18038 Servicing

I have a good friend that is having issues with getting his 18038 Rolex (President day-date) serviced. The watch stopped working and he sent it for a service. $1100 USD later, watch is still not functioning and is at a Rolex service center. Watch service now has two prices roughly 8k for the cheap service and 24k for the expensive service. Expensive service includes new gold bracelet and extra links to match the present length. Friend inherited the watch and it appears that there are some non-Rolex parts on the watch. I think this explains the large price for the Rolex based service. The issue is that he wants the watch to work without spending the price of another watch to get this watch running. Ideas? Thoughts?

I had heard that when the service centers for places like Rolex, AP, etc give a quoted service price that is essentially the price of a new watch, that's their signaling that they believe it's a fake watch without explicitly coming out and saying that it's a fake watch. Sounds like in this case someone might have said that quiet part out loud?