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Forerunner 265 wristband durability

jbck 7 months ago

Hello,

How long is a wristband supposed to last?
What is your experience?
What is a good fitting 3rd party alternative? (available in Europe/Belgium)

I've gotten a Forerunner 265 since 1,5 year now and a couple of days ago one of the eyelets in the the wristband teared.
I can still wear it, but it is now too lose around my wrist. While walking it always moves down and sits on top of my wrist bone.

I contacted support because I don't find it normal for it to fail this fast. I also didn't wear it too tight, it could always slide a bit around my wrist.
Normally there is a 2 years warranty but support just told me to buy a new one, full price.
A new one is €40, almost 10% of a new watch. Which I find way overpriced for a simple wristband.
If it breaks every 1,5 year, I will have spent 30% extra on replacement wristbands in the expected 5 years of usage.

So, all in all, not so happy with the warranty and quality of the wristband
What is your experience?

0 gxgene1 7 months ago

Not something I'd be looking forward to. While I find the 265 band very comfortable, I don't see any reason why the bands should have Gold Pressed Latinum prices (Seek out Ferengi Deep Space 9 if you don't know the reference). I just checked the 245 band against the 265 and the width of the mounting pins is unfortunately different. Another thing I just noticed on the 265 is the mounting ears have hallowed out spaces on the underside. To me that's looks like it's done in the best cheap fashion to avoid spending an extra .003 cents for plastic per watch. I'm not recommending this to anyone else but once the watch is off warranty I will probably fill those spaces in with something like JBWeld to minimize the failure risk. It would take a deft hand though, the hollowed out spaces are pretty small.