Hi everyone, I have a new automatic Rotary wrist watch that comes with a life time guarantee as long as its serviced by Rotary at least every 3 years. For a basic service prices start at £85 plus £6 postage, the watch only cost me £189.
I was wondering if getting it serviced by a 3rd party watchmaker and voiding the guarantee would be the best bet as its about £45 service locally, so if the watch goes wrong and I have to pay to fix it the money I would of saved going to a 3rd party watchmaker would pay for any repairs.

What would you do if you were in my shoes?

Kind regards, Mike.

Its hardly big money either way so I would go for official for piece of mind.

If you were talking £1000 vs £250 then yep non official but you aren't saving that much non official plus you keep the LT Guarantee.

 

I personally wouldn't pay 50% of the price of a watch to service it. I would just use it until it needs servicing and if it breaks to the point of expensive repair 5-8 years later I would just get a new one.

 

With your criteria, my Lucien Piccard wouldn't have been on my wrist for 2 score and 10.

 

Thanks for your replies, I think both of you have valid points.
I will wait and see how much money I have when the service is due as I haven't got lots of money to throw at servicing but I have no idea of how much replacement parts cost either I will probably aim to send it to Rotary as I want to keep this watch going for a long time as I'm into vintage pocket watches as it amazes me that they still run after 100+ years, it would be interesting to see if a modern watch can last a life time sad I know lol

 

Customers often ask me if it is worth it to repair or overhaul a watch. I often say maybe not if the price approaches 50 percent of a new watch. If the watch has sentimental value then all rules are off. I once repaired a Timex for $250. I tried to dissuade the customer but he said it was the only thing he had from his time in Viet Nam. I do like Rotary service from the one experience I have had. However, 50% of the new price for service every three years doesn't make sense. Your watch will go longer than 3 years without needing service in the first place. If it went six you could buy a new watch for the cost of servicing it twice.

 

Suggested service interval is usually 5 years and you could probably extend to 6 years easily. So it's more 45 vs 182... Go local!

 

100 year old pocket watches rarely have run that long. What usually happens with the good ones still around is they run for 30 years with repair as needed, then somebody puts them away in 1940 or so. They sit in a drawer for 70 years until a great-grandson finds one and gets it restored. Millions of these watches were made so it's not that surprising that some are still around in operating condition. We still have steam engines from 1910 that are operating, although certainly fewer than were made.
I agree that a cheaper watch is not worth servicing. Enjoy it, get a new one if it fails. That's what people did with pin lever mechanicals before quartz came out. Only the better quality stuff got fixed.

 

The fact that you are here suggests to me that it is highly unlikely you will be wearing the same Rotary more than 5 years from now. You will either have moved onto to more expensive timepieces, or you will have a stable of affordables to choose from where it does not make sense to pay this price.

 

I don't really see the point of any warranty if you need to pay half the watch's 'store price' every three years. If it breaks after, say, 13 years, you send it to them and get it back, optimally for free under 'warranty'. You have the same watch, and over these 13 years you have paid once for the watch to buy it, and then 2x that value just to keep it 'under warranty'. Total cost = 3x the watch's price, end result - one running watch.

If you hadn't bothered to keep it serviced at all, you could buy a new exact same model, and spend 1x the price to buy once, and 1x the price after the theoretical 13 years for a new one. End result = 2x the price, 1 running watch + 1 broken watch that can still be repaired after n years on a whim.

If you had serviced the watch at a local place, you'd pay.. well, let's say half the official servicing rates, so 1/4th of the list price -so over 13 years, you'd pay 1x the watch's list price for servicing charges. If it breaks, you againb buy a new one, spending 1x more. End result = 3x list price spent, you have 1 new watch + 1 broken watch you coudl repair later.

Out of these three equations, the official servicing + warranty looks to me as the *worst* deal of the three. You pay the maximum monies, and you get the least result from it. It looks like a pure numbers game, and the longer you keep that watch, the more you lose on the official-servicing thing just to keep this meaningless "warranty" rip-off.

 

I believe that the Rotary automatic watches (unless you have a skeleton watch) at that price range use fairly generic chinese movements. I would wear it until the movement fails, and if the watch still appeals to you, you can obtain a replacement movement for about GBP 20, and pay a watchmaker to do a movement swap. That will cost you less than a single official service.

 

This.

 

If it's the one below,

(Photo credit: ed21x)

then it uses a Hangzhou 2189 movement, which can be purchased from Ofrei for $33.

 

Rotary's Lifetime Guarantee has always seemed a little pointless to me. It goes like this - in order to qualify for a Lifetime Guarantee you must have the watch serviced by Rotary every 3 years. But the majority of watches that Rotary sells are quartz ones that definitely don't really need to be serviced every 3 years. And when you can pick up one of their quartz Navitimer chrono homages from as little as £50 you realise that it is probably better to just wear the watch for as long as you can until it stops working and then just either get a new one or get a cheap movement for it and get it fitted by a local watchmaker. Even with their automatics it really isn't worth taking them up on their Lifetime Guarantee as you are just paying out for unnecessary services. I think that they just offer this guarantee to give the illusion of their watches being higher end luxury items that really would need regular servicing (but even not at 3 years) rather than just being a company that plays off it's original Swiss heritage but now offers some nice but derivatively designed cheap entry level Asian made watches.

 

I have been looking at the Hamilton jazzmaster any other makes I can look into for around the same money? I'm after a good quality mechanical movement with leather strap like the gold cases more and what's rose gold?

Regards, Mike.

 

Hello,

A true mechanical watch enthusiast should not be asking whether to service the mechanical watches or not. It is the same as asking if you need to change the oil in your car, or just replace the engine after it fails.

If you do not service the watch it will just run itself to death. An average mechanical watch nowadays is doing between 18 000 - 28 000 beats per hour. Imagine the wear and the stress if it is not properly lubricated...

3 years might sound like just too frequent, but most mechanical watch movement manufacturers recommend between 3-5 years for the service intervals.

My Rotary watch has just been sent over for service after 3 years of restless operation. I did not do it because of the lifetime warranty, I did it for the same reason I change the oil in my car on time, it is the type of person I am.

If you do not want to spend money on service, just buy a battery powered watch and save yourself from the hassle. Then some will say, quartz is not the same... yes it is not, only once you feel the difference.

Just sharing my thoughts, no offense to anyone.
-Nikolay

 

Hello,

A true mechanical watch enthusiast should not be asking whether to service the mechanical watches or not. It is the same as asking if you need to change the oil in your car, or just replace the engine after it fails.

If you do not service the watch it will just run itself to death. An average mechanical watch nowadays is doing between 18 000 - 28 000 beats per hour. Imagine the wear and the stress if it is not properly lubricated...

3 years might sound like just too frequent, but most mechanical watch movement manufacturers recommend between 3-5 years for the service intervals.

My Rotary watch has just been sent over for service after 3 years of restless operation. I did not do it because of the lifetime warranty, I did it for the same reason I change the oil in my car on time, it is the type of person I am.

If you do not want to spend money on service, just buy a battery powered watch and save yourself from the hassle. Then some will say, quartz is not the same... yes it is not, only once you feel the difference.

Just sharing my thoughts, no offense to anyone.
-Nikolay

No offense, it's just a silly waste of money to me though, since in the case of your Rotary, it's literally cheaper to replace the movement than to service it. Put another way, I wouldn't change the oil on my car if it would cost me less to replace the engine inclusive of parts and labor.

 

Just sharing my thoughts, no offense to anyone.

No offense taken, but he probably already figured it out since this thread is more than three years old. Perhaps check the date on threads before you reply? If you stick to topics on the main page, you'll always be in a current topic.

 

Like the original poster I too have a Rotary watch bought for £180. When I learnt the it would cost £75 annually to maintain the warranty I declined the invitation. The watch was worn on special occasions, never subjected to rough movements, knocks or scratches. 5 years later it died. The cost of a new movement from a repairer was quoted at £100. It remains unrepaired whilst my £30 Wenger Alpine soldiers on 23 years after buying it direct from the Wenger online shop for the equivalent of £30... Yes I know I'm bumping an old thread but if this is the last comment on here it closes it with an identical Rotary story....