BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer Aquaracer & 2000 Exclusive Quartz Chronographs

CN1110.BA0337                                CAF1112.BA0803

Regular readers will know that last year I traded in my Formula 1 CAU2012 with Watchfinder and came away with a Grand Carrera Calibre 8 GMT. It was a watch I never thought I would own because, well... I never actually liked it very much! It sounds ridiculous I know, but I had made up my mind to off-load my Formula 1 and Watchfinder were offering me by far the best trade-in deal and I wanted to take it up. At the time my target was the Grand Carrera chronograph, but the three examples that Watchfinder had in stock were a little bit scratched, and I really don't do scratched - especially when it comes to spending thousands of pounds.

So what happened was that I was in Bicester and I tried on a Grand Carrera GMT with a diamond bezel, and I quite liked it. So of course I convinced myself that a GMT was the way to go, especially as it was quite a bit cheaper. That was undoubtedly a mistake, I should have held off until a nicer chrono turned up, but I didn't and the long and short of it is that I got the watch, liked it, didn't wear it, decided I didn't really like it and ultimately (after not taking it to Switzerland and making use of the GMT function) decided that it was pointless keeping it as I wasn't going to change my mind.

WAV5111.BA0901

So for the last few months I've been scouring Watchfinder looking for something to trade it in against, but the problem is that the dearer your watch is the more expensive the watch needs to be that you trade against. I mean, that's how I perceive it, if you want to get the best deal anyway. Of course my first thought was to trade up to the chronograph, but while I have tried the chrono on many times in the past, I was a bit nervous about getting another Grand Carrera. I was also toying with the idea of trading it in against a Monaco of some sort, but I really didn't want to perpetuate my mistake for a third time, and I'm not 100% sure that a Monaco is me. Well the Monaco 24s are me, right enough, but as the most affordable Monaco 24 Watchfinder had was £6300 that wasn't really on the cards...

Then the other day I spied a 2000 Exclusive on the site. I already have a 2000 Exclusive, which I bought last year from a local pawn shop, and I really enjoy wearing that. Mine is a silver dial three hander with a gold bezel and gold inserts on the bracelet, but I've always fancied a black or blue dial chronograph and I actually saw one in a jewellers window a couple of years ago in Lincoln (IIRC) which was rather overpriced at £1200. The one on the Watchfinder site was priced at £675, which seemed like an absolute bargain to me, and that's when I started seriously plotting my GMT's demise.

Since I couldn't really trade in a watch that cost somewhere between £1750 and £1950* against a watch that cost £675 I decided to see if there was anything else I could put with it to make a bundle. I found a blue dial quartz chrono Aquaracer priced at £1150 that I'd seen pictures off before elsewhere and decided that would make a good, safe, no regrets investment!

(* My Grand Carrera was £1950 and I got £1200 for my Calibre 16 F1, but they invoiced me as £1750 with £1000 cashback for some reason - presumably to make it look better on their books?)

So I sent off my quotation request on New Years Day and first thing the next day Watchfinder came straight back to me. Based on the trade in I received for my CAU2012 I figured that they would offer me £1300 for my watch, and I was bang on there, but what I didn't anticipate was that they also reduced the price of the 2000 Exclusive to £600 and the Aquaracer to £1000. I still thought the Aquaracer was maybe a touch overpriced, but on the other hand I was willing to pay more for the 2000 Exclusive anyway, so on balance it seemed a great deal to me.

Watchfinder's Avery Row branch

So on the 5th of January I headed down to London with my Grand Carrera and dropped it into the Watchfinder store on Avery Row (just off Bond Street). The store there isn't really open to the public (unlike the ones in Canary Wharf and the City) so there aren't many watches to look at, and it's really really small (and presumably quite 'expensive' given it's location). I think the main purpose is for collecting watches you've ordered online and I guess dropping in watches you want to trade in.

I arranged for the two new watches to be at the store so that I could have a look at them before I completed the deal, and I wasn't disappointed. Aesthetically both looked better than the pictures suggested and though both watches did have a few insignificant marks to the bezels they were in excellent overall condition.

I knew from last time that I wouldn't be able to take the watches with me as they have to check mine over properly first, a) to make sure it's genuine, and b) to make sure there's nothing wrong with it that would affect the trade in value. Kieran told me that all being well I should get my watches by the end of the week and sure enough on Thursday I got a phone call from them telling me that my watches were being dispatched and would be with me on Friday morning.

I must say, in all my dealings with Watchfinder I've found them to be very straightforward and professional and it's nice to be able to deal with a company that seem to value their reputation. I'm sure some would argue their prices are perhaps not the cheapest and that may be so, but on the other hand I feel confident when dealing with them that they are above board and honest which is important when you are buying expensive items that a shady dealer can often easily bodge up.

Also, of the places I have tried their trade-in prices are by far the best, and even though their straightforward buying prices were significantly lower (as you'd expect) they were still the best offers I had, being about 10-15% higher than anyone else. To be honest I probably wouldn't sell a watch outright to them as I could get more selling it on eBay even with the fees, but realistically the most I think I could have achieved for my GMT was £1500 (and that's probably optimistic) and I would lose £200 of that in fees straight away, so £1300 + £225 knocked off the price of the items I was buying was a no brainer really.

I started writing this post while I was waiting for my watches to arrive, and sure enough I went to the post office on Friday to find that the sorting office was closed because their 'window' was faulty. I eventually managed to get hold of my parcels later the same day and initially I was super happy with my purchases.

However, having operated the chronograph on my 2000 Exclusive, I found that the 1/10 of a second hand was stuck at the '8' position and would not reset to zero. Having recently been through a similar problem with my 6000 chrono and my blue Kirium, I pulled the crown out to position '3' and tried using pusher 'B' to reset the hand manually. No dice. GRRR!

I quickly fired off an email to Watchfinder and soon received a reply and subsequently spoke on the phone with them about the issue with my watch. They apologised and said they would send me a 'return pack' in the post which I could use to return the watch to them at no cost to myself, and I'm now waiting for this to arrive.

Thankfully the Aquaracer works perfectly and as soon as I get the bracelet sized I shall be happily wearing that while I wait for the 2000 Exclusive's return. It's a shame that the 2000 Exclusive has to go back, but in a way it might be a good thing. It means I can concentrate on enjoying my Aquaracer for the next couple of weeks and then when I get my 2000 back it will be like having a new watch again.

I guess some people might think it's crazy to trade a Chronometer certified automatic Grand Carrera for two quartz pieces, but I'm already 100% sure that I'm going to wear and enjoy these watches way more than I ever did the GMT. Sure I'm a little bit annoyed that I have to send my watch back, but, I can't fault Watchfinder's response so far. No company can have completely trouble free operations, what counts is how you respond when problems occur, so it will be interesting to see how this pans out and how quickly the problem is resolved.

I've now had my Aquaracer sized and it's been on my wrist all morning. Considering it was the 'add-on' to make up the deal, I am really loving it. The blue dial is stunning and the lume is very bright and takes hardly any charging to make it light up. I've long admired my wife's blue dial Aquaracer so it's nice to finally tick that box, in fact it wouldn't surprise me at all if this one doesn't become one of my most worn watches.