Dear fellow IWC aficionados, I could use some constructive advice on how to
deal with IWC warranty service. My 3716 Portugieser chrono, bought new in
early 2020, has been to the Texas service center twice, and they sent it back
twice without fixing the issue. The issue being the chronograph locking up and
stopping the whole watch with regularity.
I'm hoping that more experienced forum members will have advice on how to
proceed; clearly the communication with the service center is not working, and
they are not verifying that the problem has been fixed before returning my
watch.
The long version:
I had been really smitten with the Portugieser chronograph, both the 3712
rattraprante and the 3714 'standard', since they appeared in the 90s. Handling
a standard 3714 chrono at an AD around 2000 left me disappointed with what I
thought was a bit rough and uneven pusher feel, so I waited patiently for a
movement update. This finally happened with the 150th anniversary limited
edition, but that one had a different dial, which, while no doubt special, was
not what I wanted. I waited another few years for the standard version with
applied numerals, and early in 2020 I finally bought my 371604.
Appearance wise the watch is pretty much everything I hoped for, but on the
functional side I pretty soon started noticing that the watch would stop
occasionally for no good reason. I eventually figured out that the chronograph
clutch (oscillating pinion), which I believe is a straight copy of the same
proven mechanism in the 7750, would come to engage and rest against two teeth
of the chronograph seconds wheel, and lock up the whole watch mechanism. It's
a bit hard to see through the caseback, and I have not been able to take good
macro pictures of it, but I believe this is the underlying reason for the
malfunction.
I described this to my local IWC boutique, and they agreed that this shouldn't
happen, and offered to send the watch in to the Texas service center. It came
back a month later, very well regulated -it had also been running 12 seconds
fast a day on average- , but with the chronograph issue unchanged. About every
80th or so start of the chronograph the watch movement would lock up.
Sometimes it would repeat every few starts, sometimes it wouldn't happen for a
long time, but on average every eighty chronograph uses the watch movement
would come to a halt.
When I realized this, I talked again to the boutique manager, and this time
wrote up a short but detailed description of the issue and how to reproduce
it. The boutique manager entered this description in their internal electronic
service request note, I attached my laminated note with a piece of string to
the watch, left it in the locked up position, and off it went again to the
service center. TIme estimate was 12 weeks, because the watch would go to
Switzerland.
Fast forward four weeks, and the watch is back at the boutique. Right in the
store it locks up twice in the first 25 chronograph starts. So they clearly
didn't fix it, and I also assume it was actually not sent to Switzerland. The
manager advised to keep the watch with me for now, while he would make some
phone calls to decide on the best course of action. At home I determined that
the lockup now happens about every sixteen chronograph starts, a factor five
worse than before. It also seems an overly strong mainspring was installed,
since the watch now rebanks and runs very fast (>+500s/day) when fully wound,
and the screws securing the autowinder bridge show slight bulging next to the
slots, which I'm afraid might be due to overtorquing.
The boutique manager now tells me that they have done all they can, and that I
need to contact the original AD if I want to initiate an exchange request. I'm
going to do that, but in the meantime I thought I would inquire here regarding
this very odd experience. I find it hard to believe that an IWC service center
would not be able to fix such an obvious and, at least the second time, very
clearly described issue.
So, same question as above: What's the best way to communicate with IWC on an
issue like this? Is there a contact for IWC Switzerland?
And second: has anybody else had an issue like this? I only found one other
mention of a similar issue, with a Portofino chrono. The 7750, which I believe
has the same clutch mechanism, is not a rare movement, so if this were a
design issue, I believe it would have been discovered long ago. So this is
either an adjustment problem, or a malformed part that needs to be exchanged,
but nothing really complicated. How can they not be able to fix this, twice?
