Warranty Experience
 

Does anyone have a good or bad experience with Breitling on their warranty? Sent them an a Superocean Outerknown a month ago, they claim the crown and middle case are “broken” and need replacement, $1,200. Sent a question as to why this is not covered under warranty as the watch is in great shape, I don’t even shower with the watch. My expectations too high??

I'm sorry to hear this and have no experience with the Breitling warranty process as all of mine were pre-owned.

I wonder if this a common issue for these? Not sure how that could've happened and why they would claim the warranty does not cover it. Hopefully someone can provide more insight soon from the technical side, but I just hope you're able to have this swiftly resolved to your satisfaction.

Response from Breitling
 

Received an email this morning after I had not heard back in a week from them on the warranty. The diagnosis stated the middle case and crown were "Broken". The email stated that the watch had received an impact (very surprising to me) and that the middle case and crown had thread damage. I knew the crown had thread damage since I could not screw it down and lock it in place. Does an impact cause thread damage??

New update, emails claims they already discounted the work on the initial quote, didn't tell me. Repair Crown and middle case quote is $1,360. They say that is half off?

I'm not too familiar with this watch, are parts of it ceramic? What were the signs of an impact other than the component failure?

I've seen watches from this brand and many others take an absolute beating for many years and not have this happen. No idea still how this could've, but is there by any chance a way to escalate and have your concerns reconsidered? I truly hope so and if I were in your shoes would certainly be disappointed in the result thus far.

That sounds frustrating. If the watch is still under warranty and hasn’t been mishandled, you’d think issues like that would be covered. Definitely worth pushing back and asking for a detailed explanation. Hopefully, they make it right.

I had only 1 exprience with Breitling warranty.
I had a basicaslly new Superocean Heritage on one day in SWFL.
I looked down and there was condensation under the crystal. Crown was down and closed.
I took it to an AD they sent it to the repair center, it came back about a month later, everything is fine, no charge.
Sorry to hear about your issue.

Update. So Breitling repair center decided to fully dismantle the watch. I got their attention when I paid $60 and shipped them the rest of the Breitling watches (2 More) and told them to donate the lot to some local charity as I was no longer going to wear a Breitling (and a receipt from end of last year where I purchased a replacement leather band at their NY boutique for $500 for one of the watches I shipped them).

After fully dismantling the watch, they agreed that the damage was not from an impact, but from over tightening the crown!! After a week, they wrote back that they’d repair the watch for $550, a price drop from the $1,390. I buckled in a decided to pay for the repair. Still not satisfied that a watch of that heft should break the middle case due to over tightening. They kept repeating that they only cover a manufacturers defect, to which I replied that a weak middle case could have been a defect.