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Published July 2026 · Updated August 2026
Published July 24, 2026. Prices and specs checked September 1, 2026.
If you want polarized sunglasses for driving and you want a road back from the thing that will go wrong, buy the Oakley Holbrook in Prizm Black Polarized, $237.00 on Oakley’s own store and in stock there as of this update. It is the only pair of the six whose maker both covers hinge failure under warranty and sells you a replacement lens at a published price when the lens finally goes. The Maui Jim Peahi at $289.00 is the pair to buy if optics matter more than money, because Maui Jim is the only maker here that prints a full repair price list. Skip the Wiley X WX Gravity in the CAPTIVATE polarized build — Wiley X’s own store no longer sells it, and the lifetime warranty everyone quotes for it excludes broken frames, hinges and nose pieces by name.
None of these six pairs has been through this desk, and nothing below comes from wearing them. What is below comes from each brand’s own warranty and repair pages, each brand’s own store listing, published owner ratings with their counts named, and the federal rule that governs sunglass lenses in the United States. Where a figure could not be confirmed at the source, the page says so instead of quoting it. Our editorial standards page covers how we handle that generally.
Jump ahead: what breaks first, and what the six warranties exclude · what each maker charges to re-lens · which two are sold out · the federal impact rule · Oakley Holbrook · Maui Jim Peahi · Smith Lowdown 2 · Wiley X WX Gravity · Ray-Ban Aviator Classic · Rheos Eddies · who should own which
The Lens Goes Long Before the Frame Does, and Nobody Covers the Lens
I have owned a lot of sunglasses and I have never once broken a pair. I have scratched every single one. That is the ordinary arc of owning sunglasses — the frame survives, the coating goes cloudy along the bottom edge where it rides against a console or a shirt pocket, and one morning the sun hits it and you realise you have been looking through a smear for a month.
So I went and read all six warranties, start to finish, looking for that failure. Not one of them covers it. Every brand in this guide writes the scratched lens out by name or by category, and two of them go further and write out the frame parts as well.
Ray-Ban’s warranty page excludes “scratches on sun lenses” outright. Oakley’s is blunter: “Lens scratches are considered normal wear and tear and are not covered, unless you can demonstrate the defect was present at the time of delivery.” Maui Jim’s support article on the question answers it in one line — “Damaged caused by normal wear or accidental damage, such as scratched lenses, would not be covered.” Smith’s policy says scratched or otherwise abused lenses “are not eligible for this replacement service.” And Wiley X, whose lifetime warranty is the reason half its buyers pick it, lists as normal wear and tear “scratched lenses and broken frames, hinges, and nose pieces.”
Read that Wiley X line twice. A lifetime warranty that excludes broken frames, hinges and nose pieces covers the manufacturing defect and essentially nothing an owner will ever meet.
| Brand (model) | Warranty term | What it says about a scratched lens | What else it writes out |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smith (Lowdown 2) | Lifetime, defects only | Scratched or abused lenses not eligible | Accident, improper care, negligence, “normal wear and tear, or the natural breakdown of colors and material through time” |
| Wiley X (WX Gravity) | Lifetime, non-prescription | Scratched lenses are normal wear and tear | Broken frames, hinges and nose pieces; anything bought from an unauthorized retailer |
| Ray-Ban (Aviator Classic) | 24 months | “Scratches on sun lenses” excluded | Accident, abuse, neglect, shock, improper use or storage; unauthorized repairs |
| Oakley (Holbrook) | 2 years, standard eyewear | Scratches are normal wear and tear, not covered | Impact and crushing, improper storage, unauthorized repair — but hinge failure from a manufacturing defect is covered |
| Maui Jim (Peahi) | 2 years | Scratched lenses not covered | Normal wear, accidental breakage, shipping costs, altered lenses or frames |
| Rheos (Eddies) | 1 year frame, 1 year lens | Manufacturer-related lens issues only | Accidental damage and loss; one claim per pair, photo evidence required, and a $20 processing and shipping fee may apply |
The warranty term, in other words, is measuring something almost nobody claims on. It tells you how long the brand will stand behind a hinge pin that was wrong when it left the factory. It tells you nothing about the failure you will meet, which is why the number spread — one year to lifetime, a factor of a lot — ought to carry much less weight in this decision than it usually does.
The owner data points the same way. REI publishes 699 customer reviews on the Smith Lowdown 2 at an average of 4.7 out of 5, and alongside that a recommendation rate of only 71 percent — an unusually wide gap between star average and recommendation for a product rated that highly, and one REI does not explain on the page. Oakley’s Trustpilot profile carries 5,152 reviews at a TrustScore of 2.8, split 59 percent five-star and 30 percent one-star with almost nothing in the middle. That bimodal shape is what a product with a good object and a hard service experience looks like. Neither number tells you a lens will scratch. Both tell you the argument starts after the sale, not before it.
What Polarized Sunglasses for Driving Cost to Keep in One Piece
If the warranty will not fix the lens, the useful question is who will, and for how much. Only two of the six makers publish an answer.
Maui Jim publishes the clearest one. Its repair-pricing article lists non-prescription lenses at $75 plus a standard $15 processing fee, frames at $40 to $95 depending on style plus the same $15, and a replacement temple as a free part where the frame itself is undamaged, again plus the $15. So re-lensing a Peahi is $90 before tax. Do that twice over the life of the pair and you have spent $180 on lenses, which is more than a complete Wiley X WX Gravity costs new at $134.00. Maui Jim also handles nose pads free in most cases and mails them to you.
Oakley publishes a price too, on its own replacement-lens listings. Prizm Deep Water Polarized replacement lenses for the Holbrook XL are $138.00 and in stock on Oakley’s site. That is the XL fit rather than the standard OO9102 Holbrook, so treat it as the shape of Oakley’s pricing rather than the exact figure for the pair reviewed here; Oakley did not list a price I could read for the standard Holbrook polarized lens. The third-party option is much cheaper and much better documented: Revant Optics sells Standard Polarized replacement lenses for the Oakley Holbrook OO9102 at $50.00 a pair, on a listing carrying 3,498 customer reviews at an overall 4.61 out of 5. That is an $88.00 gap on the same job.
Smith sells replacement lenses and describes the ChromaPop, polarized and photochromic options on its replacement-lens page, but publishes no price on that page. Revant lists Standard Polarized lenses for the Lowdown 2 at $50.00 a pair, on 37 reviews at 4.38 out of 5 — a real option, but a hundredth of the evidence base behind its Holbrook lens. For Ray-Ban and Wiley X I could find no published lens-replacement price at either maker at all.
| Brand (model) | Maker publishes a repair price? | What the maker charges | Documented third-party route |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smith (Lowdown 2) | No — lenses sold, no price on the page | Not published; customer pays shipping and taxes on an approved claim | Revant Standard Polarized, $50.00 a pair, 37 reviews at 4.38/5 |
| Wiley X (WX Gravity) | No | Not published; customer pays return shipping, no labels provided | None found |
| Ray-Ban (Aviator Classic) | No | Not published | None checked for this update |
| Oakley (Holbrook) | Yes, on the replacement-lens listing | $138.00 for Prizm Deep Water Polarized, Holbrook XL fit | Revant Standard Polarized for OO9102, $50.00 a pair, 3,498 reviews at 4.61/5 |
| Maui Jim (Peahi) | Yes, a full price list | $75 lenses + $15 processing; frame $40–$95 + $15; temple free part + $15 | Not needed |
| Rheos (Eddies) | Partly, through a membership | $20 processing and shipping fee on a warranty claim; $5 flat fee for members | None found |
Rheos deserves its own paragraph here, because its programme is the one that does not survive arithmetic. The Sun Collective membership costs $5 a month, gives 50 percent off replacement pairs and drops the repair or replacement fee to a $5 flat rate. So a member replacing one broken pair inside a year pays $60 in dues plus $42.50 for the pair plus the $5 fee — $107.50 in total. A non-member in the same year simply buys another Eddies at the $85.00 list price. On one replacement, the membership costs $22.50 more than not having it. It only turns a profit at two replacements in twelve months: $155.00 as a member against $170.00 without. Those figures assume the $85.00 list price holds, that you carry the membership a full year, and that you place no value on the free travel case and early colour access that come with it. Rheos also states plainly that its “Oops” replacement is “not included in our standard warranty,” so this is a purchase, not coverage.
Two of the Six Are Sold Out on Their Own Makers’ Sites
Before this update went out I opened each maker’s own store rather than a retailer, because a listing existing somewhere is not the same as a brand still selling a thing. Two of the six came back empty, and a third came back changed.
Smith’s own store lists the Lowdown 2 at $277.00 with eighteen colour and lens combinations, and every one of them reads “Variant sold out or unavailable.” REI still carries it at $187.00 to $217.00 depending on the build, but as a pre-order, with most pre-orders shipping in thirty days or less. Smith’s own listing includes ChromaPop Glass Polarized builds, so glass lenses are not unique to the Ray-Ban in this guide — the Maui Jim Peahi is glass too.
Rheos shows the Eddies at $85.00 and both colourways — Gunmetal | Emerald and Tortoise | Marine — sold out, with no working add-to-cart. Rheos describes the lens as “100% UV Polarized Nylon Optics.”
Wiley X is the changed one. Its sunglasses collection lists Gravity as a filterable model but shows no Gravity product in the results, and the two CAPTIVATE polarized Gravity product pages that search engines still index both return a 404 at Wiley X’s own domain. The WX Gravity that Wiley X does still sell is $134.00, in stock, ships within one business day, and comes in Smoke Grey or Clear, not polarized — the CAPTIVATE polarized build at $216.00 is no longer listed on Wiley X’s own site.
Ray-Ban is a different kind of gap. The Aviator Classic RB3025 in G-15 Green Polarized is plainly still configurable on Ray-Ban’s own site, so availability is not in question, but neither ray-ban.com nor Sunglass Hut — both Luxottica properties — renders a price to a plain page fetch, and there is no structured price anywhere in either page. Third-party comparison sites quote a price for this model, but I could not confirm one at the source, so no figure appears here.
On safety: I searched CPSC’s recall database for each of the six brands and found no open recall on any of these sunglasses, and a search of Health Canada’s recalls database returned no eyewear recall touching them either — the only wrap-style eyewear recall it surfaced belongs to a different manufacturer’s industrial safety glasses. A clean result is worth stating, because a recall on a page like this is the one thing that would matter more than every price on it. You can check CPSC’s recall listings yourself before you buy anything.
Every Pair Sold in the US Already Passes a Federal Impact Test
It’s worth being precise about safety ratings across this group. Wiley X is not the only pair with a legal safety baseline, and its Z87.1+ rating is not just a marketing badge.
There is a federal floor and all six clear it. 21 CFR 801.410 states that eyeglasses and sunglasses “must be fitted with impact-resistant lenses,” and it specifies the test: a five-eighths-inch steel ball weighing approximately 0.56 ounce, dropped from a height of 50 inches onto the upper surface of the lens. Manufacturers have to keep the test results and the shipping records for three years and produce them to the FDA on request. The FDA’s own impact-resistant lenses guidance, last revised in 2010, is the companion document. So “impact resistant” on a pair of sunglasses sold in the United States is a legal baseline, not a feature.
Z87.1 is also a great deal more than a badge. Wiley X’s own description of what its eyewear is tested to reads “ANSI Z87.1+ Optical clarity and high mass/high velocity impact standards.” A ball bearing dropped from four feet and a projectile fired at a lens are not the same test, and the gap between them is the whole reason a wrap frame with a foam gasket exists. If you ride a motorcycle or drive with the windows down on gravel, that difference is the only spec on this page that could matter to your eye rather than your wallet.
What it does not do is make Wiley X the durable choice. The federal floor and the Z87.1+ rating are both about a lens surviving an impact. Neither has anything to say about the lens surviving a year in a centre console, which is the failure this whole page is about, and which Wiley X’s warranty excludes along with the hinges.
Oakley Holbrook, Prizm Black Polarized — $237.00
Oakley’s own store lists the Holbrook at $174.00 in its base Prizm Grey build and $237.00 for the Prizm Black Polarized variant, both in stock, with 100 percent UV protection to 400nm on a Plutonite lens. If you see $174 quoted anywhere for a polarized Holbrook, that’s the non-polarized price wearing a polarized label — a $63.00 gap worth checking before you buy.
It wins here on the one axis this page cares about. Oakley’s warranty runs two years, shorter than Smith’s or Wiley X’s, but it is the only warranty of the six that names hinge failure from a manufacturing defect as covered rather than excluded. And when the lens does eventually go, there are two priced routes back: Oakley’s own replacement lenses, and a Revant lens at $50.00 with 3,498 reviews behind the fit. Two years of coverage with an exit is worth more than a lifetime of coverage with none.
Skip this if you want a quiet frame. The Holbrook wears its branding on the temple rivets and the square O, and it reads sporty in a way an Aviator does not.
Maui Jim Peahi — $289.00, and the Only Published Repair List
Maui Jim lists the Peahi at $289.00 on its own site, in stock, in SuperThin Glass, which Maui Jim describes as 20 to 32 percent thinner and lighter than standard glass. The Peahi is a glass-lens pair, worth knowing if you’re weighing glass against polycarbonate across this group.
The warranty is two years and Maui Jim says so directly — its own support article titled “Does Maui Jim have a lifetime warranty?” answers no. What it has instead is the repair desk, and it is the reason I would spend this money. $75 plus $15 puts new non-prescription lenses in the frame. A broken temple is a free part plus the $15. Nobody else here will tell you either number before you have already broken something.
Skip this if you lose sunglasses. Nothing about a $289.00 pair improves when it slides off a roof rack, and the warranty covers neither loss nor the accident that caused it.
Smith Lowdown 2 — Sold Out at Smith, $187.00–$217.00 on Pre-Order at REI
Smith’s own store shows $277.00 and eighteen variants, all unavailable. REI shows $187.00 to $217.00 on pre-order, with polycarbonate lenses and a visible light transmission of 14 to 15 percent depending on the ChromaPop tint. Those two figures are far enough apart that I would treat Smith’s as the glass-build price and REI’s as the polycarbonate one, and I would not present either as the price of “a Lowdown 2” without saying which.
The lifetime warranty is real and it is generous on defects. It is also the warranty that spells out the exclusion most vividly — lost, stolen, dropped, sat on, stepped on, run over, shattered, chewed by your pet. Smith is telling you exactly what it thinks will happen to these, and it is not covering any of it.
Skip this if you need sunglasses this week. A pre-order that ships inside thirty days is a fine deal in March and a useless one on the Friday before a road trip.
Wiley X WX Gravity — $134.00, and the Polarized Build Is Gone
The WX Gravity survives on Wiley X’s store at $134.00, in stock, shipping within a business day, in Smoke Grey or Clear. The CAPTIVATE polarized build at $216.00 is no longer sold: those product pages 404 at Wiley X’s own domain, and the sunglasses collection returns no Gravity product at all even though Gravity is still offered as a filter. Third-party sellers still list it, which is exactly the situation where a listing existing somewhere means very little.
What is left is a $134.00 wrap frame with a removable foam gasket and a genuine ANSI Z87.1+ rating, sold in lens tints that are not polarized. For a motorcyclist that is still a defensible buy on the impact spec alone. For a driver looking for glare control, the polarized build was the point, and it’s gone — the lifetime warranty on what remains excludes scratched lenses, broken frames, hinges and nose pieces, the broadest exclusion list of the six. This is the loser of the group as a driving purchase: the polarized build is no longer sold, and the coverage on what’s left protects almost nothing that would actually break.
Skip this if you are buying for glare rather than for impact, or if you buy anywhere other than an authorized retailer — Wiley X voids the warranty on marketplace purchases by name.
Ray-Ban Aviator Classic RB3025, G-15 Green Polarized — Price Not Published
The Aviator Classic is still sold, still configurable in G-15 Green Polarized at 58-14 on Ray-Ban’s own site, and still the design everyone recognises. I cannot tell you what Ray-Ban charges for it. Neither ray-ban.com nor Sunglass Hut returns a price or a structured offer to a page fetch, and I am not going to reprint a third-party comparison’s number as though it came from the maker.
The warranty runs 24 months against manufacturing defects and excludes “scratches on sun lenses” in those words, along with damage from accident, abuse, neglect, shock and improper storage. There is no published lens-replacement price, which for a lens this widely counterfeited and this widely copied by the aftermarket is a strange gap for a brand this size to leave open.
Skip this if you want to know the price before you go looking, or if you want a maker who will tell you what fixing it costs. Two of the six will. This is not one of them.
Rheos Eddies — $85.00, Sold Out, and a Membership That Loses Money
The Eddies is the cheapest pair here at $85.00 and the only one that floats, and Rheos is unusual in publishing a lens durability figure — it says the lenses are engineered to withstand up to 120 hours of continuous saltwater and humidity exposure. That is a real number from the maker, and almost nobody in this category gives you one.
Both colourways are sold out on Rheos’s own store. The warranty is one year on the frame and one year on the lens, one claim per pair, photo evidence required, and a $20 processing and shipping fee may apply — which on an $85.00 pair is close to a quarter of the purchase before you have replaced anything. And the Sun Collective membership, as the arithmetic above shows, costs a single-replacement owner $22.50 more per year than simply buying another pair. That membership is the thing in this guide I would tell someone to avoid outright.
Skip this if you drive more than you boat. Buoyancy is worth real money on a skiff and nothing at all on the interstate, and at this price the optics are the compromise.
Who Should Own Which Pair
Most drivers should buy the Oakley Holbrook in Prizm Black Polarized at $237.00, because it is in stock at the maker, its warranty covers the hinge, and both an official and a well-reviewed aftermarket lens exist at a price you can look up today. If you spend serious hours facing into low sun and you would rather buy once, the Maui Jim Peahi at $289.00 is the better long purchase, purely because Maui Jim publishes what the repair costs and everyone else makes you find out the hard way.
If you ride, buy Wiley X for the Z87.1+ rating and understand that you are buying impact protection rather than coverage. If you want the Aviator, buy the Aviator — it has outlived every trend that ever came for it — but go in knowing you will not find out from Ray-Ban what a new lens costs. And if you want the Smith, wait for stock rather than paying a pre-order premium on a frame whose maker currently has none.
Whatever you land on, the useful habit is the boring one: a hard case in the door pocket rather than the lens down on the console. Every warranty on this page has already told you it will not pay for the alternative.
Prices are approximate, current as of publication, and change frequently — confirm the latest price with the retailer before buying.
If you are kitting out a car rather than a face, our dash cam roundup works through the loop-recording storage math, and our guide to aftermarket head-up displays ran the same maker-availability check this page did, with worse results. For sun and season together, the New England fall foliage packing guide covers the week-by-week timing. More in our Apparel & Fashion Trends archive.
