GYEON is the coating to beat. The $90 hand-applied coating held the best possible 1.0 durability rating through strip wash, iron remover, bug and tar remover, and wheel-and-tire cleaner, and it was still forming tight water beads after a final degreaser assault that wiped out most of the field. It also finished first on plastic, where its hydrophobic performance on the polycarbonate sheet wasn't close. Its one quirk is slickness — at 3.8 lb of sliding force it was the only coating that measured above the 3.3 lb uncoated baseline, though it improved to 3.3 lb by the end of testing. Gtechniq finished in a very close second: it matched GYEON's 1.0 rating at every chemical checkpoint, took second on plastic, and ended slicker than GYEON at 2.5 lb. With the two this close, the sensible move is to buy whichever of GYEON or Gtechniq is cheaper at the time.
For a spray-and-wipe product, Griot's is the clear pick. At $22 it tied Ethos for the slickest initial finish at just 0.6 lb of force, earned the top 1.0 hydrophobic rating, and was the only spray still forming mostly water beads after the entire chemical sequence — territory where every other spray had been completely stripped. Ethos deserves an honorable mention: it matched Griot's early on, took third on plastic, and finished as the slickest surface overall at 2.3 lb, but the degreaser finally used it up.
The cautionary tales are at both ends of the price range. The $13 Hybrid Solutions punched well above its price with a 0.9 lb slickness result and beading that survived several chemical stages, but the degreaser finished it off — a fair outcome for the money. Mothers and Shine Armor lost most of their protection after the very first strip wash, making them better thought of as short-term shine products than durable coatings. The biggest disappointment was the $60 AvalonKing: despite a claimed two-to-three-year lifespan, it trailed the $13 spray in initial water beading and was completely used up by the wheel-and-tire cleaner stage. Spending more only paid off at the very top of the lineup.