★★★★★ 5
Almost like they used to be...
Color: Gunmetal/G-15 Green, Lens Width: 55 Millimeters
These are the 3rd pair of Caravans I've owned over the years. The 1st pair were chrome frames and got mangled one time when I had set them on the trunk of the car to fill-up and drove away without them. Went back after only 100 yards or so, but by then they had been clipped by another car and were toast. Kept the lenses, sent the frame back to B&L (when they were still in Rochester -- and when customer service really WAS important to the company) and they sent back a brand-new pair of black-framed beauties -- FOR FREE!
This pair recently experienced a broken frame - right at the junction of the lower curved piece that holds the lens frames together. (How this happened, I have no idea. I was wearing them. Put them in my shirt pocket. Took them out, put them on, and the lens was still in my pocket!) Now, Bausch & Lomb is owned by Luxottica (in Atlanta, GA.) Not entirely friendly, I would say, especially in the tone of the service rep's voice and bluntness. And I was told my only hope of getting any kind of satisfaction was to ship the broken pair to them and after examination they would decide whether it was a manufacturing defect or a customer caused one. Believe me -- there are NO damage marks on these black frames. The frame just cracked due to what? Fatigue, I guess. If judged in my favor they'd give me a substantial discount (40%, I believe) off list price on another pair that they might have in stock at the time. Egads! Talk about leaving you feeling helpless. NONE of the frames and lenses shown were to my liking, so I opted out of that choice and decided to search Amazon for a pair to my liking.
So, this brings me to the new ones -- the subject at hand. The lenses on these are advertised as being 55mm wide, which they are. However, the original Caravans were 58mm wide = a small but perceptable difference, especially in field-of-view coverage AND how they look on your face. The G15 lenses seem to be the same tint, and the color (gun metal grey) is very nice. They fit well, and are what one would expect given the name RayBan. Therefore, I recommend them.
[Footnote: As for my broken 58mm black-framed pair -- I looked up repair shops on the I-net, found 2 that seemed to talk a good game, picked one (in Cincinnati) and shipped them off today to have the frame laser welded. I am keeping my fingers crossed that they'll come back in usable shape (as promised) and I will again have my Old Faithfull's back. $35 to save a no-longer-made classic pair of RayBans is worth it in my book.]
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Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2013
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