I had this happen with a halios watch on the bezel markers I think at the time Jason the owner said it was something to do with a reaction to humidity and the BGW9 lume that was used turning the white yellow
Last edited by Balance wheel; 11th February 2024 at 11:05.
The yellowing seems to affect the lume inside and outside the watch, which suggests it's more likely a reaction to UV light exposure rather than humidity. Intense tropical sunlight will tend to photodegrade pigments and resins, and the watch will be exposed more if you're mainly wearing short-sleeved clothing.
The photo does seem to suggest the hands and plots are also yellowing, but I don’t recall noticing it in real life. I’ll check again when I’m back from my holiday.
Humidity in the tropics is obviously a major ball ache for many reasons, but I’m not sure it’s a factor for the yellowing as the watch has probably only been worn 20 times over the three year ownership, and spends the rest of the time in a pitch black, cool safe.
I’ll get some better pictures later.
Apologies for the thread derailments
Since it seems to happen to some bezels and not others, and the ones it does happen to appear to suddenly start losing a lot of markers, I presume there is some particular set of circumstances that set off the failure and it will just gradually happen to the whole bezel. Maybe it is also tied to certain batches of the lume mix? Maybe some have some impurity which is needed for this failure mode to occur?
Will cross my fingers and see what happens with my MN23 FXD. At least I’ve got the five year warranty to fall back on. As a side note, I saw a photo of a regular Pelagos 42 in a private Facebook group that had lost all the lume from its bezel and it actually looked kind of cool…
Yes, this isn't really what you want to have in the back of your mind when deciding to buy what is by all rational standards a very expensive watch. There are plenty of manufacturers working at much lower price points where one doesn't hear of these kinds of commonly-occurring issues. That Tudor doesn't have better manufacturing / parts selection / QC than this bespeaks a certain amount of complacency, I feel.
It does seem a shame when they've worked hard in many ways to shed the "poor man's Rolex" image that they should be fitting joke shop bezels to their dive watches.
Last edited by Fullbreakfast; 14th February 2024 at 11:55.
I’ve mentioned it here before but I was put off Tudor when I bought a Pelagos 42 a few years ago. As I walked out the shop wearing my new watch I noticed there was a metal filing under the crystal. I took it back to the shop who immediately arranged a replacement watch for me. A week or so later it arrived in stock so I went in to pick it up. I’d barely left the shop when the bezel action became stiff and notchy before completely jamming. I took it straight back but by that time I was put off the brand and asked for a refund.
I was obviously unlucky, as there are thousands of happy Pelagos owners out there, but I have never experienced these type of issues with other brands of watches that I’ve owned.
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Last edited by Bobbyf; 14th February 2024 at 19:45.
Whilst I love my ETA Pelagos, on the day of purchase I got home took it out of the box to put on and one of the spring bars failed.
I had not even got it over my hand when the bracelet fell out of one lug.
I also didn’t have the greatest of service from Rolex St James when I popped in to get the bars replaced later that week, but thats another story.
I have not bought a Tudor since and can’t ever see me buying anything from the bigger brother as a result.
While no tales of spring bar woes, my 2022 MN has just gone in for warranty repair as it was running at -40 per day.