not be convincing, but the performance of Coolgard in real life is surely better than Totalgard. However, the price of the Coolgard is about 2X the Totalgard. Nevertheless, the Coolgard is still cheaper than the premium tints such as V-kool.

The reason I went with Coolgard is I only install the tint on the front windscreen. All sides and rear windscreens are already installed with customized tints included in the package of the new car purchase. I wanted a better tint on the front windscreen so I spent extra money replacing the tint here as to me the front windscreen is the most important.

It depends if you value or appreciate car coating. Personally I view car coating as unnecessary. With new Nissan Almera, previously my service advisor asked me if I wanted to do car coating (need to pay), and I rejected it. Now latest offer, the car coating and tint were included in the new car purchase with the price of new car unchanged. I presume the cost of the coating should be very low since they can include it FOC.

For tint, I am not sure if the Honda package V-kool 70 presumably for FWS combined with other types of tint for side and rear is comparable to V-Kool Elite for whole car. With Nissan, the price for V-Kool Elite for Nissan Almera (all FWS, side and rear windscreens) is only RM2,800. If doing outside it's significantly more expensive, RM3k+ or RM4k+ if I'm not mistaken.

To cut a story short, if it was me, I would opt for just tinting outside of your choice or budget since the packages don't look too attractive to me. I'm not sure if the Charcoal Plus 6 is V-Kool, and the other tint package is safety tint instead of heat rejection tint. I personally favour heat rejection tint over safety tint. The price of RM4.7k isn't exactly cheap for this combination tint.

You really DIY everything....I so envy coz I so lazy, so can only envy...haha. I would likely save thousands, err no...tens of thousands in my saving accounts for my few cars over the years if I am you.

So regret for my laziness...I would be a much richer man. Still I continue my laziness, its in me already..

the spec sometimes quite confusing. irr is 44% but tser is 40%, while crystalline 70 is 97% irr while tser is only 50%. or tser difference of 10% is huge different?.

cancel liao taking 3M. at first want to upgrade crystalline 70. but read here feedback, said after few years crystalline 70 will bring hazy to windscreen. end up, avoid la. dont want hassle claim the windscreen.

my aim now is vkool elite. hopefully it is rfid friendly as I put rfid in windscreen.
oraite.tq for ur feedback. cancel doing at honda service centre. will do outside. next week will go visit vkool authorized dealer. will update here later on.

Just came across Hamel tint, the Batman series seems interesting. Anyone tried this before can share your opinion?

For clear tint, I think VKool Elite (at least the original 70 series still has the best heat reflection feature for clear tint. Other might state better TSER but real life performance for the clear tint cannot match up. It is durable too. Last 12 years parked usually under hot sun before tint started blurring. Got 3 cars to prove its durability over the decade. The only thing is the pricing has become super premium too, cannot afford it liao.

Given the 2 aka VKool and 3M Crystalline, I would still take VKool Elite anytime but the price can blow a very big hole in pocket. Of course if someone driving a tesla or high price cars, that might be peanuts to them tho.

Anyway even VKool Elite also can fail JPJ for front windscreen depending on vehicles. All my old VKool Elite on old City, Civic and persona are in mid 60+ readings. Suprisingly harrier got around 70..

Haha...yes, 1st gen use VK70 right in FWS. Then they switch to Elite which is originally so-called Euro spec VK75 with higher VLT and lower IRR. They used VK70 for the rest then, just the front change to VK75 for smart tag. So all my cars switched to this package then. Lasted darn long. Now at 13 years, my last VKool Elite in persona that become brown liao and starting, just starting to patch a bit. Now I really don't know what they use for Elite, still same VK75 and VK70 for the rest???

My old City and Civic just switched to Irispro silver/nano-titanium sputter films (the DX series) as posted in this forum so many times liao after a long search for metallic sputter tint replacement after VKool. This is an excellent tint that worked very well (I do installed it for 3 cars in the end, if no good, I won't do that) within my expectation of excellent metallic sputter.

No tint is perfect tho. There are multiple issues to consider. The so-called weakness on colouring balancing of different VLT has been fixed tho by changing the colour of the tint, 100% change, now black/purplish instead of brown lighting. Very nice comfortable colour and lighting inside (my 3rd ride got this, my earlier 2 rides guinea pigs, got the brown/green ones). Now  front and back (VLT60 and VLT30) same colouring, one brighter, one dimmer.

It has the white haze looks that are similar to picture of a poster here on Totalgard (I think, if I rememer correctly). Not as bad as the pic by the earlier poster but the white haze looks do appear with certain angle under direct sunlight especially for VLT60. VLT30 not so obvious or almost cannot see the haze, if any under certain direct sunlight angle. Don't really interfere with our vision but it is there. If they managed to eliminate, then it that will be perfect. Other than that, it is 3mm and above in thickness, a bit more difficult to install and lines are more obvious at demister, unfortunately thicker tint do that.

Well it does have double layer sputters (each sputter has 6 micro layers, I'm told), additional HEV layer, so ya, I understand the why they cannot make it to 2mm. Have double sputters and the multi layers of tints with additional HEV layer that other don't have (got show the 6-7 layers used in their website). Another issues is they don't have clear tint for the highest sputter range with best TSER for clear tint. The best is VLT60, their VLT70 is of lower range. Although I like the VLT60, worked great under sunlight and not dark and filter sunlight with comfortable balance lighting but some might prefer near JPJ compliancy range aka 70 with brighter lighting. Smart tags worked similar to VKool Elite, slows down a bit.

Since it does not have the long proven years background of VK, 3M, etc, they support it with 10 years warranty for defect, peeling, etc and another 10 years warranty for performance if reading of IRR, etc, degrade more than 10% over the years. So I keep suggesting to look at it as an option for metallic sputter tint. Price is premium as expected of good metallic sputter tints but face hard competition coz price similar to other branded tints. Well, if they lower it, can't make it premium tint, if they keep the premium pricing, hard to compete with other proven brands, the dilemma..

Notice 1 thing about GPS signals of my Z50 GPS dashcams in both cars FWS (1 with Irispro silver sputter DX series, another still with VKool Eite), GPS can connect most of times in Irispro metallic sputter but GPS connection is intermittent in my dashcam for VKool Elite, lots of times, cannot connect but once connected will remain connected.

All are down to ur wallet
I'm using 5% vlt (i think this is the lowest i can find, there's no 0% vlt so far) on both rear side windows n rear ws with no security

After a few mths using 99% irr tint, 1 thing keeps confusing me.
99% of all tolls i tested from perlis to johor with stag only 1 toll is able to read stag frm inside my car which is tol hosp sbuloh
The rest will fail n i need to lower down my side window n hold the stag outside.

Does reader using by PLUS is able to penetrate 99% irr ? And why only at 1 toll ?