The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Just taken delivery of my first Breitling (hence joining up here)

It's a Colt Quartz A74380. It came today dead on arrival. It's a second hand eBay purchase, and there's some movement on the second hand (it'll move backwards and forwards one step a couple of times after the crown is pushed in after being left in position 3 for a few minutes.) but left alone nothing, not even the second hand moves. Holding the watch to my ear I can hear a faint tick precisely every two seconds.

I'm guessing the battery is flat? The watch isn't two years old until 05/12/11, is it likely to be covered? If Breitling are likely to get it going again under warranty that'd be preferable to sending it back to the seller, messing about with a refund and buying a new one, but if there's a chance it's something more, and that by the time the watch arrives back from repair I'm left with a dodgy watch, a big repair bill (relative to the watches value) and no recourse through eBay or PayPal due to being outside of their timescales.

I'm a little peeved as I only bought this as a daily watch due to it's supposed ruggedness and long battery life, so it's a bit unfortunate that it may have turned up knackered.

I guarantee that the watch won't be two years old next week - that's just when it was sold. It could be years older than that ADs generally leave quartz watches running in the display case so it likely is a battery issue.

Batteries are not covered by warranty, but a battery replacement isn't excessively expensive - you can safely delay the first service unless the watch was sitting unsold for 3+ years.

Yeah I guess my dilemma is whether to replace the battery, so that the watch is a known quantity and I know the battery and seals are good to last for a while and won't fail at the first inopportune moment to present itself when I'm away from home, or wether to take issue with the eBay seller and send the watch back.

I'm pretty certain the battery is knackered and it's not anything more serious, but by sending it off I'm almost certainly not going to see it again until well outside of eBays dispute periods. Which would be a problem if I've been sold a pup.

As I'm fairly sure it's the battery I've taken it back to Goldsmiths today to get it sent off to Breitling to get done. They've estimated £70 which I guess I'll take the hit on for peace of mind.

Although I did forget to give them the warranty card, I'm guessing that should have been sent off too and the AD won't be able to put an entry in it for the battery change? I like to have paperwork up together where possible.