!49 CW watches for myself plus about a dozen as gifts. not to mention other new ones that I have bought over the years. Never a QC issue. Just lucky I guess. I did have an issue with my C4 at some point, but it wasn't a QC problem. I can't even remember what it was.

That said, I never inspect a new watch with a loupe looking for problems. If I can't see an issue with the naked eye then I just enjoy the watch as is.

No QC issues here that I can remember. I have had issues crop up after some time with ownership but that happens. Even the biggest brands have them slip through. The ones that happened within warranty were dealt with.

Yes.

Four for me, all different:
C20 - wonky not correctly fitted crystal
C60 Mk 2 GMT - misaligned bezel
C65 Dartmouth - spinning rotor syndrome
C63 GMT - leaked

The first three should have been easy enough to pick up with a final QC check, the C63 I put down to bad luck.

Yes it is annoying.

No that doesn’t make me a perfectionist.

Neil

1. With Christopher Ward? No.
2. With other brands? Yes A first gen Maen Skyliner was returned and fixed under warranty, I think a replacement movement. Apart from the initial "please describe the problem to us" no questions were asked. I had a similar no quibble warranty fix with a new 7750 movement watch.

Does it bother me (when these things happen)? No because I've not encountered any resistance from the suppliers involved. I can see that it would bother me if I had to get firm.

Do I think it's easy to become a perfectionist in this hobby? I get the impression that youtubers are expected to toss the rattle out of the pram at the merest hint of provocation. Not being a youtuber it might take me a week to notice if a bezel is misaligned by a barely perceptible amount. If I noticed a mark on a watch I took delivery of say last week I'd be likely to think I'd done it.

Owned 40+ CW's and have never had an issue with QC.

I was unlucky with an Omega Aqua Terra that had to go for service as there was lint under the dial

Three CW watches, two had issues unfortunately. My Worldglow had lint under the crystal, and my Aquitaine had a misaligned bezel. No QC issues with my Atoll, but I'm not enjoying screwing down the crown. It's notchy, but I've found if I slowly apply pressure and turn the crown in reverse, it does seat and I can screw it down with no problem. If it gets worse I'll send it in, but for now, I'm ok with it.

The issues I had weren't a huge deal, but it's annoying in that both could have and should have been caught easily before sending out. Not sure what the quality control check is for when they let a watch ship out with a misaligned bezel. Doesn't take a loupe to see that.

Sent from my Galaxy S20 using Tapatalk

Yep. Plenty.

Honestly, the first few -- maybe even 4 -- CW watches I bought all had different issues right out of the box. That included everything from a watch that stopped at precisely 2:19 am every morning, to other mechanical problems, to a COSC watch that was WAY out of regulation, to a piece of hair under the crystal. Those were all a few years ago, and my sense is that CW QC has gotten better since then -- and, to be fair, they did fix all of the issues. I will admit, though, that it was pretty frustrating being repeatedly disappointed upon opening up these brand new watch boxes.

The bad luck followed with watches from Farer (returned for full refund due to a movement issue); Vaer (the rotor on a Swiss movement was detached from the shaft/pinion on arrival), when they returned it, they sent the same watch with a Miyota movement (oops), and then I sort of gave up on that; I also got one of the limited edition Nezumi automatic Chronographs last year, and it arrived with a huge dent in the bezel because the extra links for the bracelet were flopping around in the box during shipment (I returned it and decided not to have them send another). Oh, and then there was the Traska, which had a problem with the keyless works (sent it back and they replaced it).

So, yeah, I've had a few issues.

I admit I was pretty frustrated with all of this, although eventually it started to almost become laughable and humorous. As I write it all here, I do feel like I was a more than a little snake-bit, but -- as many others have said here -- the truth is there's an awful lot that can go wrong, either in manufacture or shipping.

At this point, I've become kind of philosophical about it all, I suppose. First, they're watches, and almost by definition a unnecessary extravagance; second, the problems can usually be resolved; and third, if the worst thing that happens to me is that a watch I probably don't really need has to be returned because of a problem that can be fixed . . . well, then I'm probably doing ok.

StrappedUp wrote: ↑Mon Jan 23, 2023 11:19 am Yep, too many quite frankly! I think I'm cursed when it comes to watches.

I feel your pain (see my post). Somehow, though, it hasn't stopped me for continuing to come back for more. . . ; )

I’ve had a couple of issues with CW both bronze tridents although it turns out there wasn’t actually an issue.

My first was with the bronze mk2 trident, this would hand wind ok but about every 4th or 5th turn it would feel as though it was slipping as if the gears weren’t quite meeting up correctly. It went away for a warranty repair and came back with “no fault found” interestingly the crown logo lined up differently upon its return so I knew it had been taken apart and I suspect this solved the problem without CW seeing it. The fault had indeed gone away when I got it back.

The second time was my bronze mk3 trident which the crown wouldn’t disengage when screwing it down. Unlike every other CW watch I’d owned. An email to customer services told me this was ‘normal’ for the bronze as they had different tolerances. I left it as it wasn’t actually causing an issue. I’ve had other watches behave like this as well so wasn’t too concerned.

In both cases I sold the watches not long after so I don’t know if the issue returned in the case if the mk2, or caused later problems in the case of the mk3.

I also had an issue with the service of my IWC. It came back with the AR coating badly scratched and I rejected it upon return. IWC themselves claimed the scratches has always been there but they’d cleaned the crystal so we’re now visible!!!! The AD I sent it via stepped up though and paid for a replacement crystal for me. They shouldn’t have had to do that though and it’s knocked my confidence with the Richemont service centre as a result.