MoT's WDF

In late July I bought this seriously cool Hamilton Khaki Mechanical from [mention]Swolela[/mention]. This is the 50mm Limited Edition with the skyscraper hour markers and it uses Hamilton's H-50 movement, like all other Khaki Mechanicals.

It came in on August 13, and I absolutely love it! I had been wearing it non-stop, that is until Saturday, August 21. Mrs.MoT and I were out with a girlfriend of ours, and I had taken it off to wind. While winding there was a sudden, audible "CRUNCH" and then a "SNAP" followed by no resistance felt in the crown, and the watch stopped.

Uh oh.

The next morning I checked the warranty card and discovered the two-year warranty had expired two months earlier. Knowing that, I opened it up, and this is what I found. See anything where it shouldn't be?



I closed it, packed it up, and mailed it off to Swatch Group US's service center in California, as they are the designated center for my state. A few days later it arrived at their center, and a day after that I began receiving emails guiding me to their Service Center website where I can view the progress of the diagnosis and repair. Cool!

They take an image of what they received and they document the progress. Currently, diagnosis is in progress, so there isn't much to see.



As I learn more, I'll update this post/thread sharing my experience with SGUS.

The bright side of this is that when it's repaired, it will have a new 24-month warranty.

I hope it's repaired and sent back quickly. I've only been able to enjoy it for a week!

Update:

To my surprise, it looks like SGUS will be repairing the watch at no cost to me!



The estimate PDF included this remark:

SGUS wrote:"We have received your watch for service. Based on the purchase date or specific repair issue, your watch is covered under warranty and no payment is required. Please retain this acknowledgement for reference when inquiring about your repair. Thank you."

Needless to say, this made my day. I will report again once the repair is complete and it has been returned.

My heart sank when I read the 1st post. Relieved to hear they’ll repair it for free. I’ve only had good experiences with the swatch group.

This is good info to have. I plan on sending my Khaki Field auto in at some point for service.

Update: Service is complete and I received FedEx notification that it has been shipped and should be here by Friday the 17th!

I will report again once it has arrived.

ManOnTime wrote: ↑Tue Sep 14, 2021 5:58 pm

Update: Service is complete and I received FedEx notification that it has been shipped and should be here by Friday the 17th!

I will report again once it has arrived.

I chuckled that the status of “service completed” is “in progress.”

It's back!







I sent just the watch head in with no spring bars or anything else. They sent it back in that nice travel case with a set of spring bars attached. It also looks like they touched up the case a bit as well. There were a couple of marks here and there that I can't see now. There was paperwork indicating that "full service" was done, but nothing to indicate if it was repaired or if they simply did a movement swap.

At the moment, I'm very satisfied. 25 days from dropping it off at the post office to having it returned via FedEx is not bad at all. I suppose it helps that it uses an off-the-shelf ETA movement.

Hopefully, if I ever have to send in an Swatch Group watch again, the results will be similar.