We looked at tens of thousands of spare-part orders placed in our stores between January 2023 and October 2026: lenses, arms (temples) and small parts for Ray-Ban and Oakley glasses. The data answers a simple question: when a pair of sunglasses gets damaged, what is it that actually fails?
1. Lenses come first: more than half of all parts ordered
Out of every 100 parts ordered, 56 are lenses, 24 are arms and 20 are small parts such as end tips, screws, nose pads and bridges.
Which parts people order
Split of all parts ordered, in % (2023-2026)
Lenses lead in all six stores. In our German store they make up 72% of orders. In our English-language store the mix is more balanced: half are lenses and almost a third are arms.
Not every lens is replaced because it broke. A scratch right in your line of sight is enough to make sunglasses unpleasant to wear, and some people use the chance to upgrade to polarized lenses.
2. Things rarely break all at once
In 98% of orders, customers replace just one type of part: only lenses, only arms or only small parts. The average order has 1.2 items, and only 0.6% of orders include both lenses and arms.
In other words, one specific thing usually fails while the rest of the frame is still fine. That is exactly when repairing makes more sense than replacing.
3. Oakleys tend to fail at the arms
Ray-Ban accounts for 86% of the parts ordered and Oakley for 14%. The interesting part is what people order for each brand:
Oakley vs Ray-Ban: the arms
What is ordered for each brand, as a % of its parts
Proportionally, Oakley owners order almost twice as many arms as Ray-Ban owners. The Holbrook family (Holbrook, Holbrook XL and Holbrook XXL) makes up 30% of all Oakley parts. For the Holbrook XXL, almost everything ordered is arms: 99% of its parts. It is a low-volume model, but the pattern is clear.
The small share of Oakley small parts partly reflects our catalog, which has far fewer small Oakley parts than Ray-Ban ones.
4. The folding Wayfarer gives way in the middle
The Ray-Ban RB4105 Wayfarer Folding, the one that folds in half, is the model with the second-highest number of parts ordered. It also stands apart: 79% of what people order for it is small parts, not lenses or arms. When customers say which part they need, 9 times out of 10 it is the center bridge, the hinge that lets the frame fold. Here is how to replace the RB4105 bridge.
The Clubmaster (RB3016) shows a similar pattern. Half of its orders are small parts, and two out of three of those are the browbar, the acetate piece that sits above the lens (see how to change the RB3016 browbars).
5. The 10 models with the most parts ordered
The 10 models with the most parts ordered
% of all Ray-Ban and Oakley parts ordered, 2023-2026
The ranking barely changes over time. The same models appear in 2023 and in 2025-2026, with the Justin at number one both times. Positions 11 to 15 are the RB8313, RB3183, RB2140 Original Wayfarer, RB3386 and RB4147 Boyfriend.
6. Summer rules: June has three times the orders of December
In 2023, the last full year in our data, June, July and August accounted for 36% of all orders. June had three times as many orders as December. 2026 follows the same curve, with July at 2.7 times the January level.
Summer rules
Share of 2023 orders placed in each month. Highlighted: June, July and August, 36% of the year.
It makes sense. In summer, sunglasses go everywhere: the beach, the pool, the car. They get dropped and sat on. And nobody wants to wait until autumn to fix the ones they wear every day.
7. Three things to know before ordering a part
- Half of the Ray-Ban lenses ordered are polarized. Among Ray-Ban lenses with a recorded color, 53-55% are polarized, and the share is stable year after year.
- Size matters. For the RB3025 Aviator, two out of three lenses ordered are 58 mm. For the RB2140 Wayfarer, eight out of ten are 50 mm. The size is printed on the inside of the arm, so check it before you order. Here is how to read the serial number of your Ray-Ban.
- 145 mm is the most common arm length. Almost half of the arms ordered are 145 mm, followed by 140 mm (20%) and 137 mm (9%).
Original and compatible parts
Most of the parts ordered are original brand parts: 77% of lenses and 83% of arms. Most of the rest are compatible parts: they are made by a third party to fit these models, and they are not made or endorsed by Ray-Ban or Oakley. On some models compatible parts carry a lot of weight, such as the RB3447 Round Metal (46%) and the folding Wayfarer (40%).
How this study was done
- Source: spare-part orders from our six stores (replacementlenses.net, cristalesrepuesto.com, ersatzglas.com, topverres.com, and the Italian and Portuguese versions of replacementlenses.net).
- Sample: tens of thousands of spare-part orders from 2023 to 2026.
- Who we are: OPTIMEGO (Granada, Spain), a certified EssilorLuxottica distributor since 2018, selling genuine and compatible spare parts through six European online shops.
- Period: January 2023 to October 2026, with gaps. There is no data for the first half of 2024, and several stores only have complete order data from spring 2025.
- What is counted: aggregated figures only, with no customer data.
- What it doesn’t measure: how many glasses break worldwide. It measures what people order when they decide to repair, which also depends on what our catalog offers.
How to cite this study: ReplacementLenses.net, “What breaks on Ray-Ban and Oakley sunglasses”, October 2026. https://replacementlenses.net/what-breaks-on-ray-ban-and-oakley-sunglasses/
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