“Most drivers report much long life” with FM-V visors, and the visor’s coating “not come off when you drive hard rain condition.” Don’t mistake the amusing use of Japanglish on FM-V’s website as an indicator of an inferior product – these are definitely worthy competition to the other two popular mirrored visors available on the market (CaraCoat and LLC from Lucky Design).
I recently got a couple of these fancy looking visors for use on my yet to be “dressed up” plain white Arai SK5 helmet. I now have a selection of two FM-V visors (Green pictured above, and Silver), a standard Arai dark smoke shield as well as the clear one that comes with the helmet.
I was first introduction to mirrored or iridium helmet visors when I got a silver mirror visor for my Bieffe Predator helmet. The first time I had it on track I had to wipe a bit of dirt off and the coating gone and the visor rendered useless with that one wipe! Needless to say I steered clear of mirrored visors for quite some time.
My next experience was a blue Visor for my Bell Helmet and that one had a much higher quality coating on it which lasted a lot longer than the one on the Bieffe. The Bell visor’s coating finally gave way when a bit of water got between my tear-off and the visor – after which I put the coating to test by trying to remove the rest with brake cleaner, fuel, and
The FM-V visors look to have a very high quality coating on them, but having only used the visor for a handful of sessions I’ll have to reserve final judegement on the visors until a few months down the road. One thing that sets the FM-V apart from all the previous coated visors I’ve tried is that they don’t have only one uniform color, rather they have a few different hues as you go from the center to the edges. For example my silver visor is blue at the sides, and the green one goes to blue, red, and then gold.
Visor Choices
FM-V has a massive selection to choose from. The color choices are red, blue, silver, green, gold, and the latest addition brown. All the colors are available on all the Arai visor variations: clear, light smoke, dark smoke, and clear double visor.
Reduced Glare – or is there?
One of the selling points of these iridium/coated/mirrored visors is that they reduce glare and ghosting to improve your vision. After a completely unscientific analysis of driving with a normal smoked visor and a smoked-mirror FM-V visor I honestly can’t say there’s a noticable difference.
Visor Lifetime
While FM-V’s website claims that their mirror coated shields are extremely durable, it depends completely on your definition of the word. FM-V’s manual also states that the coating is very durable, but on the same piece of paper a section on “Visor Lifetime” reminds users that the coating is “very delicate” and visors should be replaced every 6 to 12 months depending on use.
Replacing visors fairly often is a good idea regardless of what kind of a visor you’re using. Many drivers keep the same visors far too long, and scrutineers should actually point out visors that are well past their best-by date. Even if you don’t use these mirror coated visors you should be buying visors a lot more often than you’re buying helmets.
Tear-Offs
You can use tear-offs to extend visor life (I use a new tear-off every race weekend), but even with tear-offs you eventually get scratches that get in your vision which means it’s time for a replacement. Tear-offs can distort your vision a bit and I found that you have to take more care when putting tear-offs on these coated visors because the coating makes the tear-offs more ddsupsceptible daf . A little bit of care when putting on a tear-off is all that is required though.
It’s easy to get used to driving with a visor that is in less than ideal condition – but when you put on a new visor you realise immediately how clear everything suddenly appears!
If you’re thinking about getting one of these FM-V visors an option to extends its life is to keep it as your race weekend only visor and use your normal less expensive visors during practice days. I’ve now relegated my dark smoke visor to practice use, while me clear visor is reserved for when the heavens open up.
Cleaning your visor
FM-V recommends using a diluted dish washing detergent with lukewarm water for cleaning. I recommend to always have a microfibre cloth in your helmet bag which is dedicated to keeping your visor sparkling – and another one that you use for your helmet. The reason for this is that if you happen to pick up some tiny stones when cleaning your helmet and then start wiping down your visor you end up with scratches all over it and ruin your day!
Are there any other Mirror Coated Visors on the market?
As mentioned earlier for Arai helmets there are at least LLC and CaraCoat. For other helmets it is usually the helmet manufacturer that produces the coated visors.
- FM-V www.fm-v.net
- CaraCoat www.caracoat.co.jp
- LLC www.luckydesign.it
To the best of my knowledge all three use original Arai Shields onto which they apply their mirror coatings, so the difference is in the selection available and the coating.
Conclusion
Personally I really like the look of non-coated dark smoked visors on a helmet, but still prefer a nicely coordinated mirrored visor because they look the part in a racing outfit.
You’ll have to plunk down about twice the dosh for a coated FM-V visor compared to a standard smoked Arai visor, and you should expect a coated visor to last you no longer. Obviously it’s not a value for money purchase in absolute terms. A paint job can also double the price of your helmet without giving you any real performance advantage. As with paint jobs, we buy mirrored visors because we want them, not because we need them ;).
Get One
In Malaysia, you should contact SK Wong of Headstrong Helmets and accessories. Check the HeadStrong Helmets Forum Section here on KartingAsia in the Karting Market. He sells the Visors at RM600, which is a very competitive price compared to prices I’ve found online.
A Japanese online store that sells them: http://monocolle-motorsport.com/shop/
This review was written by Mikko Nassi. He has several years of experience using all sorts of helmets with all sorts of visors. 😉