Watchestolove's account of acquiring an IWC Le Petit Prince Chronograph, marred by significant quality control issues and a difficult authorized dealer, offers a cautionary tale for luxury watch buyers. This post highlights the importance of meticulous inspection and the impact of customer service on the overall ownership experience, even for highly anticipated timepieces.
Around last year end of summer I briefly owned the IWC Le Petit Prince Chronograph for a few days. Really loved it, the blue dial is some of the best in the business and absolutely love the layout of the dial. However all this was short lived, as I discovered some blemishes and had a fallout with the AD due to their terrible attitude. I returned the watch in the end. So if you guys don't mind, I'm going to elaborate a little bit on this unfortunate event.
After close to 3 months of wait, the AD called me upon the watch's arrival. My excitement was quickly let down when I saw the watch: there was some damage on the strap, as if the surface of the leather was scraped off. The AD promised me a free replacement strap, which I'm fine with since that means I would have a spare. Here's a photo:
The night that I took the watch home, to my surprise, I found quite a bit of issues under the crystal:
Several specs of dust, here are just a few
A small paint chip on dial, revealing the silver base coat. Really obvious when rotating my wrist, as it would flicker when hitting the light at the right angle.
Paint blotch on day wheel
And also really scratched up lugs- at this point I'm certain that some amateur swapped out the strap somewhere from the factory to the AD, and did a terrible job, causing damage to both the lugs and the strap.
At that point I was appalled with the watch and horrified by how all this could've passed IWC's stringent QC check. All those issues under the crystal were easily spotted by the naked eye under regular lighting. So of course I called the AD the next day and asked them to send the watch off to IWC to have these items fixed.The next day I got a call from the AD's manager telling me basically that I'm too picky and she assured me IWC won't even touch those defects because apparently quote "they are too small and passable by IWC's QC standards." She offered me a full refund and suggested I take it, because she said outright that they rather send the watch back for refurb than to even try and ask IWC to fix these items for me. They said if I wanted a more perfect watch I should look at Seiko or Casio. I felt like I got a slap in the face because they didn't want to deal with a picky customer like me and the watch isn't expensive like Patek (still not inexpensive), which they also carry, to be taken seriously. I happily took the refund, and boycotted the AD for good. Definitely the worst watch purchasing experience thus far and I lost faith in IWC for a long time.
~Interlude~ Thank you for bearing with me thus far with the story!
Fast forward to present day, I keep seeing beautiful photos of this watch on IG and realized that my love for this piece has never died down. Upon speaking with another AD in the US (i'm in Canada), I got a great deal and received the watch by FedEx the next day. Amazing!
In my hands again! This time I looked over the watch carefully.... and it's perfect! That's what an IWC SHOULD be!
Perfectly laid out dial
My faith with IWC has been restored, and I am thoroughly enjoying this piece. I only wish I could pull off the Big Pilot, but unfortunately it is too clunky on my wrist.
Thank you guys for the patience to read through this post! HAGWE!!
ps. Is there a reason why we don't have an IWC section?
