The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Blackey-Grey is nice too... I have a "creamy-silvery" dial Breitling, the Grand Premier, and this dial is really something special, cannot define the exact color, but beautiful. Readability is awful though - no problem here with THIS watch, as I use it only for rare evening occasions when my suit does not match my black-dial Grand Premier but I wouldn't choose such a (otherwise beautiful) dial for a weekday or a 7/24 wearer.

If I'll have time I'll post a scan with all my 4 Lings (3 with modifications...)

Enjoy!
Robert

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Chronomat 41 BEB, Steelfish Chrono BEB, 2x Grand Premier, Chrono Cockpit 39 mm, Aerospace Avantage 79362
IWC 3706, 3705, 376706, 371928
Sinn 103 plexy
For sale: Sinn 356 II, Porsche Design Titan Chrono Valjoux
Wanted: Breitling Blackbird 13353 on bracelet

"If I'll have time I'll post a scan with all my 4 Lings (3 with modifications...)"

Great, please. V.

Here it goes, excuse me for the bad quality phone shot.
I enjoy the 39 mm Chrono Cockpit as a daily wearer, but hopefully this will be replaced by the 41 mm Chronomat BEB dial, while the Grand Premiers are the suit-and-tie ones, cream dial to go with cream, brown etc. suits and the black dial goes well to the way more often used black, dark blue and grey suits. The 42 mm CSO is the one for week-ends and holidays, where the day-date is extremely important for me.
Best,
Robert

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Chronomat 41 BEB, Steelfish Chrono BEB, 2x Grand Premier, Chrono Cockpit 39 mm, Aerospace Avantage 79362
IWC 3706, 3705, 376706, 371928
Sinn 103 plexy
For sale: Sinn 356 II, Porsche Design Titan Chrono Valjoux
Wanted: Breitling Blackbird 13353 on bracelet

Beautiful! The first on the left is an extremely nice dress watch. My favourite of your watches.

"However, in house movements are now coming with a 5 year warranty as long as seals are inspected regularly in that period so that helps with peace of mind."

A side question. Roff & the others: Do you think, that ...

A) Breitling offer this expanded 5 year warranty period in order to calm down customers (because THERE MIGHT BE some minor issues with the caliber that require long-term observation - the customer as beta-tester) - that would be a pure marketing decision to generate more credibility and sales...

or ...

B) Breitling does so because THERE ARE NO serious issues anymore with their caliber and they can "afford" offering such a long period (technical/economical decision)?

What do you think?

V.

There definitely have been issues, but I suspect that they offer the warranty as a marketing ploy and to help justify the significant price difference between in house and ETA,

So you vote towards A and question the official statement of Breitling: Vice-CEO of Breitling gave an interview (last year) and he indicated B (technical "we demonstrate the B01 flawless quality by expanding the period to 5 years"). However, this is marketing too, of course, regardless of which reason is really true in the end.

Well the in house movement is not flawless - no production process is of course, but just search the site and you'll find many, many people who have had issues with it. It shouldn't be a surprise that Breitling executives spout marketing hyperbole. This is the company who took out a two page ad to claim that the B01 was "The best chronograph movement in the world. End of discussion."

To be honest, I wouldn't worry about the reason for the extended warranty too much if I was you. Either way a longer warranty can only be a good thing IMO.

Personally I would say that in the 4 years that the B01 movement has been in production, it's not been shown to be inherently fragile or of a fundamentally poor design. Sure there have been a couple of minor teething problems for a number of people, but that was always to be expected with a brand new movement.

It's also difficult IMO to judge true numbers of issues (for either ETA-based or in-house movements) from forums such as this. Experience shows that a large number of people will join forums just to moan about an issue they have, tell everyone "not to buy Breitling as my Rolex never had a problem", etc, and then just disappear off the face of the Earth. Bear in mind we see a fair few people reporting about issues with ETA-based pieces as well.

With a 5 year warranty, the B01 will almost be a decade old when the warranty expires on a B01 equiped pieces bought today. A decade should be more than adequate for Breitling to solve any minor issues they have found.... and while there have been a few issues reported, my opinion is that they are fairly minor in nature.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Thanks Roff & Driver. Well, Driver, it's not that I would be worried. My questions were rather out of curiosity nature. However it's good, that this forum cultivates something like factual objectivity (not too much absorbed by brand and image of this admittedly wonderful company). I like that. And yes, people reporting failures come and go, but keep in mind, that only one tenth (or less) of all customers having had problems do report it here. The other majority don't let others know about their disappointments. That's true too. Kind regards, V.

Hi,

I bought my TOC with the B01 caliber last August from an AD in Norway. Unfortunately, it was dropped while passing through airport security in October which required a replacement crystal. This replacement was performed by the AD from which I bought the watch.

Over the past 20 days I've been monitoring the accuracy of the watch as I thought it was loosing time. My records indicate that over this period the watch has lost 95 secs. My understanding is that this is outside of the COSC standard.... just.

I'm concerned that dropping the watch has impacted the movement. When the watch was returned to me I inquired if it was overhauled as I was concerned that small parts of the broken crystal had entered into the movement. Should I be concerned?

I plan on returning the watch to the AD to notify them of the lost time. In getting the watch back to COSC standards would this be covered by warranty?

I do not think that adjusting the watch after dropping to the floor is expected to be covered by warranty, but they can do it of course to bind the customer to the brand. Good luck mate and let us be informed how things work out.

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Chronomat 41 BEB, Steelfish Chrono BEB, 2x Grand Premier, Chrono Cockpit 39 mm, Aerospace Avantage 79362
IWC 3706, 3705, 376706, 371928
Sinn 103 plexy
For sale: Sinn 356 II, Porsche Design Titan Chrono Valjoux
Wanted: Breitling Blackbird 13353 on bracelet

The movement was compromised by the broken crystal so even if no shards got in to the movement there could have been dirt or other contamination. I suspect that your AD will simply regulate the watch which will be a quick fix, but might not be a permanent solution, it's worth doing as it might solve the problem, but be wary of any other problems that crop up.

A short status update - took the watch into the AD and has been regulated free of charge. Will keep an eye on it for the next couple of weeks.