My C65 Trident GMT isn't waterproof!

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Re: My C65 Trident GMT isn't waterproof!

Post by peterh »

Okidoki, that's good news.

Think about the following idea:

Get yourself a "tool watch" for those beach outings -- a watch which you like for its character, and of which you're confident it'll take a beating, but which is priced in such a way that you won't feel too much hurt if you loose your footing and crash the watch into a rock. I've got a few Seikos that will do that just fine, and my Kingfisher (the much chunkier and less refined predecessor of the Trident) has also taken quite a bit of abuse, and seen deeper waters than you were exposing the C65 to (yes, it does have a screw-down crown). Personally, I'd never submerge a watch which doesn't have a screw-down crown in anything deeper than a sink, but that's just me being a wimp.

That leaves you some leeway to select a really really really nice watch as your more "coveted" watch.

Thinking about it, all my watches are pretty "singleminded". The C5's and the C3 are excellent at being dressy. The C6 (that's the Kingfisher) is a blunt tool that's quite good at telling the right time and refusing to show wear and tear, and the C40 is pretty much the same; it just looks a lot louder. The Omega Genève is very good at staying under the radar (I kid you not; it's really plain; it almost disappears from your wrist until you want to know what time it is). Some of my Seikos are just fun, but one of them is a real tool watch, and yet quite pleasant to look at. And one of them is the most accurate watch I've ever had, and the most legible watch at the same time.
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Re: My C65 Trident GMT isn't waterproof!

Post by jtc »

Great CW came through, but oh boy is it another facepalm story. What a mess it must be working there.
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Re: My C65 Trident GMT isn't waterproof!

Post by PaulJS »

Clearly an excellent ( and correct ) result.

The question that has to be asked is why did there have to be such a public customer services debacle before getting to the right outcome?

It would seem that there is a lack of procedural or policy clarity / knowledge / experience / empowerment with CS resulting in poor initial assessments of faults & failures.

The point being that it should not be up to the customer to go through the pain of escalating such issues up the tree via a public forum. The company should have an escalation process whereby, when a frontline CS bod is doubt, a holding communication is sent and the issue is quickly sent up the line until it reaches someone with the required knowledge and authority to make a decision.

This would avoid the kind of slow motion public unravelling we have seen here and the consequential loss of confidence in the product and the company.

How much better would it have been if the OP could have been ' My C65 diver allowed water ingress and CW apologised for my disappointment and inconvenience and sent me a new one - great service'

The irony is that CW probably don't have any greater product failure rate or customer service incompetence than anyone else - we mostly see on here that people get to the right result eventually but through a public and potentially damaging dirty linen washing exercise.

As has been said by others before, as an internet only company ( for the 99% of customers not near enough to Maidenhead ) they need to go above and beyond bog standard CS to make it a painless process to deal with them at distance.

Cheers,

Paul
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Re: My C65 Trident GMT isn't waterproof!

Post by neilj568 »

UNIONmagazine wrote: Tue Sep 24, 2019 6:41 pm It should be said that CW still maintain that the watch met their QC despite the obvious water ingress. I have questions about their methods but they insist that the watch satisfied all available tests. The important aspect is that CW eventually came through and did the right thing which I applaud them for.
CW are hardly likely to externally admit that something failed a test but great news about the outcome although this should have occurred immediately
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Re: My C65 Trident GMT isn't waterproof!

Post by UNIONmagazine »

peterh wrote: Tue Sep 24, 2019 11:36 pm Okidoki, that's good news.

Think about the following idea:

Get yourself a "tool watch" for those beach outings -- a watch which you like for its character, and of which you're confident it'll take a beating, but which is priced in such a way that you won't feel too much hurt if you loose your footing and crash the watch into a rock. I've got a few Seikos that will do that just fine, and my Kingfisher (the much chunkier and less refined predecessor of the Trident) has also taken quite a bit of abuse, and seen deeper waters than you were exposing the C65 to (yes, it does have a screw-down crown). Personally, I'd never submerge a watch which doesn't have a screw-down crown in anything deeper than a sink, but that's just me being a wimp.

That leaves you some leeway to select a really really really nice watch as your more "coveted" watch.

Thinking about it, all my watches are pretty "singleminded". The C5's and the C3 are excellent at being dressy. The C6 (that's the Kingfisher) is a blunt tool that's quite good at telling the right time and refusing to show wear and tear, and the C40 is pretty much the same; it just looks a lot louder. The Omega Genève is very good at staying under the radar (I kid you not; it's really plain; it almost disappears from your wrist until you want to know what time it is). Some of my Seikos are just fun, but one of them is a real tool watch, and yet quite pleasant to look at. And one of them is the most accurate watch I've ever had, and the most legible watch at the same time.
Hi, sound advice and advice I normally live by. I do have a Vosotk that I love, despite it's clunkyness, that normally gets worn to the beach. So far it's been bulletproof. The C65 was only worn once in a while but I was away for a few weeks and didn't want to travel with more than one watch as we were on a bit of a road trip and I prefered to have one less thing to lose.

I'm not really a watch collector. I buy a watch to keep for good and wear till I drop, hopefully. I have a weekend, home alone, this week so I can start researching a replacement.

Thanks,
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Re: My C65 Trident GMT isn't waterproof!

Post by UNIONmagazine »

PaulJS wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 9:20 am Clearly an excellent ( and correct ) result.

The question that has to be asked is why did there have to be such a public customer services debacle before getting to the right outcome?

It would seem that there is a lack of procedural or policy clarity / knowledge / experience / empowerment with CS resulting in poor initial assessments of faults & failures.

The point being that it should not be up to the customer to go through the pain of escalating such issues up the tree via a public forum. The company should have an escalation process whereby, when a frontline CS bod is doubt, a holding communication is sent and the issue is quickly sent up the line until it reaches someone with the required knowledge and authority to make a decision.

This would avoid the kind of slow motion public unravelling we have seen here and the consequential loss of confidence in the product and the company.

How much better would it have been if the OP could have been ' My C65 diver allowed water ingress and CW apologised for my disappointment and inconvenience and sent me a new one - great service'

The irony is that CW probably don't have any greater product failure rate or customer service incompetence than anyone else - we mostly see on here that people get to the right result eventually but through a public and potentially damaging dirty linen washing exercise.

As has been said by others before, as an internet only company ( for the 99% of customers not near enough to Maidenhead ) they need to go above and beyond bog standard CS to make it a painless process to deal with them at distance.

Cheers,

Paul
I totally concur. I have to say though that as soon as a gentleman called Adrian became involved the situation was rectified fairly swiftly. That's not say smoothly though as I still had to fight my corner to not be charged or have my waterlogged watch returned to me. If Adrian had cut straight to the chase we'd all still be friends.I would have loved to have remained a customer. I was looking to buy a second watch later this year as a bonus to myself (self employed). I suppose now I'll just take a sneaky look at their website once in a while and wonder.
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My C65 Trident GMT isn't waterproof!

Post by gatehealing »

Glad it resolved correctly, but a shame you had to go around your elbow to get to your thumb. In spite of the positive outcome, this is a failure of CS at CW. It should not be this difficult to get the right thing done. This CS issue has gone on long enough that it ought to have been resolved well before now. If there continues to be a trend of bungled CS situations (which would also beg the question about QA), then CW may need to reconsider the leadership of the CS department and make a change (I vote for Wera to be brought in at a substantial raise in salary!)

In terms of diver QA, there are some pix on this forum of people diving with their older logo watches...cool pix if you can find em. Perhaps getting a used diver off the Sales Corner. It seems that the quality of some of their watches has diminished as the logo and designs “improved.”
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Re: My C65 Trident GMT isn't waterproof!

Post by PaulJS »

I don't do Farcebook, so can anyone that does enlighten me as to whether these kinds of issues get highlighted there?

If not then maybe it would be more expeditious for CW to just shut the forum down and take away the medium for shining a spotlight on their shortcomings!

Afterall, it is often highlighted that we represent a tiny portion of buyers, and the lack of interest in the latest FLE seems to illustrate this.

Then again, maybe just keep it going long enough for me to off load my surplus to requirements models via sales corner :lol:

Cheers,

Paul
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Re: My C65 Trident GMT isn't waterproof!

Post by Mikkei4 »

PaulJS wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:09 pm I don't do Farcebook, so can anyone that does enlighten me as to whether these kinds of issues get highlighted there?

If not then maybe it would be more expeditious for CW to just shut the forum down and take away the medium for shining a spotlight on their shortcomings!

Afterall, it is often highlighted that we represent a tiny portion of buyers, and the lack of interest in the latest FLE seems to illustrate this.

Then again, maybe just keep it going long enough for me to off load my surplus to requirements models via sales corner :lol:

Cheers,

Paul
The OP of this thread was not aware of the forum until he searched for other owners having issues with their CW watches. So I presume most of the content re. faults appeared on this forum and lead him here. I don't use Facebook either so can't shed any insight there.
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Re: My C65 Trident GMT isn't waterproof!

Post by Lavaine »

Glad that this issue was resolved to your satisfaction. Sad that you won't be able to enjoy a watch you obviously had a connection with.
As for a replacement, the obvious choice to me is a Halios Seaforth GMT. Currently not available from Halios though (and unknown if he will produce another run), so you would have to find one used.

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Re: My C65 Trident GMT isn't waterproof!

Post by UNIONmagazine »

Lavaine wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 8:19 pm Glad that this issue was resolved to your satisfaction. Sad that you won't be able to enjoy a watch you obviously had a connection with.
As for a replacement, the obvious choice to me is a Halios Seaforth GMT. Currently not available from Halios though (and unknown if he will produce another run), so you would have to find one used.

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Thnak you, I'll definitely check them out.
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Re: My C65 Trident GMT isn't waterproof!

Post by Blackdog »

peterh wrote: Tue Sep 24, 2019 11:36 pm Personally, I'd never submerge a watch which doesn't have a screw-down crown in anything deeper than a sink, but that's just me being a wimp.
I am on the same boat. And I frankly don't understand why, in this day and age, the C65s were designed without a screw down crown.

Glad to see that the issue was resolved satisfactorily in the end, but sad that the OP's confidence in the brand was weakened in the process.
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Re: My C65 Trident GMT isn't waterproof!

Post by DavecUK »

Blackdog wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 10:48 pm
peterh wrote: Tue Sep 24, 2019 11:36 pm Personally, I'd never submerge a watch which doesn't have a screw-down crown in anything deeper than a sink, but that's just me being a wimp.
I am on the same boat. And I frankly don't understand why, in this day and age, the C65s were designed without a screw down crown.

Glad to see that the issue was resolved satisfactorily in the end, but sad that the OP's confidence in the brand was weakened in the process.
I sort of don't have that problem with non screw down crowns. The lack of a non screw down crown doesn't really affect things like you would think, the water pressure itself making the seal ever tighter. It can't do this on a screw down crown in the same way. There are advantages and disadvantages to both systems. Of course if the stem is cut too long on a push in crown....then that would cause a problem
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Re: My C65 Trident GMT isn't waterproof!

Post by peterh »

UNIONmagazine wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 11:35 amI'm not really a watch collector. I buy a watch to keep for good and wear till I drop, hopefully.
I wouldn't want to have to buy a beer for each forum member who started out like that. That includes present company.

I started off with the Omega I got from my grandad, but at some point I decided I didn't want to wear that out completely. So when it went in for an overhaul, I bought my first Seiko. It's unbearingly boring, superbly legible in a Speedmastery way, and ridiculously accurate (losing less than 2 seconds in half a year). For all practical purposes, it's my best watch.
It is kinda ugly, though. So I got me its brother -- same quartz movement, but a bi-color setup with a nice pearly white dial.

And then it happened. In 2005, I hit upon CW, by seeing a picture of the original C5. I knew I needed that watch, in exactly that configuration. It was on offer for the ridiculously low price of just under 100 quid. At the same time, the W1 (the original CW ladies' watch) was on offer for a little under 50 pounds. So on Christmas 2005, my wife and I each found a watch under the christmas tree. My wife isn't really a watch person, but that W1 took her breath away. And yes, the C5 is still (sorry, Gramps) the most beautiful watch I own.
So that's when it started. 2006 saw a C4 limited edition, with the serial corresponding to my birthday (24), but as my oldest grandson was also born on the 24th, I am merely its custodian. He'll get it next year, when he turns 15. Then followed the C6 Kingfisher Forum LE with serial #24, and another C5, and in 2009 the C40 (essentially a C4 with a Valjoux 7750 in its belly). I also got a couple more Seikos...
Oh yeah, and an Omega Seamaster Coaxial. The most expensive watch I ever bought, and also the only watch I ever sold. Man, I learnt a lot from buying that one. I wanted it solely because it was an iconic watch. When I finally got it, I was over the moon, and I wore it for a week. After a week, I realised that I liked the Kingfisher better, but it took me another 6 months until I was ready to admit that.
That'll be the last time I did that; it was the watch that I never bonded with.

I guess that's what I'm trying to get at. Get the watch YOU really want, without worrying about prestige or status. Apart from Rolex, no watch you'd ever buy is going to add to your status. I've had more positive comments on my C5 or my Kingfisher than I've had on my Omega Genève -- and the positive comments you get on any CW, or Oris, or Nomos, or even Grand Seiko, will be from people who actually like watches (all 500 of us).

I think the coolest watch I've ever owned is a 100 pound Seiko 5. It's super cool because it doesn't try to be anything else than it is.
And guess what? I've given it away to someone I love, because she liked it so much. I will miss it, but not as much as she likes it.
I have a weekend, home alone, this week so I can start researching a replacement.
Find something you fall in love with, don't give a single fornicate about what anyone else thinks, and get it.

Good luck, and let us know what you find!

Cheers,
Peter
Man with one watch, always know time. Man with many watches, never sure.
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Re: My C65 Trident GMT isn't waterproof!

Post by UNIONmagazine »

peterh wrote: Thu Sep 26, 2019 11:17 pm
UNIONmagazine wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 11:35 amI'm not really a watch collector. I buy a watch to keep for good and wear till I drop, hopefully.
I wouldn't want to have to buy a beer for each forum member who started out like that. That includes present company.

I started off with the Omega I got from my grandad, but at some point I decided I didn't want to wear that out completely. So when it went in for an overhaul, I bought my first Seiko. It's unbearingly boring, superbly legible in a Speedmastery way, and ridiculously accurate (losing less than 2 seconds in half a year). For all practical purposes, it's my best watch.
It is kinda ugly, though. So I got me its brother -- same quartz movement, but a bi-color setup with a nice pearly white dial.

And then it happened. In 2005, I hit upon CW, by seeing a picture of the original C5. I knew I needed that watch, in exactly that configuration. It was on offer for the ridiculously low price of just under 100 quid. At the same time, the W1 (the original CW ladies' watch) was on offer for a little under 50 pounds. So on Christmas 2005, my wife and I each found a watch under the christmas tree. My wife isn't really a watch person, but that W1 took her breath away. And yes, the C5 is still (sorry, Gramps) the most beautiful watch I own.
So that's when it started. 2006 saw a C4 limited edition, with the serial corresponding to my birthday (24), but as my oldest grandson was also born on the 24th, I am merely its custodian. He'll get it next year, when he turns 15. Then followed the C6 Kingfisher Forum LE with serial #24, and another C5, and in 2009 the C40 (essentially a C4 with a Valjoux 7750 in its belly). I also got a couple more Seikos...
Oh yeah, and an Omega Seamaster Coaxial. The most expensive watch I ever bought, and also the only watch I ever sold. Man, I learnt a lot from buying that one. I wanted it solely because it was an iconic watch. When I finally got it, I was over the moon, and I wore it for a week. After a week, I realised that I liked the Kingfisher better, but it took me another 6 months until I was ready to admit that.
That'll be the last time I did that; it was the watch that I never bonded with.

I guess that's what I'm trying to get at. Get the watch YOU really want, without worrying about prestige or status. Apart from Rolex, no watch you'd ever buy is going to add to your status. I've had more positive comments on my C5 or my Kingfisher than I've had on my Omega Genève -- and the positive comments you get on any CW, or Oris, or Nomos, or even Grand Seiko, will be from people who actually like watches (all 500 of us).

I think the coolest watch I've ever owned is a 100 pound Seiko 5. It's super cool because it doesn't try to be anything else than it is.
And guess what? I've given it away to someone I love, because she liked it so much. I will miss it, but not as much as she likes it.
I have a weekend, home alone, this week so I can start researching a replacement.
Find something you fall in love with, don't give a single fornicate about what anyone else thinks, and get it.

Good luck, and let us know what you find!

Cheers,
Peter
If I'm being honest there is a small part of me that knows you're probably right. Still, we'll see. I'd like to buy British again, if only for the emotional attachment. I hadn't heard this phrase used in connection with a watch until I started this thread but it certainly is an accurate way of describing the relationship you can have with a small, seemingly unreasonable purchase that sits on your wrist in plain site all day long.

Thanks for some great pointers in terms of brand/models to consider. This forum has been a huge help in so many ways.
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