I've never been keen on the Arai visor removal system -- it has way too many parts, it's too complicated (see first photo below) and the external "ears" that cover the sides of the clear visor are unnecessary on other helmet visor removal systems like the Shoei.
The shop sales person had a lot of difficulty when showing me how to remove and install the visor, and I've always felt that this process was a hit-or-miss affair. It sounds like something's definitely breaking when the visor is removed and I'm never quite sure whether it's been replaced correctly or not.
Well, my fears have been realized; one day as I was riding, I lifted the clear visor and heard a "pop". The pin holding the cover on the left-hand side broke.
I got off the bike and attempted to figure out what went wrong and how to replace the cover. I tried lifting the right-hand cover off to see if I could tell how it was installed and, wouldn't you know it, that one broke also. There are a couple of plastic pins that are way too easy to break off -- see the second photo below.
Now I have a helmet that's completely unusable, because the covers are the only thing that hold the visor on the helmet. So, you think you can visit Arai's website and find some contact info? Nope... There's no information about this problem, no help and a "Coming Soon" parts ordering system. I wonder if they'll have the correctly painted side covers?
Needless to say, I'm not pleased at all. Not only are the side covers an unnecessary complication, the dealers or somebody has to stock all these parts, driving up costs.
How Arai wins the J.D. Power quality surveys year after year is beyond me. I strongly suspect that it's one of those statistical flukes, where the majority of the people that respond to the surveys are Arai owners who possibly want to say something good about the helmet to justify its high price.
Posted: 04/01/2010 at 15:37
