Rolex Bracelet Repair- HELP!

[pgaboedy]

Hello everyone my name is Boedy and this is my first post!

I need your collective help: I recieved a 18Kt submariner (16618T) for my 50th birthday in July. This has been my holy grail of watches since I was young.

Unfortunately, it was torn from my wrist in an accident in September. I sent it to Rolex in NY. They had to do a service, new crystal, and replace the bezel.
The worst part is that the bracelet is missing a couple of links, most importantly the one that attaches to the case. Rolex has informed me that they DO NOT make replacement parts for this band (92358 oyster fliplock).
Rolex is willing to give me $3000 as a trade in to offset the $11000 the want for a new band.

I would truely appreciate any/all input and expertise you may have to help me repair the watch of my dreams.

Forgot to mention that it is not covered by my insurance.

Thanks for reading/responding to my post!

Boedy

[jac67]

Firstly, hello and welcome.

Wow, so you are saying that you will lose around 80+% of the value of your bracelet just for losing 2 links!!

That's very harsh.

That's $hithouse service for someone who has spent $20k+ for a watch.

Besides, the end-link shouldn't be too much of a problem to change, however the other link may involve more work. But the watch is still fairly new, so I would've thought they would be able to fix it quite easily, or at least give you a better trade-in.

From what I have heard, Rolex NY are very difficult to deal with, but BH and especially Dallas are great. I would make a quick call to the others for another opinion.

Good luck, and keep us posted.


John.

[OysterDavid]

Originally Posted by pgaboedy

Hello everyone my name is Boedy and this is my first post!

I need your collective help: I recieved a 18Kt submariner (16618T) for my 50th birthday in July. This has been my holy grail of watches since I was young.

Unfortunately, it was torn from my wrist in an accident in September. I sent it to Rolex in NY. They had to do a service, new crystal, and replace the bezel.
The worst part is that the bracelet is missing a couple of links, most importantly the one that attaches to the case. Rolex has informed me that they DO NOT make replacement parts for this band (92358 oyster fliplock).
Rolex is willing to give me $3000 as a trade in to offset the $11000 the want for a new band.

I would truely appreciate any/all input and expertise you may have to help me repair the watch of my dreams.

Forgot to mention that it is not covered by my insurance.

Thanks for reading/responding to my post!

Boedy

You can try Michael at classicwatchparts.com. He's in Hong Kong. Someone else here gave him glowing reviews on an old SS bracelet. I took that recommendation and sent him my 14K Jubilee bracelet, but we're talking days ago and so I don't have anything to report except that Michael has been very good about email communication thusfar. (I hope not to have to post that I'll never hear from him again after he opens my package).

But, it will undoubtedly take a major leap of faith to ship off an $11K bracelet sight unseen to someone you don't know. You can email him with photos and see if it's a job he can take on and then wait until I have my bracelet back for a thumbs up or down and then decide.

I don't think there's much of a secondary market for 18K bracelets on the auction sites, but who knows?

I'm only trying to help...
Good Luck.

[pgaboedy]

Thanks for the help so far, keep those ideas coming!

Boedy

[JJ Irani]

Hi Boedy,

Welcome to TRF. Looks like some of these guys have given you good advice. Sorry to hear about your accident and present dilemma. Hope you can sort it out successfully.

Cheers - JJ

[Spark]

Hi Boedy,
I don't know if this will help, but I just had a problem with Tag Heuer in the UK and I wrote a letter to the factory in Switzerland and asked for their help.
They were very responsive and sorted out my problem
Not anything as nasty as your problem, but you never know it might be worth a go.
The address should be in your booklet.

If not a good goldsmith/jeweller should be able to make and fit the links for you, for a lot less than 8 grand.
You see complete aftermarket 18K bracelets all the time, so repairing one shouldn't be a problem.
Good luck with it, I hope it works out.

Spark.

[Rockrolex]

Let me add my welcome to TRF, Boedy. Sorry to hear about your troubles. The guys have given you some good ideas to follow up on. Keep us posted on how things go.