I have always been a connoisseur of sunglasses. When I was a junior in high school, I bought my first pair of Oakley Frog Skins with a blue iridium coating on the lenses. Unfortunately, I sat on them in the car seat within six months. I sent them in and I got my one replacement pair. I don’t remember their final demise but I think I broke them within another year and I was in college, without the funds or the desire to replace them.
In 2005, we went to Maui for my brothers wedding. Since it had been thirteen years since my last ‘expensive’ pair, I decided to treat myself to some wire framed Ray Bans. My hopes that they would be more resilient than the plastic framed Oakley’s. Fortunately, my vision has been pretty good. And, because I live in the more often gray Pacific Northwest, sunglasses season is when the weather is good. So after our trip, I left the glasses in my truck so they would be there when I wanted them.
Whether it was a manufacturing flaw or just the conditions, the polarization film is between two pieces of glass. The film started to contract between the glass looking terrible and clouding vision. I bought these Ray Ban’s at the ubiquitous Sunglasses Hut. They also have a one replacement policy within a year. So, I got another pair of Ray Bans in 2006.
I started treating them with kid gloves or at least I tried. I remember the day in 2012 that I was helping my wife to the car after a follow-up with the doctor from cancer the first time. I wasn’t wearing the glasses but they fell off my person and landed on the temple on cement. That force popped the lens out and tweaked the frame. In my attempt to bend the frame in position to hold the lens, I made it worse and worse. I could get the lens in but then looked terrible on my face. I finally gave up and they were relegated to my basket with wallet and keys.
After giving up on them, I got another pair of Oakley’s in 2019. I told my wife that I still want to fix my Ray Bans. I was always going to… take them to a local optometrist and find out if they could fix them, mail them into a glasses repair service, not abandon them. It was while I was organizing my personal space getting ready to go back to the hospital a couple months ago that I said to myself, fix these or throw them away.
I searched ‘Ray Ban repair’ and one of those heavily advertised sites came up. They had branches in Kirkland, WA and four or five in California. They advertised $39-69 for the average repair and one day turn around service. I really just needed the frames straightened properly so I figured that this was worth the gamble. I followed the instructions and waited. Here is what happened.
After about ten days, they called me and gave me an estimate. I gave the go ahead. About five days later, they called and wanted me to pay. Unfortunately, it was Saturday and I was at a play so I had to return the call on Monday. By Thursday of the next week, I had my glasses back, good as new. The following is the breakdown of the cost.
- $10 Priority Mail to Kirkland.
- $39 for cleaning and repair
- $10 to replace the rubber (optional)
- $10 tax
- $10 to ship them back to me
If you are doing the math, it took about 20 calendar days and $80 to fix. That sure beats twelve years broken. I am pleased with the work and the results. I personally think that the turnaround time didn’t meet my expectations and all the added expense of shipping was quite a bit more than the ads lead me to expect. But, a broken set of sunglasses are not worth the space they have been taking all this time.
As you know, I am a believer in repair. I had asked my eye doctor about repairing old eye glasses that I had with a new prescription. They amped up the risks of broken components, no warranty, risks etc. My belief is that they are more interested in selling new glasses than actually taking care of their customers. So I never pursued fixing my glasses with them. A service that isn’t going to put the fear of god in you to ship something seems more appealing.
These glasses originally cost me around $200 so and $80 repair seems reasonable. I am not sure that they make this model anymore either. Narrower height lenses that stretch across my face are more complementary than big, round lenses. The truth is, my big regret is not doing this years earlier. In fact, at one point my wife was using the case for her sunglasses saying that I didn’t need them anymore. That was true. Nobody should take twelve years to fix something.
End Your Programming Routine: Don’t be like me. If something is important, take care of it. While I wouldn’t say that the repair service delivered on value in both time and cost, I am grateful for the end result and that I could conveniently mail the glasses in and pay for them and they would be fixed. Value is a subjective metric. To me, it was a valuable service. Be prepared to wait and pay but also get what you want.
Recent Comments