Oakley Sunglasses, the Best (Disposable) Sunglasses
By admin | January 14, 2008
For the past 10 years, I have been a sucker for Oakley sunglasses. The obsession started with the first (and probably best) pair, my Oakley Zeros, circa 1995. They were great glasses, and one of only two pairs that I have not broken.
After that, I started the cycle of product failures that I find myself currently in. It started with my great pearl Jackets, which I used (like all of my sunglasses), while riding my road bike. The jackets snapped at the earpiece in the middle of a ride one day. No problem, that is what warranties are for. Sent in my $15 and broken glasses and they replaced them. Not bad. Except that this process of breaking and replacing became an annual affair.
Eventually I went through 3 pairs of jackets and felt the need for a change. As always, I figure that a new model would be more durable. I switched to the hingeless Pro-M with a Hybrid lens. They lasted a bit more than a year, but eventually broke as well. Starting to get old . . .
Oakley then started to come out with some metal framed glasses and I though that this would be a good solution. I splurged on a set of Magnesium M-Frames. It seemed like the perfect solution to their problem of durability with plastic frames. They had spring hinges and were three pieces, with the whole assembly being screwed together with two screws to secure the lens. Sure enough, this solved the problem of broken frames. However, the design was flawed - the stress of screwing and sandwiching the lens in this assembly put too much force and cracked the lenses right down the middle! These glasses lasted about two years, with me breaking first a Fire Iridium lens and then my Black Iridium lens. I have no doubt that this is a poor design, as the Mag-M frames lasted only a few years in production. I called Oakley to see about getting a lens under warranty, but they could only offer a small about of credit towards older designs.
With all of the poor performance, you would think I would learn. Nope! Functionally, when they are in one piece, Oakley sunglasses work great. I am giving them one last chance as I ordered a custom set of Radar glasses yesterday. Still a plastic frame, which makes me very nervous. I hope that the revised design of the nose-piece will take some stress off of the lens.
Time will tell if Oakley has taken durability seriously in their new design; I have my doubts . . .
Topics: Cycling |
April 14th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Great Post, Thanks for sharing it. It is always good to read someone’s else point of view.
I Have bookmarked it for future use.