The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Sent a Omega in for repair once and they kept it for 4 months while parts came in from switzerland if I had known it would be that long I would have offerred to collect the parts myself.

I do find it strange that there is this almost industry-standard wait of so many months for often simple work. It's like a repair-time equivalent of price-fixing. It needs one of the big players to say, you know, one reason to buy us over other brands is that we turn around repairs and services in under a month (or whatever). Train and take on more people, higher turnover. I do find the situation very strange.

There's a shortage of quality watchmakers across the industry. 30 years ago the mechanical watch industry was virtually dead and no one wanted to learn the discipline. Schools shut down, especially outside of Switzerland and the number of students virtually disappeared. Now the growth rate of mechanical watch sales has taken off faster than any of the companies that survived the quartz revolution could have dreamed but the infrastructure for training new watchmakers isn't yet fully restored. Add to that the fact that sales across the industry continue to grow at double digit rates year over year which increases demand for watchmakers and it's really no surprise that there are servicing delays.

Interesting. Makes sense. Is there a serious attempt to train more watchmakers (like our redoubtable Joe), or is the industry resigned to long service delays?

There are more students every year, but it takes time to grow the infrastructure and outside of Switzerland it can be a tough sell to establish schools, although WOSTEP is trying to encourage international affiliated programs. Like any other discipline the demand needs to be there first.

Anybody have an email address for service manager at BUSA? Just got another call saying service has been delayed another 2-3 weeks and I'm done dealing with this. I ask and they always say they're not sure and they'll call when it's ready to ship. They've had my watch the entire summer and I want to know exactly what the problem is. Thanks.

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Current Collection:

Superocean 42 Abyss w/ Silver Dial
Rolex Oyster Submariner
Sevenfriday P-2
Tag Heuer Formula 1
Movado Faceto
Rado Jubile Ceramic
and still collecting.

Margaret Pawlak
Margaret.pawlak@breitlingusa.com

Thank you, Veki.

_________________
Current Collection:

Superocean 42 Abyss w/ Silver Dial
Rolex Oyster Submariner
Sevenfriday P-2
Tag Heuer Formula 1
Movado Faceto
Rado Jubile Ceramic
and still collecting.

And when does your summer start?

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"It is just a matter of time!"

When my wife starts summer vacation from teaching, which this year was May 12th. I sent it in early May so when I was told I would get it June 20th and now its scheduled for August 4th thats about 3 months. I know I'm sounding overly dramatic but I just get more and more frustrated when they keep pushing the date back with ZERO explanation. Every customer service rep I have talked to says "I'm not sure, it just says still servicing the watch". I understand they're still servicing the watch, but why can't they tell me the reason?

_________________
Current Collection:

Superocean 42 Abyss w/ Silver Dial
Rolex Oyster Submariner
Sevenfriday P-2
Tag Heuer Formula 1
Movado Faceto
Rado Jubile Ceramic
and still collecting.

Thanks again Veki for that contact info. Margaret from BUSA just called me back and explained in great detail exactly what is going on and why there was a delay. I had opted for the crown to be replaced and there was a backorder on the crown. She explained that it came in and is in the final stages of COSC testing and will be shipping out next week. Glad I was able to talk to somebody there that could give me some more information.

_________________
Current Collection:

Superocean 42 Abyss w/ Silver Dial
Rolex Oyster Submariner
Sevenfriday P-2
Tag Heuer Formula 1
Movado Faceto
Rado Jubile Ceramic
and still collecting.