Water damage on 4yo TAG - options?

[theoriginalpaul]

Hi, wondering if anyone here can offer advice on how to proceed with this...

My wife has a TAG ladies quartz watch, bought direct from the Cheshire Oaks TAG store in March 2014.
Since then its had one official TAG service in April 2017, which included a new seal (I guess that's standard when replacing the battery).

Last week she noticed a lot of condensation on the inside but it was still working fine, so we took it into our local TAG approved dealer who sent it off to TAG for assessment. They've now come back with an estimate close to £800. I don't gave a full breakdown, but it includes replacing the hands and face.

I questioned why a relatively new (and recently serviced) watch could fail so spectacularly & was told it could be because she'd failed to tighten the crown, although I think it's highly unlikey this would have happened - she's very careful with it.

So a couple of questions:
- would failing to tighten the crown allow water to enter?
- any advice on how to proceed with TAG? I feel it's unreasonable for an expensive watch to fail so early in it's life & would like to challenge them for some support in resolving this.

Failing that - any recommendations for an independent who might offer a more cost effective repair?

Thanks in advance.

[theoriginalpaul]

Thanks for the helpful replies everyone.
I think we'll get the watch back and have a closer look for any visual damage before deciding what to do.

Variomatic - someone suggested you might be able to repair it? I might send you a PM once we've got it back if that's OK? Do you have a business website?

Thanks again.

[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!)