When I purchased my 2016 Ultra Limited in March most of my early riding was done with my full face helmet/clear shield. When I switched to my sunglasses with polarized lenses I noticed what appears to be a multi color discoloration in the shield that resembles what you see when there is a small amount of oil on the surface of water. Without my sunglasses the shield is perfectly clear. My original plan was to replace the OE shield with a recurve so I purchased a polycarbonate recurve shield thinking that would resolve the discoloration issue. Same discoloration in the new polycarbonate shield as the OE shield. Have since purchased an acrylic shield that displays no discoloration. I've been told the only way to eliminate the discoloration with the polycarbonate shields is to switch to non polarized lenses. I've done a significant amount of research and can't find any threads that address this discoloration issue. Is it just me????

 

Not just you. Almost all polycarbonate out there has a hard coating on it. Polycarbonate is a very soft and easily scratched material. Once it gets a hard coating on it, it is an excellent, scratch resistant material for a windshield and countless other things. What you are seeing is the coating. Hold the shield under fluorescent lights, or through polarized lenses and you will see "rainbowing". Some are more subtle, others are very obvious and "blotchy". Polycarbonate is pretty much the exact same no matter who makes it, however each plastics manufacturing company has its own proprietary hard coating. Not only the coating itself, but also the method of application. They all achieve the same thing, but you'll see that "rainbowing" looks a little different on each one. This is just something you can not get away from.

 

Thanks for the explanation James, I had always wondered about the rainbow effect but it never really bothered me.

 

My Polarized sunglasses do the same thing with a bunch of stuff. Sort of drives me crazy. Even looks weird through my daily driver car's tinted windows. I stopped wearing the glasses.

 

Polarized sunglasses suck for driving/riding. Can't read GPS or displays and the windshield rainbow is alive. I've switched to non polarized glasses.

 

The windshield on my bike isn't such an issue with polarized glasses but the GPS etc is.. if you just turn your head a little one way or the other the screen pops back up.

 

I use polarized sun glasses everywhere but have a set of non for the bike.

 

Agreed as said, but they are the chit riding thru the desert in a cloudless sun.

 

Obviously everyone's eyes are different. I have used polarized non prescription sunglasses for at least 20 years and have never had a problem reading GPS or LCD screens, or instruments on bikes or cars. I won't ride without them.

 

You must be one of the lucky ones.