Just thought I’d post this after discovering a new thing ‘not to leave in a hot car’. We all know not to leave your dog, wife, kippers, chocolate teapot, etc in a hot car. But to my expense I’ve discovered not to leave prescription glasses in a hot car.
My spare pair of variofocals I use for driving (due to react-to-light coating) now have thousands of little scratch like fractures across the surface of the lens. We’re not talking cheap lenses either that might be lower quality and more prone to distortion. Nor were they left on a dashboard in direct sunlight. They were in fact in the pop down glasses holder that sits just above the rear view mirror. So the very place the manufacturer intended glasses to go.
A quick look around the Net concludes it is not a good idea to leave your prescription glasses in hot places…and this is what happens if you do.
So a lesson learned the expensive and hard way…and one I thought I’d pass on….now that Saharan summer temperatures might be here to stay.
But I was wondering if there is anything else we previously would have left in our cars over summer, that perhaps we shouldn’t from this point on?
Read somewhere that to reinvigorate reactorlite specks the answer is to leave them in the freezer overnight.
Never tried it but if already damaged might be worth a try.
I can try. But it’s not the react-to-light feature that’s the issue. Ironically that still seems to work. It’s the tiny crazed surface. When I put them on things appear smeary, like there’s oil or grease on the surface. Obviously I’ve thoroughly cleaned them and it’s not that.
Ha….they were actually ‘put together’ by Specsavers, but they weren’t Specsavers varifocal lenses. I have special lens ordered in from a different company. I tried Specsavers top of the range varifocals a few years back, but couldn’t get on with them. My lens add about £200to the bill.
Worth having a look at Glasses Direct. My wife and I both get our glasses from them and have never had any problems. They have a no quibble money back guarantee if you aren’t happy with your glasses. Would imagine they could produce lenses to any specification. Doesn’t hurt to ask.
Thanks Roadie. I have used them many years back for reading glasses mainly. The main challenge I have is one aspect of my work involves sometimes spending long periods of time behind a video camera having to manually focus via a reasonably small screen. So my lenses need to be just so in terms of the various places and distances (at certain angles) things are in focus.
About a decade ago whilst on a job in Taiwan I had some top of the range varifocals made. Prices are a lot lower out there. Since then whatever varifocals lenses I’ve tried haven’t been a good match for me. So I’ve ended up using the same brand of lenses from my Taiwan glasses in recent years. So then it’s a case of using the cheapest opticians to fit them into fairly decent frames. Specsavers fit the bill for this.
I’ve not used an online opticians because adjustments will always be needed to make the glasses sit exactly where they have to. Something the online opticians can’t offer sadly.
Back in the days you could borrow vinyl LPs from your local library I left a copy if Physical Graffiti by Led Zeppelin in the boot of my Dad’s Cortina on a hot sunny day-that was an expensive mistake (for a 15 year old) I only made once!
Got in mine this afternoon, temperature 30+, roof off, sat down, black leather seats scorching, steering wheel not much better. My glasses stored just in front of the gear lever were thankfully ok.
In the long hot summer of '76, five of us who had just finished 6th form squeezed into a Singer Chamois and pootled off to Brighton for a couple of days. On the final evening, a half eaten bag of prawns was left in the car. Even with all windows open, the ride home the following afternoon was somewhat pungent.
Around 1990 I had a black Rover 820 fastback. I remember one August day leaving it out in the middle of an airfield all day where an event was going on. Must have been ridiculously hot inside all day, when I went home, the speedo needle just flapped around all over the place, fried electronics. Fortunately the rev counter was still operational and I knew the revs for the various speed limits…
I would add that it’s unwise to leave your clay bar anywhere warm. It oozes out like something from the Quatermass Experiment and is impossible to remove from the fabric on the seat by our front door !
Much depends on the lens material and whether there’s a coating applied, so some people will have a problem but others will be OK. I have an anti-reflection coating on plastic lenses and for years I have left my specs in the car with no problems. I recently noticed a small blurred spot in one lens. Looking at it with a magnifying glass, I initially thought the lens was scratched, but looking closer the surface seemed rippled. The ripples are due to the coating expanding and contracting at a different rate from the lens material. Normally, this difference in the co-efficient of expansion is not significant, but recent temperature extremes will have caused in-car temperatures above 50C. Objects on the dashboard, in direct sunlight could be heated to 70C.
Also try Asda opticians, generally a lot cheaper than Specsavers with a good range of lens types including reactolite they will tell you the maker if you ask. They are a proper optician with a range of frames you can try on in store and they do eyetests. In Specsavers I couldn’t find a rimless frame wide enough for my bonce, and the best fit was priceyin Asda found a frame with two pairs, premium varifocal lenses for less than the cost of the Specsavers one.
Not all Asda stores have an optician, but the online store website will have the info.
