Problem with Aquatimer?

Last month I purchased the Aquatimer Chrono in stainless steel after having looked into it for a little over a year. After taking the band off, (which is a really cool mechanism), I could not get it back on to one side. After consulting with a few watch technicians in my area I was informed that it must be faulty and needs to be sent in to IWC for repair, which I did.

Then, to my surprise, I was presented with an estimate that was half the price of the watch!!

The IWC service center in Texas claimed that there must have been an impact and that it has voided the warranty!

There was no such impact and if there was contact on the watch at all it was light and from normal use.

When I called to inquire I was basically accused of lying that it "must have" dropped. I am surprised at both the quality of the timepiece and the customer service response. I have actually dropped other Swiss watches of ‘lower’ quality that were unaffected.

Has anyone else had this experience? Any suggestions on how I may resolve this troublesome matter.

At the Collectors' Meeting in 2009 somebody dropped the Galapagos, and the bracelet broke loose at one side. Could have been an expensive repair. I dropped my almost new Saint Exupéry Chrono a few years ago, it didn't run anymore. The repair took 8 weeks, the cost of it... zero! I have had other small issues, they were all resolved beautifully in a cooperation between my very good and pleasant AD and IWC Schaffhausen. I guess that the sense of good service in Switzerland is not shared by others in the world.

Kind regards,
Paul

Hi Paul,

I appreciate your reply. The service that you received is precisely what I expected.

Unfortunately the AD where I purchased the watch is not local so I contacted IWC directly.

Hopefully IWC USA will make good on their product and this matter will be resolved amicably.

You suddenly trigger my memory, not too long ago I read a likewise story here. It is quite possible that IWC USA is more a commercial institute and not a service organisation. I always would deal with the AD: he earns a nice profit when you buy a watch, and he knows that you might buy another watch pretty soon maybe. So, he will try to help you, and will hide most of the unpleasant sides of internal communication for you. If you have to send the watch in anyway, you could try to send it to the AD: who knows what may happen. It can only become better, as your contact until now seems unworthy of a supplier of high-end luxury goods.

Kind regards,
Paul

I am sorry to hear about your problem, although I have no way to evaluate what occurred. What I understand is that the US office in New York immediately contacted me, and try are handling the matter. I know they mean well, and want to resolve the matter fairly.

However, the forum guidelines request that individual service matters not be discussed on the forum. There are several reasons for this, including that we cannot diagnose what occurred. I also slightly edited your post to remove one line which ignored another rule, although I am sure unintentionally. Normally I would delete such a thread, but In this instance I will be locking thus thread and request that be no related posts.

That said, I wish you well in resolving these issues.