Battery life?

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Peacefrog
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Battery life?

Post by Peacefrog »

I have returned a C60-38-Q-SKVT under the 60:60 guarantee to Christopher Ward. This is the second time I have had to return the watch.
The watch was bought on 26/02/2016, it has already been returned once due to a previous fault which was fixed.
This time, CWL are saying there is a battery fault and that: "We usually expect battery life to be approximately 18 months – 2 years."

Has anybody else had this experience?
When I bought the watch, I was under the impression the battery had a 45month life expectancy not 'approximately 18 months – 2 years'.

Thanks
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hughesyn
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Re: Battery life?

Post by hughesyn »

From
CW's own site:
The Ronda 715 quartz movement powering the Trident 300 is a Swiss-made tour-de-force.

Accurate to within -10/+20 seconds a month
Mercury-free battery with up to 45 months’ life
70 per cent power-saving device
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Peacefrog
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Re: Battery life?

Post by Peacefrog »

I have contacted CW customer services and they are saying: "The 45 month battery life is only valid if you engage the long life function by pulling the crown out"

I personally feel this is very misleading.
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Re: Battery life?

Post by Peacefrog »

Even the reviewers belief the battery life is longer than 18 months.


This is a well-known and rather common Swiss Made workhorse Quartz movement. There’s not usually a lot to say about Swiss made Quartz movements, but in many cases that’s a good thing. It’s reliable, not a lot can go wrong with it, and is easy to replace. It has a 4 year battery life, so there’s no need to worry about servicing it or changing the battery for a good while. It’s accurate (according to the specs) to -10/+20 seconds a month, but is usually better in real life.

https://www.watchitallabout.com/christo ... ch-review/
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hughesyn
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Re: Battery life?

Post by hughesyn »

Peacefrog wrote:I have contacted CW customer services and they are saying: "The 45 month battery life is only valid if you engage the long life function by pulling the crown out"

I personally feel this is very misleading.
They are wrong.

According to the technical data on the Ronda 715, standard battery life is 60 months.

Pulled out stem gives 70% reduction on this.

In fact there is a version called Li with a bigger battery that has 10 year battery life.
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Re: Battery life?

Post by Peacefrog »

Thanks,

I will forward that to CW.
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Re: Battery life?

Post by richtel »

The way I read it is that pulling out the stem is a 70% reduction of battery consumption- further increasing the standard battery life. Pulling out the stem and hacking the seconds will reduce the torque demand for the stepper but also, obviously, stop the watch. There's no way Ronda could specify a 'standard battery life' whilst the watch wasn't, erm, being a watch!

I suspect the CW customer services rep was getting a little confused!
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Re: Battery life?

Post by Kip »

In a non-chronograph application, new watch batteries in a new watch typically average 3-5 years. Subsequent battery changes usually go 2-3 years. A lithium battery can last up to 10 years. The movements that CW uses do not accept lithium batteries.

You must remember that these are averages. I have seen new batteries fail in a week and others go 6 years.
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Re: Battery life?

Post by Cyrano »

Peacefrog, if you were “under the impression the battery had a 45 month life expectancy,” that’s understandable: the website says precisely that (see the “View the range” page). Unfortunately, on each individual model page we're told that “it also has an extremely long battery life of up to 60 months.” Adding to the confusion, their customer service representatives are telling you and others that the battery only lasts 18 months to 2 years. So the rep contradicts both pages of the website, which contradict each other.

I pointed out these discrepancies in a similar thread dating from October of last year (“re: C6 battery life”). At that time Kip said that he would bring the problem to CW’s attention. Assuming that he did so, they’ve now had three months to get their story straight on the website and to educate their customer service people. They have not yet done so. Not to worry, however: as the resident apologists will helpfully remind us, they’re all really busy at CW and they’ll probably get around to it eventually. In the meantime, let’s make new threads on this topic a bi- or triannual event.

Re: their claim that "the 45 month battery life is only valid if you engage the long life function by pulling the crown out," the real mystery is why they would tell you this when it can be so easily refuted (as hughesyn showed by linking to Ronda 715’s specs). Either they know this is false, in which case they’re lying, or they don’t, in which case… why don’t they?
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Re: Battery life?

Post by FloridaPhil »

What am I missing here?

It's a quartz watch and it stopped due to a depleted battery. We have no way of knowing the age of the battery when it was installed.

My first action would have been to have the battery changed out or do it myself. Literally $5 here in the US. Even if it only lasts 24 months, we are talking about the price of a cup of coffee.

Why would you return it? I'm genuinely confused.
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Re: Battery life?

Post by Cyrano »

“What am I missing here?” asks FloridaPhil.

Maybe, given the recent purchase date, it hadn’t occurred to the OP when he returned his watch that it could have been the battery. He doesn’t say.

In any case, that’s not the main topic of the thread. The principal and more interesting question is CW’s inability to give us consistent info on battery life expectancy in the C6 Trident 300. And their statement, via Customer Service, that "the 45 month battery life is only valid if you engage the long life function by pulling the crown out." Why claim something that’s so obviously false?

“Is it that important?” one might ask. Yeah, if “that important” means important enough to bang out 2 posts in a watch forum, and if one owns a new C6 quartz.

BTW, re: “We have no way of knowing the age of the battery when it was installed”: More important than the age of the battery when installed is the time the battery spent IN THE WATCH.
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Re: Battery life?

Post by Peacefrog »

Thanks for the replies.

The watch was returned because it had stopped. This wasn't the first time it had stopped and also wasn't the first time the watch had needed to be returned to CW. If I had known it was a battery, do you not think I would have just changed the battery instead of paying £22.95 for a battery from CW?

With regards to the standard life of a battery; I personally feel CW are providing incorrect and misleading information regarding their batteries. I find this disappointing, and I for one, will be reconsidering my association with CW as a brand.
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Re: Battery life?

Post by Mikkei4 »

This has probably been asked before but is the 60month warranty affected if the battery is NOT changed by CW ?
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Re: Battery life?

Post by Kip »

Cyrano wrote:Peacefrog, if you were “under the impression the battery had a 45 month life expectancy,” that’s understandable: the website says precisely that (see the “View the range” page). Unfortunately, on each individual model page we're told that “it also has an extremely long battery life of up to 60 months.” Adding to the confusion, their customer service representatives are telling you and others that the battery only lasts 18 months to 2 years. So the rep contradicts both pages of the website, which contradict each other.

I pointed out these discrepancies in a similar thread dating from October of last year (“re: C6 battery life”). At that time Kip said that he would bring the problem to CW’s attention. Assuming that he did so, they’ve now had three months to get their story straight on the website and to educate their customer service people. They have not yet done so. Not to worry, however: as the resident apologists will helpfully remind us, they’re all really busy at CW and they’ll probably get around to it eventually. In the meantime, let’s make new threads on this topic a bi- or triannual event.

Re: their claim that "the 45 month battery life is only valid if you engage the long life function by pulling the crown out," the real mystery is why they would tell you this when it can be so easily refuted (as hughesyn showed by linking to Ronda 715’s specs). Either they know this is false, in which case they’re lying, or they don’t, in which case… why don’t they?
While I agree that the battery life information is inconsistent and that within CW it should be the same story across the board, this is not uncommon. The information that I have offered is based on my years spent in service. If you search the web, from makers to service sites, you will find a wide variety of so called facts and opinions regarding battery life. I think this is due to ideal/testing conditions vs. real world applications and conditions.

I will again point this out again to CW, but I think many of us need to learn to live with the reality of averages based on real world conditions.
Mikkei4 wrote:This has probably been asked before but is the 60month warranty affected if the battery is NOT changed by CW ?

Yes is the short answer. That said, there are times that CW will grant permission for a battery to be changed locally if you ask and get it in writing.
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Re: Battery life?

Post by FloridaPhil »

Kip wrote:
Mikkei4 wrote:This has probably been asked before but is the 60month warranty affected if the battery is NOT changed by CW ?

Yes is the short answer. That said, there are times that CW will grant permission for a battery to be changed locally if you ask and get it in writing.
Ah. That would be the piece I am missing then. A good policy if the owner lives in the UK. A real PITA for someone needing to send a watch in from, say, Florida. $100 shipping one way for a battery change?
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