Bohemia Bunny

I’ll Never Buy A Swatch Again

December 11th, 2005 by lynnylchan under Uncategorized

Never. Again. No matter how pretty it is. You want to know why? Because they don’t last.

My Swatch Irony had a stuck knob, and I couldn’t adjust the date, so I went to the Swatch shop to see if they could fix it. They said they couldn’t open the case, and they didn’t want to force the knob out in case the entire case broke apart, so it was stuck that way.

I can pretty much understand that the case can’t be opened, since it’s all one piece. But what kind of company makes a watch that can’t be repaired? Isn’t that ridiculous? Why would you spend time and effort designing and producing pretty watches that can’t be fixed if something goes wrong?

My warranty was finished, so I couldn’t ask for a replacement unit. I have no problems with that. But I was perfectly willing to pay for servicing, only I can’t, now can I? It just comes back to the fact that Swatch products, like the old iPod, aren’t repairable. (Remember the non-replaceable iPod battery?)

I’m going to go straight to the service centre downtown, and if THEY can’t fix it, then I’ll just leave it at that. The watch still tells time properly, it’s just the date that’s wonky. I figured that maybe the sales staff at the shop are only trained to do the basics like change batteries, adjust straps and simple stuff like that.

So anyway, I’m never going to buy a Swatch again, ever. I wasn’t going to buy one for myself anyway, I’ve said before that the next watch I buy will be a kinetic model that will last me the rest of my life. But now I wouldn’t even buy Swatches for my boyfriend, my kids or anyone else. It just doesn’t make sense to me, to buy a watch that can’t be repaired.

Now if you’re some diehard Swatch collector who has never had any problems with your watches, or your watches are somehow very repairable, well good for you. But I’m talking about my particular watch, which I love to bits because it’s so beautiful, but which is crippled now. Heck, I don’t think I could even buy a replacement. I suspect that the collection undergoes a complete overhaul every few years, and my watch has been phased out. Bah.