Panerai broken , help please !

[DMJ73]

Gentleman, your advice much appreciated.

My 2 year old Panerai was dropped off 2 weeks ago to the AD it was purchased, with all warrenty cards etc - received this email today. Issue was date function not working.




Thank you for leaving your Panerai with us for an estimate.



Following careful examination of your watch by their master watchmakers, diagnostics show that the quick date change has possibly been operated between the hours of 9pm and 3am. This has damaged the date change mechanism, therefore a complete service is required. Accidental damage is not covered under the service guarantee.


The work advised is a maintenance service valued at £145.



We are able to quote a charge of £145 minus deposit of £60 including VAT. The approximate turnaround time is 8 weeks from proceed, subject to parts availability and final quality controls.


Can someone explain why changing the date at night can break the damn thing ! and whether this is legit before I stump up the cash.

Thanks all

[Threeracers]

Standard stuff; you shouldn’t manually change the date whilst the mechanism is trying to do the same I am afraid.

Mark

[Ikemi]

NeMiSiS said:

This video shows what happens if you change the date during the restricted time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGm4DjScRPc&fea...

You won't be able to, and forcibly doing so will break the date change gear.

Copied from elsewhere but gives a good insight as to what is going on inside a 7750, what model Panerai is it ?

Well, you learn something everyday! Fortunately I have never changed the date on any of my watches late at night. Does the above apply to any other movements?

[ooral]

I have heard a few different brands always mention don't change the date between a range, I always use the hands first if I have left my automatic to run down...

[DMJ73]

Blimey ! I imagine that's exactly what I've done ! Thanks for your help. It's a basic PAM099. Be interested to know if this is the case for other movements. I'm always changing dates and swapping watches over that have run down.

[CardShark]

The rule of thumb with my autos (apart from the two GMTs) is to always manually wind the hands past the 12 position before I try to reset the date after the watch has wound down. Doing this will ensure that the watch is in the correct part of it's am or pm cycle (so the date will change over at midnight instead of midday) and also manually wind the date disc through it's cycle if it was already part of the way through when the watch wound down.

It's a habit worth getting into just incase

Edited by CardShark on Tuesday 30th August 20:57

[sneijder]

Does it actually tell you not to in the manual ?

Its not a bad price to get it sorted though.

[hollydog]

don,t no how they can get away with that as an analog watch you can,t tell weather its in am or pm . theres all away goin to be a time when you have to change the date. think i need to be more carefull with my breitling .

[Adrian W]

I thought the rule was don't change the date between 9pm and 3 am

[CardShark]

^^ I think that's a fair rule that should cover most, if not all, autos but some seem to work differently to others eg my two GMTs both have ETA2893-2 movements and seem to change date very quickly between about midnight to half past, my Seikos with their 7s26 movements appear to take from somewhere around 11pm to maybe about 2.30am to change over.

[Miguel Alvarez]

I had the time of 11pm - 1am. Didn't realise the window was wider than that. I must remember to do the wind past 12 o clock thing.

[mikeveal]

Ask them to point you to the instructions they provided you with that told you not to do this.

If they can't do this, then the damage is not accidental. You could not be reasonably expected to guess that changing the date between two arbritary hours could damage your watch and they should pay.

That said, £145 for a main dealer repair is good.

[DMJ73]

Just checked the manual, and yes, it does state that one should not change the date between 10.30 and 1.30. Damn ! Thanks for all your responses.

[RemainAllHoof]

On the bright side, £145 for a full service isn't bad for this price level of watch.

As a general rule, I only change the date at around 3pm to avoid any possibility of which ever watch I had getting buggered up.

[thomson]

£145 for a service is very cheap, just been quoted £550 for my Breitling (does include replacing a rose gold rider tab though!)

[nikaiyo2]

mikeveal said:

Ask them to point you to the instructions they provided you with that told you not to do this.

If they can't do this, then the damage is not accidental. You could not be reasonably expected to guess that changing the date between two arbritary hours could damage your watch and they should pay.

Dude its one of those things that is standard on almost all Auto watches, its like putting diesl in a petrol and saying its not your fault as you were not told other wise.

Personally i always wind on to 5 or 6 before adjusting the date just to be safe