I bought my grail watch, an Autavia Heritage chronograph calibre 02 CBE2110 at the start of this year. I say grail, my ultimate grail watch would be a 2446 but I can’t justify the spend.
It’s the most expensive watch I own and I’m still in a phase of rarely wearing it outdoors! In the 7 months of ownership it’s probably been worn in rotation for a week in total. But I love it, and rightly or wrongly treat it like a baby, thoroughly enjoying our wrist time together.

During the last wearing of it about a fortnight ago, I timed something and didn’t reset the chronograph before returning it to its watch box. Yesterday I manually wound it using the crown and reset the sweep second hand. It returned to 12 but didn’t snap back instantly like it normally did. Now, the pushers move but no longer operate the chronograph. They don’t move loosely and there is some spring resistance when pressing them, but the chronograph no longer operates. The watch still works, and has kept good time for the past 24 hours since being laid down.

Before I return it to WoS under manufacturer’s warranty I’m wondering if there’s a reset of some sort I can try first, or does the failure suggest something catastrophic?

Thanks

 

Did you try to reset the chrono before you wound it because I understand that is a no-no.

 

If the chrono is stopped, winding isn't a problem (or shouldn't be, in any case) whether it's reset or not. You shouldn't manually wind a chrono while it is running though

 

Thanks for the replies. The watch was exhausted and everything was stopped. I hand wound it (the chronograph remained stopped) and then reset the chronograph hands.

 

I was told never to do a reset without using the stop pusher first, so I think your watch needs to go to a service.

 

That's not what I meant, my understanding was that if the watch is run down then trying to reset the chrono while it is dead is bad. So yes you should wind it BEFORE you reset it.

 

I stopped the chronograph before putting the watch away but didn’t reset it at that time. Are you suggesting that when I picked the watch up again 2 weeks later (and therefore after the power was exhausted) I needed to press the stop pusher again before pressing the reset? It was wound before being reset.

 

Thanks for clarifying, and that’s the way I did it.

 

The Calibre H02 needs a properly good wind before using in my experience

 

I missed this part in your initial post.

No

 

Return it under warranty and please come back and give us an update on what the issue was. Good luck and congrats on your Autavia, its a wonderful timepiece!

 

Oh I see what you mean. Never heard of that causing problems, just that it often doesn't reset properly. With the H02 maybe it does cause a problem though, wouldn't really surprise me given my experiences!

 

My watch has been repaired by Tag Heuer (I believe in Birmingham) and returned to me as promised after being away for 6 weeks. It was returned in a very nice TAG Heuer branded travel pouch.
All works well, however the chronograph second hand doesn’t quite reset to the 12 position. I’m not happy with this but would appreciate your thoughts. I expected an almost new watch to be returned from a service in ‘perfect’ condition. Expecting too much perhaps?

 

Indeed, I would send it back to the Customer Service department if it was mine

 

Send it back. These things happen. They will fix it. I recently had a watch serviced by TAG in the UK and timekeeping was a bit out on it's return. I sent it back in again, they turned it around quickly and now it's perfect. Give their customer services a ring - they are very polite and helpful.

 

Personally, I wouldn’t be bothered by a stop second hand that is off by a 10th of a second (provided the photo was taken from a perfectly vertical position).

What I am more interested in (and maybe the TH After Sales has commented on that) is what consensus we now have re. how to handle a watch that has run out of juice while the chrono function was running:
- Press stop & reset while watch is not running at all: Jay of nay?
- Wind or don’t wind first?
- Stop (which basically means “Check with the pushers why the chrono seconds hand isn’t at 12h), wind, then reset?

Personally, I’d always go with the last option, independently of the caliber at stake, as it seems to me that stopping means disengaging gears that shouldn’t be impacted by the watch not running (?)

 

Thanks all for your thoughts on the hand positioning. I’ll call TH on Monday.

@paysdoufs, in my case the chronograph was stopped but not reset to zero before the power ran out, and I wound it before resetting. There was no comment nor advice included when the watch was returned to me. I’m also interested to know what the correct procedure should be.

 

That is not acceptable, I would always be looking at the error everytime I looked at the watch. I am suprised it got passed Tag’s quality control checks to be honest.