Fossil Coachman Review – Are Fossil Watches Worth The Money?
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Fossil are one of the most popular fashion watch companies in the world. They’ve been a mainstay of online jewellers and department stores for as long as I can remember and until now, I’ve never actually tried one. Well, I’ve tried some of their subsidiary brands, but never the original Fossil brand.
To be honest, I’ve never wanted one because personally, I just don’t like the way they look. I think a lot of their competition have more attractive offerings and the Fossil designers seem to have this odd obsession with syringe hands. So many of their watches are fitted with them that their product catalogue mustn’t be far off a narcotics magazine.
Regardless, I figured I’d grab one of their highest-rated models and see what the fuss was about. It’s one of the most requested brands on this blog after all. So, I filtered the search results by average rating and this ‘Coachman Chronograph’ was one of the very top results. The vast majority of the almost 4,000 reviews were approaching 5 stars and I thought it looked half-decent from the product images. Perhaps this was a Fossil worth reviewing? So, Amazon shipped me over the watch, which we’ll mention later.
Packaging
It arrived in this colourful tin, which I really like. It gives a nice retro feel and certainly stands out against some of the blander boxes I’m familiar with. When you open the tin though, the watch is stuffed into a cheap cardboard inner, which feels like a McDonald’s cupholder according to my fiancée. This is the first time I’ve come across this, even other cheaper watches have come with what I would consider to be more protective linings. It’s not the best start.
Watch Size
As you can tell, this is a pretty big watch, with a 44mm diameter, 12.6mm depth and a 52mm lug to lug. Clearly, this doesn’t fit my thin wrist, but I’m not going to let that factor sway my thoughts on the watch; I’m sure for many of you watching, the size won’t be an issue.
Strap
I want to mention the strap first, as it somewhat ties into the watch dimensions. By default, this CH2891 comes fitted with a brown leather military-style bund strap. I had high hopes for this, given the excellent experience I’ve had with my leather Fossil wallet, which has been my go-to for several years now. Unfortunately, this is the first of many let-downs. While I don’t like the look of these straps, they are comfortable but this one has some clear issues. Firstly, the upper both looks and feels cheap. It quickly shows heavy creasing and while the thickness may hold the strap together for a long time, I’d imagine it would start to look ragged rather quickly. As we know, cheap straps don’t age well.
Additionally, the sheer bulk of it boosts the on-wrist depth to well over 15mm. This was already a fairly deep watch to begin with and this strap makes it the thickest I’ve ever looked at. For most men’s wrists, it’s going to look really chunky, a look that I’m not fond of. I’d instantly change this for something that doesn’t pass behind the case at the first opportunity, unless you have an enormous wrist. Luckily, it has quick release tabs so you can quickly get rid of it.
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Case
The case design is fairly unique and definitely interested me when I saw the renderings online. It features some unusual areas at 12 and 6 o’clock, just above the lugs, where an angled transparent section sits above a black internal bezel. It appears that this is part of the mineral glass that covers the rest of the dial, so it’s fairly impressive to see this custom shape so well-integrated. The glass itself is the type you might expect at this price point and will give you some limited scratch protection.
Unfortunately, the rest of the case falls short. In fact, I had to head online to double check the material used, because it feels so cheap. According to the case rear and many third-party sites, this is stainless-steel; though interestingly, none specify the type of stainless-steel used. It wouldn’t surprise me if this is an inferior type, rather than the typical 316L used in most modern watches, as it feels noticeably light for its size. That, combined with the lacklustre finishing, initially made me think that the watch was constructed of some other inexpensive alloy.
The pushers and crown look good but are equally as disappointing. At a glance, these look like screw down pushers, however they’re just styled to look like them. The ridges aren’t functional in any way whatsoever. While the buttons don’t feel good to use, they aren’t terrible.
Watch Crown
Unfortunately, the unsigned crown is. On the surface it looks fine and in terms of grip, I’ve got no complaints. However, this is by far and away the loosest crown I’ve ever experienced on a wrist watch. Generally, quartz watches feature crowns that can be rotated when not pulled out, but this takes it to the next level. You can spin this like a Beyblade, even with the tiniest amount of pressure and it continues rotating for a split second. It’s hard to convey this online but it’s far from confidence-inspiring. Functionally, time and date adjustments are no problem and better than I expected given the swirling.
What’s most surprising is that this watch has an advertised 10ATM water resistance. A watch with this rating should be easily viable for swimming and some shallow diving. How a watch with such a poor case and free-spinning crown has a strong seal is beyond me. If you handed me this without telling me the water resistance, I would have guessed this was splash-proof at most. Only further testing will reveal the true performance, though if Fossil are to be believed then they must be applauded for making this watch fairly waterproof, despite its flaws.
Dial
The dial is a disaster. There are some aspects that give you hope, such as the dark date window and the well-integrated, textured sub-dials. I thought the watch looked quite good online, yet in person it looks like a cheap knockoff; even though this is a genuine product!
The arrow above the 12 o’clock marker sits clearly further left than it should. The 12 o’clock markers themselves are visibly misaligned, with the right one sitting higher. Several other applied hour markers are also incorrectly placed and angled. The top of the dark date window is cut off, indicating either a misaligned movement or dial (or possibly both).
The rose-gold coloured rings give the impression that the sub-dials are inset, though on closer inspection, it appears the rings are applied on top of the flat surface. The eagle-eyed of you may have noticed that the hands are slightly different than those on the renderings, my research tells me that the product shots are outdated and this new solid handset has replaced the former skeletonised hands. I think this is a visual improvement and it does have some lume. Nevertheless, I think the watch would look better if the hour markers and hands were colour co-ordinated.
Watch Movement
Despite all of those factors, the most frustrating part of the watch for me is the second hand. This is one of the most inconsistent I’ve come across. Sure, loads of cheap watches with Chinese movements inside are loud and miss the second markers…but at least those I’ve tried miss them consistently.
This second hand, especially when moving around the right side of the watch, jumps around, sometimes hitting the markers, then suddenly past or behind them. This suggests the movement itself is to blame, rather than its alignment. I opened the back of the watch to see what type of cheap Chinese movement was inside but discovered a Japanese Miyota JS26 instead. I googled the module and found it on some sites for up to a whopping $30 per individual unit. Obviously, these will be much cheaper in bulk, but even so, I’ve reviewed watches with much cheaper movements that are far more consistent.
Perhaps this unit is just dodgy? Nevertheless, it’s yet another bad experience for me with Miyota quartz movements, in fact, I can’t remember the last time I had a good experience with one. I guess functionally, it’s not going to make a difference as the watch will still be accurate, it’s just ugly to see the hand going all over the place.
Are Fossil Watches Worth the Money?
At first, I was shocked that a watch this bad has such high reviews online. But the more I thought about it, the more it makes sense.
Firstly, I think it highlights how, frustratingly, the general public have very little idea of what constitutes a good low-cost watch. Many of the positive comments and ratings mention how they believe the watch looks expensive or high quality, which is the opposite of my opinion, I think it looks cheap and gaudy. It looks like someone has tried to make a super cheap watch ‘look expensive’, to appeal to the masses who are after an ‘expensive looking’ watch. I guess this does look big and flashy from a distance, despite looking awful at a macro level.
I also think that the sunk cost fallacy, or something similar, may have a part to play. While this is only a £100 watch, for a lot of people that’s a lot of money and it’s likely the most they’ve ever spent on a wristwatch. I bet some of the positive reviews are from people subconsciously trying to convince themselves that they have got a good deal and that the watch was worth their investment.
As a whole, this watch is about what I expected, if not slightly worse. While I’m not a fan of the design, it’s the quality control which is the real concern. This is so sloppy it looks like it’s been lobbed together by a primary school child quite frankly.
When it comes to the rest of the watch, they’ve cut so many corners that all the corners are gone, leaving you with a flashy ball of nothingness. Perhaps other Fossil models are better but to me, this is a £15 watch disguised as a £150 watch. If Amazon hadn’t been kind enough to cover the cost of this watch, there is no way on planet earth I would have spent my own money on this (without a refund at least).
I’m sure some of you will want to know how this compares to other fashion watch brands I’ve reviewed previously. I have to say, I think this watch is definitely worse than the Vincero chronograph I reviewed; though maybe a fraction better than MVMT, which isn’t saying much. I also think the watch from the Skagen sub-brand I recently reviewed, while not great, is better too. If you want a decent looking fashion chronograph though, get the Pagani Design watch I reviewed a while ago. It’s a fraction of the price, looks better and has higher quality materials to boot. That’s one that actually looks better than the price tag.
