The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Hello,
I bought my Navitimer from a dealer a few months back.

The watch had a few little faults:-

1) Scratch on the bezel (face up)
2) Vendor told me the dial had a very slight flaw.... turns out the glass had a very small scratch
3) the back had been opened by a moron..... the vendor then got the case back polished to hid the marks.... personally I don't think it is too bad.
4) no box or papers

Another vendor told me Breitling owners are the most anal of all luxury watch collectors?

Personally I paid about US$2600- for a A13322 Old Navitimer II with bracelet (albeit a bit short)..... I don't think that was very high for a reasonable Brietling?

Was I stupid ? Personally I prefer a watch to have a fault or 2 so I can then use it without worry..... I bought the Breitling to rotate with my Rolex DateJust 16233 and Omega Speedmaster Man on the moon.....

OPINIONS PLEASE

Well, I'm the first to admit that I am fairly ridiculously anal about scratches! I hate them!

Fortunately it doesn't stop me from wearing them daily, but it does mean that I'm exceptionally careful. The good thing is, being careful has become second nature to me so I don't actually think about it now when I wear them. And the benefit of that is if you ever come to sell your watches on, they're worth more if they look mint. I remember selling an old Seamaster of mine in part-ex to my AD and he looked at it really carefully and then asked me if I ever wore it. In actual fact (as I told him) I had worn it practically every day for the previous 3 years! All I had done was go over the notoriously "scratch-happy" Seamaster clasp with a Scotch-Brite pad to take out a couple of hairline scratches and that was it! I got top dollar for it.

In my opinion as long as you still wear them, being careful enough to keep them in the best condition you can has got to be a good thing.

So yeah, OCD rules on the scratch front! Oh and aligned bezels. I have a thing about that too!

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Driver8

Site Moderator

I don't know about more anal than other brands, I think it's just a case of wanting to look after a luxury item and maintaining it in a condition as close to original as possible. That said, it's a watch - it's designed to be worn.

Breitlings are generally highly polished, and therefore scratches are easy to see, so that may be aprt of it.

Of course the bezel issue is different entirely

Yes, we are all anal retentives -- big deal! And about the bezel
issue...I have not said a word about it in over a month, not a
single word. And I will not say anything now, Driver and Roff -- I
will just sit here and bite my tongue until blood drips onto my
keyboard.

Steve

Congrats on not mentioning a single word about the bezels in your last post, Steve!

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Driver8

Site Moderator

could breitling owners be the counterparts of BMW owners (myself included)?



hahaha

I think that Driver is the most competent person to answer that.

I don't know about competent (not sure if I'm competant at anything! ), but I'm on my 6th BMW at the moment!

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Driver8

Site Moderator

I almost pulled the trigger on a Beemer recently... decided to wait a bit longer to see what the current economy does it's upswing

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Driver,

A good friend of mine has a vintage M3 (1998) which he has kept in mint
condition all these years. He has coined a new catchphrase for the
brand, however: "BMW, the ultimate driving expense" Do you
think he hit the nail on the head? By the way, he's not a Breitling man,
but rather a Rolex chap. In fact, last week he picked up a Deep Sea --
quite a hunk of iron, if I do say so.

Steve

Yes, if you want to keep a nice set of Main Dealer service stamps in your log book, then "the ultimate driving expense" is a good analogy!

Just as an example I once needed 2 new tyres at the same time my previous car was in for a service, so like a fool I just said to the dealer, "fine, just go ahead". So you can imagine my surprise when it came to £250 EACH tyre!!!!!! The exact same tyres from my local trusted tyre place are £120 each. So the Main Dealer put more than a 100% mark up on them. Great huh?

As I've said on one of the other threads, the after sales expense is pretty high, which leaves a bit of a sour taste as the cars themselves are great.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

i love BMWs too...i would love to in mayb 5 years own an M3!!!

SO its not just me who would love a nice BMW to accompany my "girlfriend on my wrist"

not sure if BMW has the all maintenace included package for cars in Britain..in the states there is complimentary maintenance for I believe 5 years..this would surely save you money spent on maintenance...I assume its factored into the Final Selling Price...yet its included

they do care packages in the Uk which you pay for but not on the M3 or any M car.

my M3 costs a small fortune to maintain.

in ans to the original post i am anal about them but kind of after the fact, hate scrathces but have lots just keep catching them, think i will get a bracelet refinished and try and be more careful.

probably not waering them in bed would help too

Im anal about scratches on my skyland and navi, but not soo much on my superocean. At any rate breitlings seem to have a very enduring finish and despite the fact that my superocean is scratched to $h*t it still catches and reflects light quite nicely. Maybe its the painstaking hand finishing they do, but they never seem to dull and will still catch glances from across a room.