The Breitling Watch Source Forums

My wife bought me a Chrono Super Ocean 4 years ago as a wedding present. I love it and watch has been treated fantastically well. Last week it stopped and the repair center tell me the auto winding mechanism is broken and it will cost me 700 to repair! having previously owned a seiko for 15 years without a problem I am amazed that a 4k watch is not reliable.

My question- is owning a watch like this a bit like an old sports car, accept its unreliable and will cost a lot of money or am I just unlucky?

Thoughts appreciated as I cannot afford this kind of bill every few years.

All mechanical watches require servicing - reckon $500 every 5 years or so. However, it is fairly unusual for the watch to 'break' in this way - to use your car analogy it's more of a full service than fixing a broken part.

I'd echo Roff's comments and say that this type of failure is uncommon but the cost you can expect for maintenance is is in the range of 50-100 USD a year. Truly the gift that keeps on giving

Typically you will notice the watch needs servicing when is falls out of COSC specification (-4/+6 seconds a day). This can take years and years. Your's sounds more like a catastrophic failure rather than a more traditional "wear and tear" situation.

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