The Breitling Watch Source Forums

As a longtime Rolex fan I thought I bought the last watch I would ever buy when I got a gold Rolex President in 2004 to replace my two tone Rolex Datejust from 1988. But then the bug hit me to own and wear an alternative to the Rolex for a change of pace and my search took me right to Breitling. I had seen and tried on these watches through the years, especially when on cruises in the Caribbean. They were sharp looking and appeared to be in the same league as Rolex and some of the other better luxury watches. I took the plunge exactly one year ago (January 2014) and bought a great looking black stainless limited edition M2336022/BC17 while in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.

I wore the watch alternately with my Rolex, and everything was fine until early November 2014. I took the watch off the auto-winder and after less than a day, while wearing it, it stopped. Although I was puzzled I did not think much of it at the time and I simply manually wound the watch and continued to wear it. I decided to give it a few weeks and put it back on the winder, where it continued to run. But in late November, three days after I began wearing it again, it stopped and needed to be manually wound.

Very disappointed, I contacted Breitling to inquire about what could be causing this. I was told to send the watch to them to be examined, and an estimate would be made for the cost of repairs if they were not covered under warranty. I was told to insure the watch when sending to Breitling, which brought the cost to just under $70 using ground delivery. I reluctantly complied with this requirement, but was not too pleased that the watch was going in for repair after only about ten and a half months.

I quickly received email correspondence from Breitling that the repair was covered under warranty and would be made. I then inquired if the warranty would be extended to cover the period that had already expired. I felt this to be a reasonable question and expectation in light of the fact that the watch had completely failed in less than a year and I expressed my concern that this would happen again within the coming year, possibly occurring after the initial two year warranty expired. The response I received is that the warranty would expire two years from the initial purchase and would not be extended. I was not pleased and at that point realized the two year warranty in this case meant they did not expect the watch would last beyond two years.

After a few weeks with no correspondence from Breitling, I became more dissatisfied and requested to be reimbursed for the cost of sending the watch to Breitling for repair after only ten and a half months. I was told that it was my responsibility to pay this cost and they would have the watch back to me soon. Legally they were right, but that did not mean they could not make an exception.

Finally, when more than a month had passed, I had had it. I bought a watch for nearly $7000 that stopped working after ten and a half months, paid $70 to get it fixed and was into the second month with no watch and no word from Breitling. I contacted them and requested a refund for what I had paid for the watch and told them they could just keep it. Of course they said no and simply told me they were working on the watch and would repair and return it soon. As I write this message I still don’t have the watch although they tell me it is on the way back. But this experience with Breitling has been nothing but bad and I would caution others to consider it before buying a watch from them. I realize things break and that is why there are warranties. But I do not believe Breitling makes a good, much less a great quality watch and they have been less than reasonable in the way they have handled this matter. My watch broke in less than a year, cost me considerable money for shipment to Breitling, has been in repair for months and Breitling has been unwilling to satisfy what I consider to be reasonable requests. Meanwhile the other watches I have owned in my lifetime, from a cheap Casio, to an antique Bucherer, to a Rado and to two Rolexes have never needed repair in 10 to 56 years of ownership.

Anyone wishing to see proof of how Breitling has treated me is welcome to copies of the correspondence to and from them about this matter. Simply ask and I will provide it.

Very bad experience, its disappointing esp Im a big fan of vintage Breitling, hope things will turn out okay for you

well, the cynic in me says 'you could have returned it to the AD that you bought it from, they would have sent it to B without further cost to you'

furthermore it is unreasonable to expect they refund a watch you didnt buy from them directly and I doubt any of the manufacturers you name would even consider refunding you

its been a month, typical a repair takes 6 weeks within warranty , this is absolutely in line with other brands . And no , I am not affiliated with Breitling , nor am I a Breitling fanboy , just want to put things into perspective

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"I spent most of my money on Booze, Breitling and Boats. The rest I wasted" - mostly Elmore Leonard

Warranties exist for a reason, things break. Rolex offers a warranty for the same reason, and while it's never 'good' it does happen. It sounds as though communication has been somewhat lacking here, but I'm not sure I see any other issues. The repair time sounds about right, the refusal to refund would be standard, and as Rene points out any AD could forward the watch - potentially for a small fee, but likely not much.

As an AD I can confirm that we never ask shipping cost for watches within the warranty period. Should have brought it in with your AD as Rene stated. I do understand your issues because the watch is only one year old but this happens in every brand. I'm an AD for many Swiss brands including, Audemars Piquet, Rolex, Cartier, Breitling, Omega, Hublot, Franck Muller, ... and this has happened with all those brands before. To bad it happened to you but you're not the first nor the last it will happen to. Good luck!

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As frustrating as the experience is, i think the posts above give a balanced perspective.

To the OP, I think your expectations are wrong. As others have said, warranties are there in the event that something was not right to start with. You seems to have received a watch that did need to use the warranty to correct an error. An AD would have sent it to Breitling for you for free if you had purchased it from them and for considerably less if you hadn't.

With regards to extending the warranty, if you have you car fixed under warranty, does the manufacturer extend the warranty from the date it was fixed? Does an appliance manufacturer? An electronics manufacturer? No, of course they don't.

Now if it was out of warranty and you paid for a full service, they will issue a new warranty, just as all other watch manufacturers do, but again car, appliance, electronics and other durable goods manufacturers do not.

If you have any of these items serviced once during the warranty period, would you expect any of them to buy the item back from you at full price? I don't think so.

To feel like you have been mistreated or the brand is not living up to expectations makes me feel as if something else is the real root of the issue here.


Sent from my iPad (so I blame autocorrect for the spellin' errs)

Oh well,

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"It is just a matter of time!"

I'd have thought that any other watch company would have given you the same responses and treatment.
To them, it's just another warranty repair. Nothing more, nothing less.

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Oyster Date '78, Blackbird chrono DLC '10, Blackbird chrono' 02, Navitimer Fighters '02, Aerospace Evo , Seamaster Chrono Diver 300' 02, Carrera cbm2110

Personally I think the Op has a point regarding the postage costs, these should be covered by Breitling whether via an AD or not. The fault is not his doing and is within the warranty period so is Breitlings 'fault' and the op shouldn't be out of pocket for it. I think this is short sighted of Breitling, people are paying big money for an item that doesn't do its primary job any better than £50 quartz alternatives do, Breitling like many other brands are largely about added value and the customer experience is a large part of this. It's bad enough the watch has gone wrong, Breitling should be doing all that is reasonable to make up for that and ensuring the customer isn't out of pocket as a result is the absolute minimum that they should do.


Regarding timescales they are what they are, I was recently estimated a 12 month wait for a vintage Breitling by Breitling Geneve! Obviously buying the watch back is too much to ask after one failure, there are cases of cars being refunded after several repair attempts but never after 1!

[quote=" ]I was recently estimated a 12 month wait for a vintage Breitling by Breitling Geneve! 1![/quote]

Big mistake , sending a vintage to breitling geneve , they'll do a perfect job ruining it

There's only one breitling ifficial vintage service and restoration address and thats horological svcs in the usa , theyre the only one that can do a proper restore without screwing it up

If it only needed a service there are much better addresses

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"I spent most of my money on Booze, Breitling and Boats. The rest I wasted" - mostly Elmore Leonard

Thanks for the advice, I did read similar on here and didn't go ahead with it in the end.

The internet is a wonderful thing, a few quick searches and a tremendous amount of information is available, it is a shame that the OP did not make himself available to the wealth of information available before sending it back on his own. I have had similar situations occur with a brand new watch that had never been worn. Instead of immediately complaining, I brought it to the attention of the staff at the NYC Boutique and they were very accommodating and apologetic. After a bottle of champagne the watch was on it was to service at BUSA. Will it take two months, probably, but as I have learned from many individuals on this forum that amount of time is necessary to address a problem with a mechanical watch. Watches under warranty receive preference to non warranty work at BUSA and when the watch is ready I hope to share another bottle of champagne with my AD. (I realize that living in the NYC metro area there are numerous AD's available to work with and that this may not be the case with the OP, but you could also use it as an excuse to take a road trip!!!)

Yes of course a watch of this kind of expense shouldn't develop a problem so soon into it's life, but unfortunately issues DO occasionally occur as they do with any mass-produced product (and Breitling make several hundred thousand of these a year) - it's what a warranty is for. Personally I also feel that Breitling have done a perfectly adequate job here - they responded quickly to emails, they're turning the work around in the accepted and well-known timeline for warranty work, and (as noted above) if the OP had taken the watch to the supplying AD they would've likely sent it to Breitling free of charge.

In terms of extending the warranty - all repairs come with a 12 month warranty anyway, so as the OP's watch was still within the original 2 years warranty there was nothing to extend. A line has to be drawn somewhere or else Breitling would be warrantying their watches for ever.

And this doesn't just apply to Breitling. Even the beloved Rolex watches have issues from time to time and are only warrantied for a certain period of time.

So sure, I understand the OP's frustration with having issues with a new watch - most of us have been there at some point or other with one or more watch brands (IWC was mine) - but the real test is the company deals with issues..... and IMO Breitling have done (and are doing) things by the book in this case. JMO of course.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Well the OP hasn't joined back into the conversation and a Google search of the name from the user ID indicates he might be an attorney, and possibly one who is just interested in spreading a one sided version of a bad experience. Anyone else getting that feeling?


Sent from my iPad (so I blame autocorrect for the spellin' errs)