Ladies Ulysse Nardin - advice sought after unsuccessful repairs

[dazza007]

Hi, I'm a newbie to this forum so please be gentle.

I'm trying to get my wife's Ulysse Nardin up and running bought circa 2000. It had stopped and I asked a local repairer to take a look at it. 
The result was a jammed crown. More recently I asked a more reputable watch shop to get it working, and they eventually sent it to an Ulysse Nardin  in Switzerland.
The message back is that "The Switzerland service centre have advised that unfortunately, they no longer have the necessary components to undertake a service on this particular model due to the parts being discontinued". 
This strikes me as a little odd. My question to the forum is whether it is normal for a Swiss watch maker to discontinue making parts for their watches after a period of time (say 20yrs)? 
And as follow up, without knowing which part is required, are there any specialists in UN watches that might be able to examine the watch and source parts for its repair?

any thoughts appreciated...

[grsnovi]

Welcome to the forum!

As you may (or may not) realize, even among Swiss watches, Ulysse Nardin isn't among the typical "top ten".

I don't know (but strongly suspect) that the production volume for any particular watch is very low as they seem to specialize in really exotic builds. I'm not at all surprised that they no longer have parts. I further suspect that their assumption would be that anyone buying one of their watches would have a fair number of other (expensive) watches. They do have a few offerings in the 4 figure range but they're mostly known for watches that sell for $50,000 USD or more.

Depending where you are located, your best bet may be to find an actual watchmaker who is capable of making whatever part may be needed (which won't be inexpensive).

It would also help the rest of us to see a photo of the watch in question.

Good luck!

Edited August 8, 2023 by grsnovi

[dazza007]

many thx. I will send a photo but currently I have yet to collect it from the aforementioned watch shop, and I did not jot down the exact model. It felt odd as they subsequently said that UN offered me 25% off the price of the new watch, which did not help my suspicious antenna twitching.
However, why would I want to purchase a new watch from a company that did not keep spares??

[pent]

Second to grsnovi.  I know here in the US, a lot of shops will only fix watches they can source parts from.  Sometimes, a watchmaker will get lucky if they can find a donor movement or new-old stock parts, but for something like UN, that will be hard.  You need someone who could make or repair the part in question, so they would have to be very good or excellent in micromechanics.

You could try these guys at https://watchrepairsusa.com/brands/ulysse-nardin/.  I haven't used them, but I was considering sending one of my high end watches to them for service (I'm not confident in my own skills YET).  You could also look up Chronoglide watchmakers in the Netherlands as I know they have experts in micromechanics and are even building their own brand watch from scratch by hand.

[JohnR725]

21 hours ago, dazza007 said:

My question to the forum is whether it is normal for a Swiss watch maker to discontinue making parts for their watches after a period of time (say 20yrs)?

 

if you go to their website they sort of cover this in the way. It looks like the watches could have up to a five year warranty then servicing is interesting that can have a one year warranty and it looks like in some cases six month warranty? But somewhere on this page it does cover that they have a vast supply of parts but not an infinite supply of parts so some parts may not be available.

https://www.ulysse-nardin.com/usa_en/frequently-asked-questions

11 hours ago, grsnovi said:

As you may (or may not) realize, even among Swiss watches, Ulysse Nardin isn't among the typical "top ten".

it would be nice to see the actual watch and know the model number etc. but the problem is this company makes really expensive watches. Typically stuff like this means availability of spare parts is nonexistent to the typical watchmaker. This means you would never give a watch like this to anyone that's not authorized as you've already experienced bad things will happen. then no watchmaker in their right mind should ever touch a watch that they cannot get parts for as if something bad happens how would you ever fix the problem. on this group people are regularly do this but there servicing their own personal watch if you're taking money from a client and you have a problem then it can be a major problem.

8 hours ago, dazza007 said:

However, why would I want to purchase a new watch from a company that did not keep spares??

now problems with that for instance keeping spare parts for future repairs versus restoring a watch that's been destroyed? Watches need to be serviced on a regular interval if you expect them the last forever. Lubrication's can go bad with time the gaskets definitely will go bad with time. If moisture enters into the watch rust and the damage can be very bad basically you can destroy a watch over time due to lack of servicing. Keeping spare parts is one thing keeping enough spare parts to manufacture a brand-new movement for watch this been destroyed is not exactly a definition of they should have spare parts.

then supposedly you can ask questions directly. Often times you get different answers if you ask directly as a customer versus going through somebody. If you do get an answer would you please let us know what it is just because I'm curious as to how they really handle customer service with a real customer.

https://www.ulysse-nardin.com/usa_en/contact-us

then maybe a different company would be better for you. Then no I did not pick them in random I've heard stories of yes this is really true let me quote something off their website Patek Philippe’s commitment to customer service is an indispensable element of its activities. This includes our pledge to service, repair, or restore any Patek Philippe timepiece regardless of its age.     then a link to the website where they talk about the service policy. My understanding is they actually will manufacture anything that's needed for a past watch the definitely a very nice customer service policy versus others.

https://www.patek.com/en/retail-service/services/our-commitment

 

 

 

[Nucejoe]

Is this a quartz or mechanical movement we are trying to repair ? 

If mechanical and considering yr2000, I doubt the movement in your watch is a UN in-house. 

Letting us see the movement saves you touring the globe.

Welcome to the WRT forum pal.

 

[grsnovi]

11 hours ago, Nucejoe said:

Is this a quartz or mechanical movement we are trying to repair ? 

Good point. I had no idea that the brand even released quartz-based watches but there seems to be quite a few.

If it is a quartz as Joe says, it probably isn't one of their own movements in which case there might be hope (to possibly just swap out the movement).

A photo would end all of our speculation.

[JohnR725]

25 minutes ago, grsnovi said:

If it is a quartz as Joe says, it probably isn't one of their own movements in which case there might be hope (to possibly just swap out the movement).

A photo would end all of our speculation.

we still need a picture to know what were talking about.

Quartz watches do become interesting as a lot of companies to purchase them. But there are companies that do make high-end quartz watch movements in getting parts can be a bit of a challenge. Usually requires purchasing something off of eBay if you're lucky.