I have a Seiko quartz from the 80s which runs just fine. Battery changes and a new caseback gasket every few years it's all it's ever needed.

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I was talking with Grand Seiko rep Joe Kirk at a function last month and he was saying they expect calibers like 9F and Spring Drive to last multiple generations and stock parts for more than 25 years as a result.


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I was talking with Grand Seiko rep Joe Kirk at a function last month and he was saying they expect calibers like 9F and Spring Drive to last multiple generations and stock parts for more than 25 years as a result.

Not very many multiples of generations then...

I have had a Breitling Aerospace for many years. My local AD did battery changes and when there was something wrong with it it went for service. As it approached 20 years old the AD refused to do more battery changes because the electronics of the older watches were prone to failure with the battery change. So it had to go back to Breitling where a battery change includes the mandatory service and costs some £350. Fifteen months later the watch stopped. Leakage from the factory installed battery had destroyed the electronics.

 

The oldest one I have is an Omega Smp 200 quartz. It is 30 years old. When the battery dies, it gets replaced.

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My Grandfather's Timex from the mid 80's is still going strong.

As is the Q Quartz from the late 70's/ early 80's that I bought a while back.

Neither qualify as high-end in the least, so my plan for any catastrophic failures is to buy a donor watch and move on.

For the ones you have, I'd imagine a module swap is possible for the G-Shock and I think the MM300 takes a regular Seiko quartz movement. There should be a lot of spares around for your watches well into the future.

 

I have quite a lot of G shocks from the 80s, besides the problem of the rotting bezel they are quite robust modules and I'm pretty sure they will outlast me.

My mother still has the 14k Longines Quartz my father bought for their marriage in 1974, it has the 2nd generation movement...at that time it was very expensive, much more than a mechanical. Still works flawlessly, besides the battery change every five years.

 

I have a couple over 10 years old and no issues so far. Tick, tick, tick.

 

My oldest quartz is about 30 and other than a few issues when it was 5 or 6 it’s only had battery changes since. Don’t change the gasket as it’s an OAP watch that I don’t get wet.

 

I have a Seiko quartz dress/chrono hybrid that's fuglier than all get out from the early 90s that's still ticking away. My father gave it to me when I finished college, so I can't part with it. Not sure I would call it "high end," it's not a HAQ movement, but it has above-average finishing for its time - some gold on it here and there, and I think it might be a flat sapphire. I don't have pics of it (it's not even in my watch box), but I don't think there's anything to worry about when it comes to longevity of high-end quartz models.

 

I’ve a Grand Seiko 9F82 Quartz HAQ watch that has service interval of 50 years.

 

I've a Grand Seiko 9F82 Quartz HAQ watch that has service interval of 50 years.

I have had a couple of quartz Grand Seikos and whilst the marketing team do indeed make a big deal of the theoretical 50 year service interval, don't forget that this is in relation to the movement only. The handbook accompanying the watch still recommends servicing once every five years. At the very least they will clean up the watch, change the battery, replace the seals and re-test the water resistance. They will also realign the hands if need be and can adjust the rate and repolish the case and bracelet, if you ask them to.

 

I think if you change the battery when it stops and dont let it sit in a damp safe / drawer they should last for a long time. If the battery leaks after breaking down in the watch, then its game over!

 

My oldest quartz watch is 44 years old and while there are no direct replacement parts stocked for it, Omega have repeatedly accepted it for service and in one instance used an appropriate substitute battery clamp whilst returning the original clamp to me in a little vial.

People often say that quartz is too difficult to fix or that it is designed to be disposable, but often the underlying truth of the matter is that quartz isn't especially difficult to fix and that with modern mass-produced movements the drive to replace rather than repair is borne out of a simple appreciation of basic economics. All right, some modern movements are made in such a way as to make them extraordinarily problematic to fix (I'm looking at you, low-end ETA movements!), but for a high-end piece (or for practically any piece where determination, time and budget are boundless), I should think you'll find it can be kept ticking for yonks.

 

Whether they still make em like they used to who knows, but I have several quartz (mostly Gshock and MRG) from the 80's and 90's and they're still working fine. Lights and all. So that's 30 years or so. Never needed repair just a battery now and then.
As far as passing them down goes? I'd bet that the watches will outlast me, but I wouldn't bet that my kids will want them.

 

I just serviced a Movado quartz that my wife gave me 20 years ago. It spent the first ten running and the second in a desk with the battery removed (I had accidentally cut the gasket changing the battery and didn't know how to source a replacement). I was interested in the state of lubrication as well as cleaning out anything that might have gotten into it while in the desk for ten years.

Once uncased, my first question was "what does the lubrication on the pivots look like?" I used a stereo microscope at 20x so the FOV showed the pivot, the bushing and some metal around it, pretty close up. I saw no indication of oil on the pivot, no meniscus like a freshly oiled mechanical pivot. I checked all pivots, the ones the technical sheet said to oil and the one it said not to (the lower rotor pivot). I couldn't tell one from the other, they all looked the same. Disassembled, I looked at several pivots and saw no indication of oil, wiping on watchpaper didn't result in any indication either.

I did notice a smudge on the back of the dial, a spot like breath fog on a cold window. I had the advantage of the fact that the dial is black plastic and the back is highly polished, so it was easy to spot the oil buildup. It wasn't so thick that you could smudge it, but it was clearly there.

My conclusion is that after 20 years, most of the oil migrated from the pivots to the back of the face (and probably the inside of the case back, but I couldn't see it). Now, will this affect the life of a watch being used for decades?

Keep in mind that, according to the technical sheet, a few friction points were not to be oiled. One is a plastic gear on a steel shaft; the other is the rotor lower pivot which is plastic pivot on sapphire bushing. Clearly these were meant to last the lifetime of the movement without oil, but in both cases they are plastic on a much harder surface and the plastic is probably Delrin which is supposed to be self lubricating.

So can you run a quartz for decades without service? Sure, but at some point the steel on sapphire or steel on steel is going to run out of oil and start chewing itself up. Archer has put up many pictures of damaged pivots on this forum and has written a number of helpful pages on the Omega forum, including many pictures of damaged parts. Almost to the number they were damaged by lack of lubrication.

So punk, do you feel lucky?


OBTW, I got a helpful comment from another member that said I could replace the movement for $17.95 on the bay, much cheaper than the several thousand dollars of tools I've accumulated to do the service. That's why most pay someone else to do the job.

 

Over the past month i've bought myself a Gshock MRG and Seiko MM300 Tuna, of which both are quartz.

I know that both are not exactly family heirloom levels of watches, but it would be nice to know if these watches will outlast me and can be handed down to my son.

What are your oldest surviving quartz watches and have they been refused repair by the manufacturer?

I would think if the likes of Seiko and Casio want their high end quartz products to flourish they would at least have the infrastructure to service and repair these watches for at least 2 generations....

I have a Seiko King Quartz from 1979 that is running fine. As many other examples using a twin quartz movement. There are plenty of watches from other brands from that time that are running fine. Just keep the seals up and change the battery when needed and the movement should outlast you. Cosmetic damage and changing fashions may mean in the future a fully functional watch will go unworn.

 

I have several from the mid-70's all running strong. The Tuna is among my favorite:

So yes you can.

 

I have a number of truly vintage Casios,G-Shocks and Timex's from the late 1970's through the 1980's , and other than battery changes , no problems. Below is a vintage Texas Instruments TI3H from the late 1970's and it is STILL going strong:

 

8F from Seiko still running perfectly 17 years on.

 

43 years young all 3.

 

I don't know if I posted it already but here is the control module for Spring Drive, 9F has a similar one, the level of excellence is apparent for anyone that regularly handles electronics. This board is far better put together than any top end graphics or server grade cards.

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Service interval should include checking for water resistance and replacing the battery (if there is one). If it's a solar powered watch, you need to keep a reasonable charge on the watch to keep from having to reset it. It can be an involved process. For example, if an EcoDrive Citizen loses its charge, it may take a couple of days to recharge it, then you have to invoke a reset sequence to get it running again. If you value WR, then periodic 1-2 year checks are usually recommended by the maker to ensure the gaskets aren't deteriorated. It's important to maintain the WR, since moisture is your main source of corrosion on electrical connections and with the battery terminals. Many, if not most G-Shocks have 10 year battery life, but the gaskets won't last that long. If, 20 years down the road, the electronics die, than it's unlikely you'll be able to replace them with the same electronics that died. It's unlikely the maker will be using the same quartz movement that far down the road, or that they even carry those same movements. All that said, the mean time between failures of the electronics is likely in the 1,000,000's of hours, which would portend a life of over 100 years of continuous service. The gears will wear out before the electronics die.

 

This thread seems to suggest that the often quoted 50 year service interval for the Grand Seiko 9F HAQ movements is a myth,

https://www.watchuseek.com/f642/gs-quartz-50-years-service-free-interval-myth-4603461.html

 

It should be noted that older integrated circuits, by virtue of the larger process size, are less prone to failure from electromigration, so they have a much longer potential longevity than integrated circuits produced with contemporary levels of miniaturization.

 

That's assuming the watch industry uses the smaller feature sizes when developing their microcircuits. I don't think their circuits are as complex as cell phone, computer processors, or television controllers. But I have no direct knowledge of how they make them either. Perhaps the higher end movements have taken this into account to improve reliability. Electomigration mostly affects interconnects and is most sensitive to current density. Watches are not known for high current or high power. Devices which require cooling are more prone to electromigration failures.

 

Complicated meca-quartz watch with Seiko movement from the 90's. Still working fine today.

 

a HAQ is going to be my next watch.
a Chronomaster or a GS sport.
I'm 45...when I turn 95, I hope to have something else to worry about.

 

A friend of mine recently serviced a mid-1970s Omega marine chronometer with megaquartz movement. He said Omega will still service it but the watch has to run on hearing aid batteries that only last about 6 months.

I’ve heard that old quartz movements lose some of their accuracy with time but I can not vouch for that as I have no quartz older than 15 years.