All of you who wanted to know,
No Panerai is not doing the repair for free or even giving a discount....... just received estimate for repair Aed 16k or US$ 4,500/ see attached estimate.
Actually i am more glad that the watch will be fixed, but what i was disappointed with is the handling by PANERAI brand office here in Dubai.
I had met the Panerai Dubai brand manager few month back in a private show and subsequently invited him for lunch and during lunch he showed me catalogue of
some of the exclusive watches Panerai was to bring out, and assured me if i have any problem with any of my Panerai watches i should contact him and he even gave me his BBM pin so i was very happy with this after sales attitude and relationship developed by Panerai (that actually made me buy PAM 26).
So naturally when PAM 317 cracked i sent him email with pics and link to this post, but 1 month passed he did not reply , so then i sent him text message again no response !
Then eventually as i was getting anxious waiting for the repair estimate, last week i BBM and he said he shall call me in few hrs., but again few days passed NO CALL,
All i wanted to know from him is if we could push to get cost estimate fast and if his people think that watch is repairable no major movement damage, and may be help to get
repair done fast....but here Panerai failed miserably.....i got better follow up and call back from panerai LA when they were arranging PAM straps for me then from Dubai brand manager...sad...
For me this was more disappointing then the high cost estimate that a brand such as Panerai treats its customer like this specially at time of need, then in my eyes that is not a top brand and frankly in that case I would not waste my money any more on Panerai and buy other brand watches where after sales and customer service is a tradition and given not demanded.
Having said this Panerai Authorized dealer was great here and got estimate fairly quickly and had to chase him few times but he always followed it up with Panerai and updated me...
So ALL IN ALL A VERY SDA STORY FOR ME AND PNAERAI.........BUT NO GUYS NO DISCOUNT :-(