The Breitling Watch Source Forums

I think you are expecting too much expecting the CEO of breitling to write you back to you personally. You got the best possible outcome with them agreeing for the movement to be replaced. You bought a mid level watch not a luxury Rolls Royce but even if you had bought a Rolls Royce and you had issues with it, the CEO of that company wouldn't write back to you. Every watch company will have unsatisfied customers who will never buy their products again because of poor customer service. After broadly reading the watch forums, I think Breitling has good overall customer service. My chronomat has had no issues since I bought it and you haven't mentioned any issues with your other b01 movement on your navitimer. So i think you are just that really unlucky person who has got a defective one (twice lol). Not sure what the point of you 'snarky' tweet was when they've already agreed to switch your movement. Seems like you want free stuff to me

I have nothing but praise for the service I have received from BUK. Excellent work (albeit at a price) , excellent warranty response. I do question my allegiance to the brand and wonder if I am being short sighted by not exploring other brands. However despite looking seriously at other offerings I can find no alternatives (in my price range) that come anywhere close to Breitling. That said, my favourite models are those from between 1999 & 2010 or thereabouts. CSO, Airwolf, Chrono Avenger, B1, Skyland etc. I'm getting on in years so frankly don't care what's coming as long as I can get my hands on a few of my favourites. They can shove the B50 & B55 up their Grand Canyon because I don't think of them as Breitlings in my interpretation of the brand.

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Breitling B-1 1999
Breitling Chrono Superocean 2004
Casio G Shock
Citizen Eco Drive AT4000-02E (for gardening)
Seiko 5 SNZG15J1
Hamilton X Wind LE

As someone who runs an albeit small company I will never accept a single dissatisfied customer and I sincerely hope I am never so self important that I can ignore a customer who reaches out to me.

I got "the best possible outcome" with sending my watch back for the 6th time, really? So it's acceptable the Breitling had my watch for 30% of the time in its first two years of life . . . because I just bought a mid level watch?

You clearly don't get it, and I don't think there is any way I can explain this in a way in which you will. All I can say is that you are exactly the kind of customer that Breitling wants. I hope Girardin sends you a hat. Good dog.


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Chronomat 01- Sierra Silver/Steel
Navitimer 01- Limited Edition #1337/2000

Good dog.... Very mature. I can tell from all your comments and how you come across, people aren't going to be that responsive to you. If you do end up getting your free breitling cap, don't feel like a hypocrite wearing in whilst mowing the lawn

Next time, try a Grand Seiko Spring Drive GMT chrono SBGC003, caliber 9R86. That movement leaves the B01 right in the dust and has had exactly zero manufacturing defects since its inception in 2007. 12 hour chrono with column wheel/vertical clutch, 50 jewels, 416 separate components, 185 oiling points, every single part made in house down to the lubricating oil, hand assembled and finished by just a handful of Seiko's top watchmakers at their Shinshu Watch Studio in Japan. Far more rare than any other Swiss mechanical chronograph in its immediate price range as less than 1000 are made a year. 72 hours power reserve and did I mention it is 10 times more accurate than a COSC rated mechanical chronograph? That mesmerizing stutter free seconds hand glides smoothly across the dial. Finishing of hands, dials case and bracelet all impeccable. Truly a Watch lovers connoisseur timepiece!


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Sounds an impressive timepiece!


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Indeed they are impressive pieces of kit, but it may be just worth noting that Spring Drive technology is not totally mechanical (if that's remotely a concern to you of course!). Granted it's far closer to being a mechanical watch than something like mecaquartz, which is pretty much a halfway-house between quartz and mechanical, but it still essentially uses a quartz-based technology for the regulator.

Don't get me wrong, they're very cool things and there is absolutely no doubting the quality of their construction, but if you're purely a mechanical watch fan (or fanatic!), then Spring Drive may not be the one for you. Still great watches though.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Apologies bozman, just seen that I failed to reply to this. Don't know what to do to be honest. The slight bezel misalignment I can probably live with. But the floating hand issue bugs me. It always pleased me that mine didn't have it - now the minute hand actually fluctuates by its usual 30 second increment even when you gently move the watch (owners will know what I mean). What inhibits me from sending it for a second eternity is that I know there is a strong element of "they all do that sir" with these watches (and there's always the digi readout if you want bang-on timing). (I actually remember reading somewhere - on the internet, so it must be true... - that the floating-minute-hand thing can be rectified but that battery life suffers a bit in consequence. Lord knows).

All the best.

The floating minute hand is also a by product of Quartz movements with no seconds hands.


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I've never understood that. Which isn't to disagree, I should say - simply that it's beyond my limited watch-comprehension. I have a Casio G-Shock (with no seconds hand) with a minute hand which moves similarly to the Aero (only in 20-sec rather then 30-sec increments), and it's rock-solid.

Well there's no such thing as a 'floating' seconds hand, it's just the speed of the individual ticks that gives the illusion of floating. Recent mechanical innovations in super high beat movements make it possible, but mechanical movements can only tick once per escapement movement. In quartz the movement is once per electrical pulse which can obviously be faster but more pulses means shorter battery life which is why historically quartz movements have been 'dead beat' once per second ticks. Rechargeable batteries - solar or otherwise, make more frequent pulses more feasible.

Well, she's finally back. The watch has a new movement (it's 2nd full replacement movement since new, 3rd movement in total that's been in the watch) and seems to be working fine for now. It took 3 months in total. I still never heard anything directly back from any Breitling executive. I was only ever contacted by junior level customer service reps, which is hugely disappointing. Basically, nothing about my experience ever exceeded expectations. After 6 trips back to fix the same problem, I expect better out of a company that produces luxury goods 100x more expensive than the mainstream equivalent.

I have been hard on Breitling thus far, but I will give them a couple pieces of credit, although none of these things actually exceed my expectations. First, the BUK After Sales Service Director, Nick Towndrowe, wanted to hand deliver my watch to me (if I lived/worked in London). This was a nice gesture, but as I'm in Cambridge, this didn't work out. I would have loved to chat with him face to face, though.

Second, BUK did not charge me for the service. Again, a very nice gesture, but I sort of expected this after all I've been through up to this point. Especially because the watch has never worked correctly since new, it was really a given in my mind that I wouldn't be charged, as I perceived this as still effectively being under warranty. Nonetheless, BUK definitely seemed like they were going to charge me this entire time, so I was surprised to get the service free of charge. The full service on a B01 is £580 in the UK.

Overall, I feel like Breitling treated an exceptional circumstance as a routine occurrence. None of this sits well with me and I'm incredibly disappointed that no one from the exec team responded even after being prodded. Breitling does seem to have developed an overarching arrogance that it doesn't actually have to try to please customers anymore. All the issues with unhappy B50 customers also support this stance.



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Chronomat 01- Sierra Silver/Steel
Navitimer 01- Limited Edition #1337/2000

But let me ask you this, if you have a marmite car right out of the factory, do you expect the company CEO to get in touch with you? I see what you are seeing but that is not a realistic expectation.


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Spring drive movements are truly smooth and stutter free. Everything in those movements move in one direction: Forward. There is not back and forth pallet forks or anything. I have owned 5 Spring Drive watches and not even mechanical hi beats can match the stutter free nature of those movements.


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