You may have heard friends or colleagues touting the benefits of a water repellent product for car windows.
If you’ve never applied them to your car windows, you’re missing out on their benefits.
When applied, water repellent products create a hydrophobic layer on automotive glass.
This helps prevent moisture and water from building up.
It also helps the airflow push the water drops away when you accelerate.
Here are three products that Torque tried.
Rain-X is well known for its variety of water repellents.
1) RAIN-X
Rain-X is a brand famous for its “rain repellents”.
The stuff really works, especially the Glass Water Repellent that comes in the smaller bottle.
The hydrophobic coating is very slick. Raindrops roll off once you start accelerating.
Better still, it lasts for about two months on average.
The downside to using this product is that it takes more time to apply.
You need two coats to ensure even coverage.
After that, you have to spray a bit of water on the areas and buff with a microfibre cloth.
You can buy a bottle from Lazada.
EFFECTIVENESS: 5/5
EASE OF APPLICATION: 2/5
COATING DURATION: 5/5
2) GLACO MIST TYPE
If you want a water repellent that’s quicker and easier to use, get yourself a bottle of this.
Don’t be fooled by its “handy” size.
You only need a little product to cover each of your car windows.
Unlike Rain-X, Glaco Mist Type does not require multiple coats and buffing.
This makes applying water repellent to your wing mirrors more convenient.
As long as your glass is clean, you can just spray it on and wipe to ensure even coverage.
It dries almost instantly and doesn’t have a strong solvent smell.
However, Glaco Mist Type’s water repellency doesn’t seem to be as slick as Rain-X’s.
It takes a while for raindrops to roll off and unless the rain is heavy, some drops still stick to the glass.
You might have to re-apply the product at least once a month, especially during the rainy season.
You can pick some up here on Lazada.
EFFECTIVENESS: 3/5
EASE OF APPLICATION: 5/5
COATING DURATION: 2/5
3) INVISIBLE GLASS CLEAN & REPEL
This might be the most convenient product of the three.
You can use it to clean your car windows and wing mirrors.
As you wipe the product off, it leaves a layer of water repellent.
It dries pretty quickly and there’s no buffing required.
However, Clean & Repel does have some minuses.
For starters, it’s a bigger bottle that will take up more space in your car detailing kit.
Secondly, it’s not much use for the interior side of car windows.
And despite being safe to use on car tint or window film, you don’t need those portions to be water repellent anyway.
You can buy some from Lazada.
EFFECTIVENESS: 4/5
EASE OF APPLICATION: 5/5
COATING DURATION: 3/5
