Well As many of you know I went down to swatch UK back in June to fight the corner for collectors of Omega watches of a certain vintage who'd been left out in the cold following swatches enforcement of their new regulations around supply of spares and servicing of vintage category 4 work I had a really productive day with their Head of UK customer services James Avery who not only afford me a glimpse in to their refurbished service centre but also bent over backward for me to enable collectors of watches like omega marine chronometers to continue to be serviced (see my previous posts) Anyway, as part of our conversations I had explained to James that's I'd only used Bienne once on a Big Blue with not the best results, James assured me that the world had improved and that swatch was completely focused on customer service and that also meant their vintage customers........ Proof is in the pudding I thought..... With this in mind when I went down I took my 'well used' but completely original 105.003-65 speedy with me for a trip to Bienne The watch is a one owner from new and only serviced twice watch which has spent it's entire life 'in service', to say she needed an overhaul was an understatement and it was more barn find than a light refresh Today I popped to the post office; More to follow ;-)
It would be very interesting to check the quality of tuning of the movement. Have you got any possibility to have it measured by means of a watch timing machine?
Well chaps.............................I think the pics speak for themselves I was VERY specific about what I wanted, maintain complete originality as much as possible and no new dial,hands, bezel etc and maintain the watches originality IMHO Bienne have done a great job, they even sent the extract, which you might spot is an interesting read! Looks like they have had to replace a few movement parts though, will confirm time keeping over the next 24 hours against my Marine Chronometer ;-)
Glad you're satisfied!! It looks great in these photos, really. Really nice they also returned the parts they took out/replaced. That's a good thing and glad they followed your instructions here.
With the parts, do Bienne charge a flat rate for a restoration grade service or do you get a list of extras for all the parts they replace?
They charged a flat rate including the replacement of relevant movement spares but I believe they charge additional for dial, hands and bezel replacement
Must admit its been on the wrist for a few hours now and I am chuffed to bits, it was intended for Esther but I may end up keeping it for me ;-) Bienne have been very sympathetic, they have also found an ingenious way of replacing the old springs from the bracelet with rubber gaskets which seem to work perfectly the case looks so much better than before but I didn't want it lapping back to new, I wanted to retain the originality and they really seem to have done that along with retaining the hands and dial and bezel as requested, great service, super communications and TBH I am thoroughly impressed
Does anyone know how they tackle water resistance? I understand in order to complete a service and offer the warranty the case must pass the pressure test. What happens if a straight lug case doesn't pass? Was this mentioned in your invoice or service report?
It wasn't, because I retained the hands Bienne would warranty the service work but the UK service centre have done for 24 months, which is again a great service. They would have a warrantied it for 24 months at Bienne but only if I agreed to replace the hands with luminova ones which I didn't want to do!
Ah that's good. I thought they would refuse to service a watch unless they replaced what they thought was needed in order to supply a warranty, but the customer can choose to ignore some of their recommendations and forego the warranty?
Basically Bienne wanted to replace the hands because they couldn't guarantee the stability of the luminous material, Swatch UK phoned me personally and after a in depth conversation they offered to still provide a 24 month warranty through swatch UK, thats a good service in my book
The reason I ask the question, I'm wondering what the situation is for example with a 321 movement that's missing some parts rather than needing replacements
I think it would depend on the part. Big difference from a few screws missing, to a balance complete... Cheers, Al