Barry
13-08-2009, 18:29
Following the dire warning by Neal (NRG) to the effect that Rolex are now reluctant to service watches of ‘a certain age’, I thought I would enquire in my local Rolex agent (Goldsmiths, who claim to be the largest Rolex agents in the UK). I was told that each service is assessed on a ‘case-by-case’ basis. Assuming that no irreplaceable part needs to be fitted “there was no reason why any watch should not be able to be serviced”. Essentially, one has to ‘suck it and see’.
Each service involves the replacement of the main spring and of the watch glass, as well as the usual clean and re-lubrication. When I rather naively stated my opinion that surely the basic watch design had not changed that much, so why would parts become obsolete? I was told that in my watch, for example, “the second hand moves at 5 ticks per second or 22,000 ticks per hour (sic, shouldn’t this be 18,000?), whereas in the newer designs this is 28,900 ticks per hour; so the design is different”.
So that’s the (half) good news. The bad news? A service costs a minimum of £225 and takes a 10-12 week turnaround.
£225? that’s more than it cost me to have Leica service my M4, and for that the camera is completely stripped down to its component parts, any worn part replaced and the camera re-assembled with lubrication where necessary.
I think I’ll give the watch service a miss at the moment, however when I do and it proves that it can’t be serviced, then an equivalent replacement is around £3000! I’m sure that when my parents bought the watch for me, an advertising slogan at the time was: ‘A Rolex is for life’. Not necessarily any more!
Each service involves the replacement of the main spring and of the watch glass, as well as the usual clean and re-lubrication. When I rather naively stated my opinion that surely the basic watch design had not changed that much, so why would parts become obsolete? I was told that in my watch, for example, “the second hand moves at 5 ticks per second or 22,000 ticks per hour (sic, shouldn’t this be 18,000?), whereas in the newer designs this is 28,900 ticks per hour; so the design is different”.
So that’s the (half) good news. The bad news? A service costs a minimum of £225 and takes a 10-12 week turnaround.
£225? that’s more than it cost me to have Leica service my M4, and for that the camera is completely stripped down to its component parts, any worn part replaced and the camera re-assembled with lubrication where necessary.
I think I’ll give the watch service a miss at the moment, however when I do and it proves that it can’t be serviced, then an equivalent replacement is around £3000! I’m sure that when my parents bought the watch for me, an advertising slogan at the time was: ‘A Rolex is for life’. Not necessarily any more!