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I agree that there are certain expectations of reliability when spending a lot of money on a mechanical watch. And when those expectations aren’t met, it is difficult to regain confidence.
Not too long ago a friend of mine purchased a brand new Royal Oak Offshore from the AP boutique. When he went to adjust the time the following day the crown fell off. Unacceptable. He returned the watch and has avoided AP since.
On the flip side, I can attest to the impeccable accuracy of several watches I’ve had the good fortune of owning. An example includes my Patek 5164 that I wear while traveling. I recently wore it for 10 days straight while in Geneva and it lost only two seconds during the entire trip. I get similar results from my FPJ Chronometre Bleu and Lange references.
Unfortunately a bad experience with build quality, reliability or service can leave a bad impression that is difficult to reverse.
💰1481 Marketplace Listings for Audemars Piguet›F.P. Journe Chronometre · 1 for sale · 2826 discussions›
The Emperor's New Clothes…(high end watches related)
I know they cost much I know the “demand “ is high and market price is few fold the msrp I know everyone like to show and bragg I know they are high end… BUT The not so hidden secret, but less mentioned is the fact that many of these high end watches are ...
My rolex day-date turns 50 this year and runs fine
But I heard a story of new Swiss watches that had Time for a strap change? needed service soon after sale and returned with the same error that brought it to service in the first place. Which sounds odd. ...
Not only the Swiss
Anecdotal, but my Lange 1 (2019 bought at Bucherer) is very inaccurate when it comes to timekeeping. It has been sent to Glashütte for correction. It came back with an even worse chronometer performance. It has a severe impact on my joy of ownership. So m...
This is why my two favourite brands are Rolex and Lange
Having purchased eight modern Rolex over the past 10 years and having zero issues and only one service on the oldest watch (totally my fault and a story for over a glass of wine and a laugh) I “get it”. Rolex are built to live, work and play on the wrist ...
Any watch can always suffer from malfunctioning
But there are many differences between a brand new movement made in 50 pieces and an old one made in thousands, for instance. Do the majority of today's buyers care about it? Don't think so, unfortunately.
Agree 100% and
to add something to your wise thoughts the top brands (VC for example) dont have the decency to apologgies when they fail to repair what is broken or miss the scheduled finish date with many many weeks. It goes without saying that in any other business a ...
I agree that we should expect quality from every watch we buy, irregardless of price IMO. I am fortunate that all my current watches runs perfectly and have no issues, but …
I did encounter some bad experience 4-5 years ago with a brand which I ultimately decided to not only sell their watch, but decided to never buy from them again.
sure...
on two occasion with two watch i had some issues with Zenith. On both count with two different model that were supposed to be chronometer certified i got units that had more then 10sec/day. One of them of the Defy Inventor which was supposed to be the bes...
TRUTH!!!
Wow someone has the decency to say the truth. I know with AP in specific they can have issues but reading here I see much more companies have as well issues. in reality a product that you buy for the prices that these watches go for, especially the ones t...
Perhaps Certain Timepiece Manufacturers Need Better Beta Testing?
Ming also had a timepiece with 'flaws', which was corrected gratis after the public took delivery and discovered the problem. If Ming had proper Beta Testers, this situation may have been solved before delivery to the public. Recently acquired a Czapek Mo...
MING did have beta testers for that initially-problematic 17.09
...they're also known as "all the folks who jumped at the ming x massena 17.09" -- and they paid a premium for the privilege! 😹 By the time buyers of the standard/non-beta 17.09s got their watches, the bugs had been identified and squashed, haha
Ahhh thx and good to know.
Again, thanks for chiming in. Love Ming's designs, especially the minimal design dials.
I agree that there are certain expectations of reliability when spending a lot of money on a mechanical watch. And when those expectations aren’t met, it is difficult to regain confidence.
Not too long ago a friend of mine purchased a brand new Royal Oak Offshore from the AP boutique. When he went to adjust the time the following day the crown fell off. Unacceptable. He returned the watch and has avoided AP since. On the flip side, I can at...
Can't agree more! For some reason this issue does not get talked about very much so brands don't have any incentive to improve. Personally, this has killed my interest in complications, more parts just looks like more days and $ in service.
It's not just reliability. As others have stated, the subsequent poor treatment by brands when issues arise, months in service, and fear that your watch will come back even worse than before all make this a hugely terrible experience. Sometimes owning a h...
I agree
But I have to disagree about cars which I used to drive cheaper vehicles and never had any issues, now with the range rovers and Land Rover defender they live in the shop, crack the windshield and have electrical issues and there’s no one to talk too. Ter...
Design parameters have changed.
Watches are made extremely precisely these days, but that typically means small problems disable them. I find my older watches to be very reliable. They are not engineered to such tight tolerances, and if something gets a few microns out of place they jus...
Same here.
New 15500st sudden stoped once in a while. I sold it eventually and never touch this brand. I appreciate you spilled this out.
same with cars
what you're referring also works with cars as well, an example would be the BMW 3-series vs. 7-series engine. stuff that is more mass produced, the engineers are able to work out the flaws and kinks with each update. unfortunately this isn't the case with...
After reading your comment I cringed a bit at my comment. It definitely could be interpreted at piling on AP for quality control issues. That was not my intention and I apologize. The fact is that all manufacturers are vulnerable to QC issues.
I don’t know what set of QC steps are taken by every manufacturer. But I do know that Lange takes the extra step of assembling each of their movements twice. Even then, they admit that perfection is unattainable. It’s merely a goal. I suppose the takeaway...
I appreciate very much your reply.
I don't think you really need to apologize for piling on, as it's perfectly ok to inform others of your experience. My issue is with the OP's thread singling out AP for apparent quality control shortcomings. I think my greater issue is with the nature of ...
+1
I thought that last night when I first saw this post but I didn’t comment. I came back today and was surprised at how many comments there were before someone stated this obvious bias.
Reliability of high end brands
I have one word for everyone: ETA. The sometimes maligned mass-produced movements are - for the most part - dead-on reliable. They are the Toyotas and Hondas of the watch world: easy to work on, parts always available, reliable, accurate, and any qualifie...