The Breitling Watch Source Forums

I'm bit disappointed with my Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute LE B02 Movement.

I purchased on the internet, paid about £2700 (second hand) for this watch and it turns out after 40 days wearing it that the chrono is malfunctioning and the worse is that when I purchased it it came without the warranty card and COSC certificate. I took it to Breitling Boutique to order this certificate and I'm expecting to receive tomorrow but with no warranty card I can't get the 5 years warranty.

The watch works fine and hold its power for around 72 hours. The problem is if I use the chrono it stops after 1 hour and I have to manual rewind it a little bit and stop using the chrono.

Does anybody have any idea how much it will cost to repair? Is it normal this kind of problems?

There are a lit of threads about B01 chrono problems and the B02 is effectively the same movement. I would try and find out where the watch was first sold to get proof of purchase, maybe even from the original owner - the watch should still be under warranty because it hasn't been around for 2 years (5 years only kicked in on Jan 1st) so unless it was a grey market watch you may be ok. Otherwise service costs on the in house movements are around $700.

Assuming the original owner did not buy it from a grey market seller.
Just to add - "5 years only kicked in on Jan 1st" of 2012.

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"It is just a matter of time!"

Yeah that was a rather bad typo - thanks Wes!

All correct in terms of the reponses above, but just thought I'd add that £2700 is a superb price IMO for an in-house Cosmonaute. Get the problem fixed and you have an absolute bargain on your hands.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Thanks guys! You are right. I still feel I have an absolutely bargain but I have to say though I have only worn a few times this watch since I bought it and I can't believe it's already having problems. I have owned several Breitling watches in the past and worn it every day for years and never had any single issue. I thought it would be the same with a in-house movement. Anyway.. Let's see how much they will charge me and I guess where I purchased the watch from they will issue me a refund of the cost. I'm also being very persuasive with Breitling to do the work for free without the warranty card. Let's see!

Personally (and again, for the price you paid) if you like the watch, then I'd definitely keep it. It really is an unrepeatable bargain at £2700. A quick look on Chrono24 and you'll see you'd almost be hard pressed to pick up a 10 year old standard Navi for that kind of money.

As others have said, there are definitely a larger proportion of people with issues with the in-house movements compared to the old ETA based ones. Lots of threads on it, but in some ways it is kind of expected to a certain extent as there's only so much that laboratory testing will tell a company about how a movement will perform in the real world. The ETA movements have between 40 and 60 years of real world usage, so any issues have been long ironed out. Not making excuses for Breitling here at all, but new movement issues can happen to the best of them. You just need to take a look at Omega with the well documented 33** series movement issues.

I have no doubt Breitling will iron the issues out, but I think you may struggle to get them to do it under warranty. Worth a try though.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Finally, after 2 months of waiting, Breitling has fixed it. The good thing is that they gave me 25% discount for the wait.

Happy Ending, That's Great!!!

Cheers,

Enezdez

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IWC - Big Pilot 5002 - 01
IWC - Pilot Chrono 3717 - 04
Panerai - 183
Omega - Speedmaster 145.012 / 67
Rolex - Explore II (Black Dial) - 216570
Rolex - Explore I 114270
Blancpain FF 5015

Happy ending and a 25% discount?

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"It is just a matter of time!"

I'm glad to hear it's been repaired. From my past experience of sending my B01-powered Chronomat back to BUSA 4 times for the same problem (chrono related), I can't help but tell you to be skeptical of the repairs. I'd recommend using the chronograph extensively in different scenarios. Mine appeared to work fine at first glance, but after a few days of playing with the chrono, I got the problem to pop up again after each "repair."

My chronograph sweeping hand had the appearance of it "skipping" at certain places on the dial. Technically, it was moving in 1/2 second increments instead of 1/4 second increments at certain places. After the 4 trip, the minute-counting subdial would sometimes jump forward 1 minute upon initiating the chrono. I've stopped sending it back and just live with the issues now, as BUSA clearly can't find a remedy. I suggest you look for both of these issues, as I know I was not alone in experiencing the latter one.

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

Hmm sorry to raise this up from the depths.. But I reckon this is the watch I just missed out in buying..it was a bit of a bargain for the latest model.. I did like the mercury case back....

Glad to hear you got it all sorted in the end...