The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Hi

Firstly, can I say what a great forum this is? I'm a newbie here, but can tell I will be spending a lot of time on these pages in the future...

I wonder if I can ask for some advice / comment?

I have been thinking of changing my Rolex Submariner for a Breitling for some time now. A few days ago, I did a deal with an AD in the Cheshire area and traded my Sub for a secondhand Crosswind B13355.

I had the watch on my wrist for less than 48 hours before it stopped - it would appear that there is a problem with the automatic winding mechanism, as the watch will run when it is manually wound but stops after 40 hours or so.

The dealer did give me a 12 month warranty on the watch, but I am now very concerned - for a number of reasons:

1. I hate buying something that is obviously faulty - I would have hoped that the watch had been fully tested before being sold.

2. Even though the dealer has offered to "take a look" at the watch, it may well have to be returned to Breitling for repair.

3. I have paid a serious amount of money for a secondhand watch - and if it goes back to Breitling it could be months before I see it again.

I'd appreciate your thoughts,

Many thanks,

Andy

Welcome aboard.

If you are actually wearing the watch (and you are not confined to bed or anything), then it definitely should keep running via the automatic winding mechanism. A 40 or so hour power reserve is perfectly normal, so there's no problem with that side of things, but the self-winding mechanism clearly has a problem.

While I'm not going to try to defend the AD who sold it to you, short of someone in the shop wearing the watch (or putting it on a winder for a few days), testing the self-winding mechanism is quite difficult. I guess they probably manually wound it up, saw it was running, and that was it. However, if it's a Breitling AD and they gave you a warranty (which they definitely should) then they should be able to sort it out for you.

Unless they are an approved Breitling repair centre, I'm pretty sure your watch will haver to go to back Breitling, but the AD should IMO be picking up the full cost.

In terms of how long it'll take - official Breitling warranty work (i.e. the 2 year warranty Breitling provides on all new watches) takes precidence over other work, so you may indeed be looking at anything up to 12 weeks. Not ideal, but Breitling provide a very good service so your Crosswind (which is a truly great watch BTW) will come back as good as new.

Alternatively you'd be well within your rights to ask for a refund.

Personally, as long as the AD was going to send it to Breitling for repairs and pick up the full cost, I'd bite the bullet and just be without the watch for a few weeks. In the long run you'll have an iconic watch on your wrist..... but then I'm biased as I've always loved the Crosswind!

Either way, I hope it all works out for you.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

If the watch is from 2004 then it's due for a service anyway, so if that hadn't been performed you were looking at those costs anyway, so I would use this opportunity to leverage the dealer to have the repair and service performed under their warranty. As Breitling will have to open the watch and partially disassemble the movement to deal with the rotor issue then it's not much more work for the service.