Cautionary tale for battery replacement

PSol

Hi folks,

Haven't posted here before but just wanted to put this here in the hope that it will prevent someone repeating my stupid mistake.

I've got a 'good' watch and took it for its first battery replacement a few months ago. I took it to the official brand dealer in my nearest city thinking they would know what they were doing. My hubby is big into watches and we were expecting to pay anything from €20/€30 upward for the battery replacement.

Our first warning was when the watch was ready an hour later and it only cost €6. We took it outside in the light and saw that all the back had been badly scratched.

The staff on the day weren't interested and said it was unavoidable as the back was so tight. I went home - did a bit of research online and realised a proper battery replacement should have cost €35 and involved a minor service, polish etc.

I contacted the manager who offered to have her inhouse goldsmith try to polish out the scratches. I also contacted the brand customer care who offered to have the watch checked so to cut a long story short, thankfully a few months later my watch has been fully repaired for free by the brand head office in Ireland with a completely new case and case back. I saw the cost of repair which totalled over €200 as the assessors found an inappropriate key was used to open the watch and multiple types of damage had been caused.

Anyway, thankfully I didn't come out any worse off, but it was a lot of hassle and I was worried at one point I'd be going down the small claims court route.

As I said, just hope this helps someone else who knows as little about these things as I did - I didn't realise an official dealer mightn't know how to replace a battery properly so my advice to anyone getting a battery changed for the first time, would be to check the watch manufacturer's website to make sure the jewellers are authorised.

mondeo

H Samuel or similar usually change my batteries.

Wibbs

Man, how can a dealer screw something that simple up? I mean it's not like a service on a mechanical movement. Not even close. Then again I've heard this more than once. Fair play for following it up though and getting your watch sorted out.

Pricewise? 20 euros would be the very most I'd pay TBH(unless the watch takes a particular shaped gasket). It's nearly all profit for a very simple job. For a start you can't service the average quartz watch of today so that's a bit of BS they sometimes add in to justify extra money. If a quartz movement does malfunction they just replace it. Very few replacement quartz movements cost more than 20-30 quid a piece and that's retail. Of course to "repair" a quartz movement I've seen prices as high as 200 plus euro. Nice work if you can get it.

I change the batteries on the watches of mine that take them. Doesn't take long, a couple of minutes. Opening the case back is generally the "hard" part. Even so it's pretty easy and you'd want to be a right ape to screw it up. I use a small toy rubber ball to grip and twist the backs off. I've yet to have one it couldn't open, including a mate's Rolex. Can't scratch the case either. Press fit casebacks can be a pain mind you and you have to be more careful there. As well as the right battery(usually around a quid on ebay) you also need a selection of gaskets that will fit the watch to preserve the water resistance. Tools incldue plastic or rubber tipped insulated tweezers when handling the battery and a selection of screwdrivers. All available on ebay for feck all(tm). Otherwise it's a simple job*. Translation: if a four thumbed monkey like me can do it...




*if you happen to have an early quartz from the 1970's observe static protection protocols. Even something as simple as earthing yourself by touching a radiator before diving in. They were a lot more sensitive to static damage back in the day.