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Ive got this lens in a pair of Holbrook.
I’ve had no durability issues with my other prizm lenses but the ruby have really scratched up and the coating is going crinkly and coming off around the edge at the frame. They’ve had an easy life compared to the ones i use for sport as well.
is this a fault they’ll warranty or are these flashy coated lenses just super fragile and short lived? Ie replace with a different lens when it gets too bad. Are there any others to avoid?
I think I’ve had a black iridium before and prism trail torch and they’ve both lasted well but they’re not as reflective as this 
and good luck..
you've done well not to have the other prizm lenses scratched to hell just by taking them out into the wild.
Over the years I've been something of an Oakley fan. More recent models I have owned, in many cases, have had similar issues, definitely worse on the reflective coated models - I have previously sent for warranty (if within) and had replacements sent back to me.
These days Oakley customer services (given they're now part of Luxottica, or whatever, supercorp) is nowhere near as good as it was and you'll need the receipt and it to be in warranty (if not they may give you a 20% off voucher).
The issues I have had are seemingly limited to full frame models (Frogskin, Holbrook, Enduro) and tend to be the ones I wear on holiday, so I'd advise being careful to clean well to get sweat/suncream/salt off them.
Personally I've just sourced new lenses from The Sunglasses fix or Revant rather than spending double on replacement lenses that will just fail again. I've also not bought a new pair of Oakley's for a while now, I'd buy 'riding' glasses again as my experience there has been good, but I'm less inclined to buy more 'casual' glasses, but there's so many more options out there then there used to be.
My last two pairs of Oakley's (one prizm, one normal but coated with something) have both had the coating peel / scratch off. The Prizm ones were expensive so I contacted Oakley to be told they weren't covered because I'd let them come into contact with salt water. They were marketed as sailing glasses with a specific Prizm coating to reduce glare on water!!!
Needless to say after being a fanboi for 30 years and probably 10-12 pairs, my days of buying Oakleys are over and I'd never touch the brand again.
I have had 2 warranty replacements from Oakley for defective coatings. They seem to be made of cheese, tbf the 1st pair I wore in an indoor pool, just resting them on the diving board while I swam, they lasted a year despite me washing them after.
Second pair I just wore normally, they lasted 18 months.
Both warranty replacements handled by indie optician.
Another here with the coating coming off.
Had a pair of Fast Jackets' (rim on top half only) - mirrored coating eventually worn off from both thr lower portion (maybe have been partly due to actually putting them into the slotted case made by... Oakley ! The amber pair of lenses definitely started to bubble on the coating too.
Current Flak Jscket 2.0 (again half frame) - blue mirrored coating coming off after far shorter time.
Riding glasses - I went for some Sunwise and have been really pleased with their photochromic glasses. Cost 60% of a pair of Oakleys.
Seems the Luxotica mafia-eswue forced sale takeover has brought them down to the lowest common denominator.
Which quality maker is left that's not a Luxotica brand these days ?
Keep the frames and get some new lenses from sunglasses fix. The only shame is they don't quite have the same colour contrast
Quality is crap with Oakley these days. Plenty of threads on the Reddit Oakley fanboi pages about peeling lenses with little recourse from Luxottica customer services.
So many corners being cut by them these days that they are hardly worth the premium. I once had brand new pair turn up with the Prizm lense coating permanently discoloured / faded under the 'Prizm Lens' marquee sticker. Apparently has happened to others e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/Oakley/comments/14yanb6/prizm_sticker/ . I can only guess that the lens coating somehow reacts to the adhesive in the sticker.
The salt thing mentioned by posters above is definitely an issue on their coated lenses which is crackers considering these glasses are supposed to be designed for sports = coming into contact with salty sweat every time they are worn. It can be alleviated / reduced by running them under lukewarm water after every ride but when you spend more time mollycoddling your sunglasses than riding then one needs to question one's priorities, when decent cycling-specific sunglasses can be had from cheaper brands for half the price.
Just in case anyone wants a replacement. I have a pair of virually brand new Oakley Holbrook Polarized Ruby Prizm lenses that I bought and used for a about a month then ended up having some prescription lenses fitted as I struggle with contacts nowadays.
Think I paid about £100 with the STW discount, would happily take £60 for them posted.
Customer service used to be a justification for the premium for me but I knew that had gone. 3 1/2 years old so definitely won’t get anywhere. that you can actually buy replacement lenses is the reason I still buy them.
@ads678 might get back to you, though that’s still more than the non polarised with discount. (And I’m more tempted to get something without the flashy coating as that seems to be the issue)
Have had many issues with Oakley lenses recently. In the family we have roughly 7 pairs - both sun and riding / skiing glasses with various shades of lense tints. We’ve also got 5 pairs of ski goggles (Prizm jade iridium and Prizm ruby). Aside from the fact they seem to erase replacement lenses from their catalogue after 18months, the lens’s durability is rubbish. We’ve had coatings come off the outside, the inside, the double glazed goggles become fogged up interstitially. Excuses from Oakley include “they don’t tolerate: sweat / sun cream / the heat / the cold / cleaning.”
We’re slowly moving to sun god for ski eyewear or replacing oem lenses with Revants which are finally again available here - we’ve found these excellent.
if you whinge Oakley sometimes give you 30% off a replacement. I bet they don’t have direct replacement lenses though.
@b33k34 - yeah no worries. Feel free to make me an offer if you're interested. I was thinking of seeing if I could find a cheap pair of Holbrook frames with scratched lenses to put my good ones in and give them to my son, but even they go for about 60 odd quid on eBay!
I have recently put some Revant brand lenses in some old Oakley Whisker sunglasses I had. So far they have been nice and they were not too costly ( £45 ).
Which quality maker is left that's not a Luxotica brand these days
Julbo? Randolph?
Just got some Vuarnet glasses via a work gifting event, nice glasses and not Luxoticca (but now owned by LMVH).
Interesting thread. I just took delivery of a pair of Oakley Twoface glasses yesterday to replace my previous pair that started pitting after about 7 years of heavy use. It sounds like I shouldn't expect my new glasses to last as long! I didn't realise though that you could get non branded replacement lenses, I think I will get a pair to refresh my old shades. Cheers
It is a shame about Oakley customer service not being what it was. I remember many years ago if you scratched your lenses or broke a frame, you could pick up a postage paid box from any Oakley retailer, send them away and they would come back like new, sometimes with replacement lenses, all free of charge. That type of customer service built brand loyalty that lasts years, but can then be undone with one poor experience, (or the reading of others experiences on STW!)
Which quality maker is left that's not a Luxotica brand these days
Maui Jim seems to be the one that gets mentioned on forums but they’re owned by a luxury brand group now and at c£250 for Holbrook like styles seriously expensive.
I just bought some cubitts prescription glasses and construction is a world away from Oakley. Solid acetate, zeiss lenses, nice case. £150. You can have them with non prescription lenses.
they’re not sport styles but as an alternative to aviators/wayfarers seem much better value.
I've got some POC lenses that have done the same if it's any comfort.
Maui Jim seems to be the one that gets mentioned on forums but they’re owned by a luxury brand group now and at c£250 for Holbrook like styles seriously expensive.
I'm a fan of Maui Jim - I like the frames and the lenses are great. But they are expensive, and if you scratch the lenses you're back in the same boat of new glasses or new lenses - so no way I'd wear them for biking or running
Recent have standard / polarized/ elite polarized have you tried the elites?
I have, yes - I've some Elite Polarized with titanium mirrorshields in a pair of Carbon Shifts. They're at least as good as prizm polarized black iridium. My wife has some Plazma Purple Mirrorshield Elite Polarized in some Cohorts that are really good. Essentially you can get Revant's best lens for the price of Oakley's basic lens and not give any more money to Luttoxiter.
I used to visit our HQ in Aliso Vejo quite regularly. Oakley's HQ is down the road in Irvine so we'd head up at lunchtime on slack days. Was a really cool place with a pump track in the car park, helicopter seats in the foyer, 100% Oakley as you'd imagine it. They had a service counter where you'd drop your shades in and they'd refurb them FOC while you looked at the steampunk bits & pieces in the half-light. I even took my brother's Timebomb watch in for servicing every couple of years. Again this was free & they're replace everything they could: strap, face, winder, rechargeable cell.
Luttoxiter took over and overnight it all changed. They ran out of inventory of everything, the Timebomb technician was laid off, if your shades weren't in production suddenly nothing was available. The staff went from the happy people who clearly had a love of their employer and buy in to the company to disgruntled drones. The factory out the back became a warehouse for import of plastic tat from wherever was cheapest that week. It was really sad.
if you like Holbrooks you might like SunGod renegades. They regularly have bogoff offers or you can buy them through the mclarenplus store & get 10% off them or vulcans year round.
Sungod now do prescription (they didn't last time I looked), you can get a set of Prescription Renegades with normal (not thin) lenses for £160, which strikes me as quite good.
A set of equivalent Oakleys, which would be Holbrooks, would be £300.
Which quality maker is left that's not a Luxotica brand these days
I just bought some cubitts prescription glasses and construction is a world away from Oakley. Solid acetate, zeiss lenses, nice case. £150. You can have them with non prescription lenses.
they’re not sport styles but as an alternative to aviators/wayfarers seem much better value.
to be clear world away = massively better.
I’ve just found out my Oakley Flakjacket with purple prizm lens is peeling at the edge and it appears to be cloudy, they’ve been sitting up on bookcase for years and were perfect as far as I can remember, thought I’d give them to mum for her summer rides but they’re not really wearable anymore.
I’ll have a look through the posts above and see what biking sunglasses folk recommend instead of Oakley.
Here we go again.
How old are they?
Here we go again.
How old are they?
Dunno exactly but I guess (according to my pics) 17 years or so.
Personally I've just sourced new lenses from The Sunglasses fix or Revant rather than spending double on replacement lenses that will just fail again.
This, absolutely. Revant have only recently come back onto the European/UK market, which is brilliant, because their lenses are excellent quality and cheaper than Oakley’s own, plus they can do lenses that Sunglasses Fix are unable to do, like M-Frames, for example - I’ve got some Si M-Frames, which are specifically designed for military use, and PPE by default; they’re a lot more substantial, and the lenses are held in place with a clip and pin through a hole in the top centre of the lens, which means if there’s any impact on the glasses, the lens cannot pop out of the frame. I bought the Revant Fire Iridium equivalent for about £80, and they’re bloody good!
Sunglasses Fix do Oakley replacement lenses which Oakley cannot do, do, like lenses for their ultralight WHY frames, which were only available as an Rx lens frame - I bought some WHY 4 frames years ago, but stopped using them when I went over to contact lenses, so I was thrilled when I found out that Sunglasses Fix did lenses, in fact I’ve just ordered a new pair of lenses in a Fire Iridium coating, as I found someone selling some frames on eBay with clear Rx lenses in, so snapped them up. The other pair have blue mirror coatings - they’re roughly between £40-50, so much cheaper than Oakley.
So got carried away and bought 2 pairs of Revant lenses when a 20% discount code came up - a red set to replace the above and a rose gold to put in my black frames. Ended up being £81 delivered for 2 pairs of elite polarised. Kind of overpackaged - slipbox/box/lens bag (would rather they cut a few £ off the price). Look fine to me but time will tell longevity.
Cheers peeps for the revant replacement lens heads up, finally got round to ordering the lenses below for my old Oakley flak jacket xlj as the prizm lenses are absolutely knackered, ordered the mirror sun elite polarized with new arm/nose rubber bridge kit, with the discount code @15% it came to £57 eek 🫣.
duplicate
Revant lens arrived and fitted to Oakley half jacket XLJ but they were ever so slightly larger than the original Oakley Prizm lens, this was only noticeable when placing old/new lens on top of each other so I hope the lens doesn't suddenly pop out
I had to soak the Half Jacket frame in near enough boiling water to get the new revant lens fitted, the replacement temple rubbers were a poor fit so I washed the original and reused them, the new earsocks are fitted as are the nose bridge rubbers.
