Water damage on 4yo TAG - options?

[Variomatic]

RiggaTheMighty said:

Thank you for that post.
I don’t disagree with you there to be honest.
I am genuinely just trying to help out the people who are posting a thread actually asking for help. Isn’t that the point of posting a thread in the first place?
Anyway, going forward, I will not comment on any posts at all, unless someone asks for my input.

I have got more work from this site in the last year from people recommending me in a post, than I have from “self promotion.”

I apologize for offering to help people out when I am not asked.

It can be a fine line, which I tend to stay as far away from as possible by offering advice without mentioning my work (until named, of course). That does have the disadvantage that sometimes it may not be clear in the general forum noise that what I'm advising is based on anything but opinion, but in a way that's true on any forum regardless of someone's claimed experience!

Please don't withhold advice though - the more input the better for the community. There are often, shall we say, "alternative perspectives" between professionals, based on different experience in different parts of the market, and it certainly doesn't hurt the consumer to be exposed to them!

[GC8]

RiggaTheMighty said:

I apologize for offering to help people out when I am not asked.

The only person that you are looking to help is yourself.

Remember that you quoted me to service a very simple Heuer stoipwatch. Your reply was padded with bks/waffle about Heuer stopwatches (all piffle) and a price well over double the going rate.

So you either i] have little or no idea what youre talking about or doing, and bluff, or ii] assume that I dont know what I am talking about and took the piss.

Neither make me enthusiastic about you, but it did make me realise that every post that you make promotes your own interest.

[Squadrone Rosso]

GC8 said:

The only person that you are looking to help is yourself.

Remember that you quoted me to service a very simple Heuer stoipwatch. Your reply was padded with bks/waffle about Heuer stopwatches (all piffle) and a price well over double the going rate.

So you either i] have little or no idea what youre talking about or doing, and bluff, or ii] assume that I dont know what I am talking about and took the piss.

Neither make me enthusiastic about you, but it did make me realise that every post that you make promotes your own interest.

Stop looking for trouble & stop being a dick.

[GC8]

Be quiet.

[theoriginalpaul]

Quick update (now that the squabbling had died down 😎)...

I went back to the jewellers who were dealing with TAG with the paperwork demonstrating that it was still a relatively new watch and had only ever been serviced by TAG themselves.
It was also useful to be able to challenge their suggestion that leaving the crown open could have caused the damage, so thanks for the background on this.

They were quite happy to push back on TAG for me and we got a call later the same day saying they would clean, reseal, replace battery (essentially get it back to us fully functioning), but not do all the 'precautionary ' parts replacements - total cost £100, which I'm more than happy with. Obviously with the caveat that they couldn't guarantee against any future degradation of the parts they'd suggested replacing.

Cynically, I think they were trying it on & just reverted to a checklist of all parts to replace if a watch shows water ingress, rather than looking at what really needed doing.

Thanks for all the good advice... and sorry it triggered a bit of a spat (albeit a minor one by PH standards!)

[Variomatic]

Good result, and well done for pushing back!

[Johnniem]

Just to round this one off with another positive, I had a similar situation where TAG were due to service my wife's watch and replace the battery. After being without the watch for around 6 weeks we chased the high street jeweller to see what was going on. They told us that the watch needed a new face and that it would cost £1150 (more than I actually paid for the watch seven years prior). I asked them to send it back to me and I then forwarded it to Variomatic for him to independantly assess. Vario established that there was no crack in the face but there was a slight scratch mark, which can only have been caused by them as they were the only people to ever have opened the watch.

The long and short of it was that they had 'seriously erred and misrepresented damage' and some time later agreed to provide us with a brand new watch.

A big thanks to Variomatic as without him I would have had to buy a new watch.

[wibble cb]

I get the impression that a lot of dealers are simply drumming up business, rather than actually addressing the issues presented to them, I had an issue years ago with my wife's Longines watch, its not that special, its a quartz movement, but my wife likes it, the second hand started behaving irrationally, not moving and then moving 2 seconds at a time. The dealer I bought it from implied they didn't know what was wrong and it would therefore have to go back to Switzerland for Longines themselves to look at. I didn't really know a whole lot about watches, so presumed they were doing what was best for me (I know....I know..), anyway, it came back 6 weeks later (if it ever went there!) all fixed for 250 cad$, even after I reminded them it was only 18mths old.

Fast forward another 18 months and the watch starts doing the same thing again, only this time, I google the issue as I don't fancy having my pocket cleaned for another $250, the mysterious sweeping issue? Its just the watches way of telling us the battery needs changing!!! Seriously?? I find a replacement battery, pry the back off and manage (by myself!!) to fit the new battery, and you now what, it worked, and it carried on working till the next time that the battery needed changing.

Moral of the story, I feel dealers are really are not all that interested in solving your issue, but rather seeing you as a revenue avenue to be pursued.

[GC8]

Very sharp practice, bordering on fraud.

[thehawkswoops]

Moral of the story, I feel dealers are really are not all that interested in solving your issue, but rather seeing you as a revenue avenue to be pursued.


[/quote]

They knew the battery needed replacing, and that was all. Even I have learnt that in the past year, Rip off Bastuards.

You would of thought that it would make sense to keep customers sweet and coming back for more. Idiots!

[Johnniem]

GC8 said:

Very sharp practice, bordering on fraud.

It is fraud. Absolutely.

[Johnniem]

thehawkswoops said:

Moral of the story, I feel dealers are really are not all that interested in solving your issue, but rather seeing you as a revenue avenue to be pursued.

Part of the problem is that they are preying on ignorance. We feel that because we buy an expensive (to us) watch, that it needs to be tended to by the retailer from whom we bought it. When it needs a new battery (which a TAG will do, regularly!) we can quite easily, and sensibly, take it to an outfit that will just replace the battery and, if it is water resistant, make sure that the resistance is maintained. This will take a few days and cost £20-£40, depending on who does the work. If it goes to TAG it will be away for 6 weeks and cost north of £60, for a friggin' battery that costs a couple of quid! Our rights are still the same whether it is a high street retailer that sends it to TAG or the Joe Schmo independant.

The message is to use your local independant and don't risk sending it somewhere who are going to scare the bejesus out of you by fabricating damage. My vote goes to Variomatic on here. Other independants are available but my experience with Vario has always been positive and reasonably priced. I wouldn't mind if he answered emails a bit quicker though!

[GC8]

Joe told me that emails are an issue due to the weight of spam that he receives.

[Brads67]

Well I've just requested a return pack for my F1 because the rubber strap is driving me mental and they wanted to see it rather than say it was ok for me to glue it

It's 2 months old so I wonder what other work they will recommend ? lol

[glazbagun]

wibble cb said:

I get the impression that a lot of dealers are simply drumming up business, rather than actually addressing the issues presented to them, I had an issue years ago with my wife's Longines watch, its not that special, its a quartz movement, but my wife likes it, the second hand started behaving irrationally, not moving and then moving 2 seconds at a time. The dealer I bought it from implied they didn't know what was wrong and it would therefore have to go back to Switzerland for Longines themselves to look at. I didn't really know a whole lot about watches, so presumed they were doing what was best for me (I know....I know..), anyway, it came back 6 weeks later (if it ever went there!) all fixed for 250 cad$, even after I reminded them it was only 18mths old.

Fast forward another 18 months and the watch starts doing the same thing again, only this time, I google the issue as I don't fancy having my pocket cleaned for another $250, the mysterious sweeping issue? Its just the watches way of telling us the battery needs changing!!! Seriously?? I find a replacement battery, pry the back off and manage (by myself!!) to fit the new battery, and you now what, it worked, and it carried on working till the next time that the battery needed changing.

Moral of the story, I feel dealers are really are not all that interested in solving your issue, but rather seeing you as a revenue avenue to be pursued.

The problem with things like this for large companies is that they have to warranty their work and profit.

I've worked for large manufacturers and I've worked in small no-name shops, and with a small shop you can talk to the customer and say- hey- movement checks out fine, but it's dirty/tarnished and using more power than it should- I can put a battery in and it might consume more power, but if you get another year out of it for £xx then that might be better than servicing/replacing the movement for £xxx. Then the customer can make an informed decision and (although some can develop amnesia when your warnings transform into reality) you're not on the hook if it dies in 10 months just like you said it might.

With a manufacturer, everything is geared for division of labour and decisions are binary and run through a tree. You get the watch in a a box/pouch and have to assess what's wrong. Water ingress & quartz = new movement & all seals & new anything that looks slightly tarnished. Because what you don't want is to give the customer their watch back and find out that they're furious the watch doesn't look like it did pre-damage. Or has stopped because, after all, the movement was exposed to moisture/dirt and although it checked out electronically, there was something you missed. The job is then filed and you get a call/email from a non-watchmaker who needs a non-technical explaination, because they don't have the watch in front of them and wouldn't know what they're looking at anyway, and they're talking to someone who probably doesn't know either.

I suppose it's the same as taking your car to a manufacturer or an indy specialist. One place would give you a new starter motor and new body panels, another might fix the problems with yours. You might want the latter for your shopping car and the former for your insurance claim.