Disappointing Dallas service

my experience with the service center in Dallas has been disappointing. I sent in my Le Petit Prince chronograph near the end of November of 2023. The service was started on Dec 7th and I received it back on January 5th

After receiving my chronograph back I had the following problems.

1. Chronograph only would run for 1-2 minutes, then the watch would die
2. My chronograph has the day of the week and date function, they would change over at different times. The numerical day of the month would change at midnight, however the day of the week would change at 1:45 am
3. The day and date would work in reverse, so if I hacked the movement and went past midnight, it would change from Thursday to Friday, but going in reverse. It would go back from Friday to Thursday.
4. the refinishing job was done very poorly, my case lines was very sharp and pronounced before the polishing. When I received my watch back, the case lines was rounded off and too much material was removed.

I returned my chronograph and the second service was started on Jan 16th and I received it back on Feb 9th.

Most of the issues were resolved, however the day of the week still can still go forwards and backwards when the movement is hacked. The second service was done under warranty however I requested the case be replaced due to the poor polishing & refinishing.

It will probably have to go back for a third service. Between December through February, I've had my chronograph for 4 days

the customer service team has been helpful but the service team is lacking quality control.

it's disappointing that I outlined all the issues when sending back my timepiece for the second time and it was not checked prior to being returned to me

the full service was $650. In order to correct the poor refinishing, my case was replaced at a cost $1,400

as of now, this service is north of $2k and the movement will probably need to be serviced a third time in 3 months

this is really very sad, and surprising.

Why did you have to pay for the new case if it was the service team's mistake (polishing it incorrectly)?

After the case was refinished, and it went back for the second service. I was told it was within spec

that being said, if it was within spec then IWC would not do anything about the condition of the case. In their eyes, it was refinished. I had a few options.

I could try to have IWC refinish the case again however enough material was removed where the shape of the case looked different. Since the movement was going to be serviced again, then dropping the movement into a new case would be done at no charge, with the exception of the cost of the case. I tried to ask for a case replacement, or at least assistance with the cost of the case but it was pretty quickly denied.

i could have sent out the watch to an independent for case refinishing, But that also meant more down time and additional cost for refinishing

ive expressed my disappointment with IWC but this seems purely transactional at this point

these are the photos of my chronograph before the service

the polished bevels are clean and crisp The watch was in excellent condition before sending it in

That is really very bad. I am sorry this happened to you.

I know it is a really bad feeling for this to happen to the watch you love. Quite disappointed with IWC in particular for poor case refinishing. Who else should we trust our watch if not the manufacturer itself?

Mirrors my recent experiences at the London boutiques of both IWC and JLC. The quality assurance at the repair centres seems to have gone downhill - if not completely absent. It's speculation on my part, but I assume that Richemont are contracting out to "approved" service centres and they don't have the depth of knowledge of the watches or simply don't take the same care. In the good old days some models were automatically sent to Schaffhausen, but when I asked about this in the London boutique they said they had no control over where the watch went, they just send it to "the platform" and it's all decided there. I've got no problem with the boutiques themselves, but comfy chairs and free coffee don't make up for shoddy servicing.

I'm shopping for a retirement piece as my daily-wear, go anywhere, wear-it-til-I-die luxury watch. I want to buy from new and the new ingenieur would have been ideal from a size, features, technical and heritage perspective (I've got a 666), but after my recent service experiences I'll never buy another Richemont watch.

I agree, good boutique experience won't make up for bad watch servicing.

I am looking for a IWC pilot watch (I had a few before which I loved but never had to service them) but now I am concerned.

I wouldn't be too concerned about it. Right now it's just the service time that it is taking.

if it needs to go back for a 3rd time, it is more of a disappointment more than anything else. The lack of Quality control is the most disappointing aspect. It wasn't checked the first time when it was initially sent back to me.

my wife has a 41mm chronograph and that is how I've been able to check the functions with each other. It's more of me finding all the faults with the function and the asthetic is extremely dissapointing. I don't think the customer should have to discover quality isssues, this is what leads to a poor after service

im still trying to upload the photos of my chronograph after I receive it back from service but I posted it on another forum

it starts at #15 on this thread

www.watchuseek.com/threads/shipping-to-texas-richemont-repair-center.5521558/#replies

I looked at your after photos. How on earth could these be considered in spec? I am baffled.

It depends what determines to be in spec. Hopefully IWC does not have the same standards as Tesla

granted some of the photos have shadows but I was severely disappointed as soon as I opened the shipping container. I could tell through the plastic wrapping that all the lines and character were gone.

I told the concierge, my watch had abs of Thor, and what was returned was the fat version of Thor from Avengers End game, it was round and soft

This is a recurrent issue, and not at all limited to IWC by the way. Outside of a warranty issue, I would never entrust any of my watches to a brand's service centre.

You are far better off finding a good independant watchmaker- the service will likely be cheaper, faster and better. You can form a proper relationship with them, and also have a say as to how your watch is looked after (polish vs not, retain old hands vs not) etc etc etc

Like others on this forum (and other forums), I've had very underwhelming experiences getting various watches serviced at brand boutiques/ service centres. I will never do it again!

Independants for the win!

I agree. I think movement service and no refinishing is the way to go. This was an expensive lesson

Sorry to hear about all the disappointing service experiences.

Some years ago I left my vintage ref 500 (cal 521 from 1952) with an official distributor in Stockholm. They informed me that they can't handle a vintage watch in Sweden, so they must send it to Switzerland (which was what I wanted anyway). It took almost a year and cost about 1100 dollars, but the result! The watch performed perfectly, and still does. And the looks! The case is beautifully polished (I know some collectors don't want that) but when I left it for service it looked awful. The badly scratched dial (my fault) came back looking like new, but under a loupe you can see that it really was the same dial with repairs. So you can have a fantastic service experience, and I guess that most are great. And that IWC has spare parts for watches more than 70 years old, and for PW:s more than a hundred years old is probably unique.

Best regards

Henrik

After my experience with Dallas, I requested that it be sent back to schaffausen. They assured me it could be done and it was.

my main gripe is that it should have never left Dallas in the condition that it was. The initial service was not done correctly and the refinishing was done very poorly