Here's a weird question. What is the longest time you've run a watch without getting service? I'm sure everyone knows the Cernan legend that he "never serviced his speedy". What is the longest time you've gone? What is the danger of not servicing?

 

Picture never changing the oil in your car. It will run for a long time but when it fails, the damage will be significant.

 

I understand that analogy but, my question is, with a car, that's a guarantee, you don't change the oil ever, the engine will seize. If you don't service a watch is it guaranteed to stop working? After how long? 20 years? 30 years? 50 years? etc. What will breakdown and when? What is the Mean time between failure? Hence my question about longest time you've had a watch before service?

 

I recently serviced a Hamilton 992B for a friend. I had serviced it for him in 2009 (11 years ago). It has run constantly since then, but it quit on him. Bottom pivot of the balance staff wore completely off. I just serviced a Rolex calibre 3035 which hadn’t been serviced since 1999. Both balance pivots scored, mainspring barrel bearings badly worn, ratchet wheel dragging on the barrel bridge. When I spread the plates and removed the bridge over the train wheels, three of the wheels were stuck to the underside of the bridge, and lifted off with it. I recently serviced a watch for a friend’s wife. The watch had an Eta 2892 movement in it, and was maybe 7 or 8 years old, but seldom worn. Top pivot of the fourth wheel worn right off. I haven’t answered your question, but you may have an idea what can happen when a watch isn’t maintained. So, if a watch is seldom used, and when used, only runs for a day or so, it could survive for decades without servicing. There is no one size fits all answer to your question, I’m afraid.

 

If my friend is any example, there are a lot of 80s Master Of The universe trophies ( Subs) that have never been serviced.

 

So I have a question about servicing an Omega Seamaster. I can buy a new one with tags, books, and box, basically everything. The trouble is this watch hasn’t been made since 2006. So the watch is at least 14 years old. If I bought it, would I have to immediately get it serviced? Would the oil etc., still be okay?

 

Yes.

It depends. Watches are not all alike in terms of the quality of components, soundness of design, etc. You are asking a question that is akin to asking "How tall can a tree grow?" and it depends on what type of tree it is.

For example some watches have strong mainsprings and can overcome a lot of additional friction that is present when oils have dried out, and even when the parts begin to wear. One of those watches will run longer than a watch that may have a more fine balance between the strength of the spring and the running torque under normal operating conditions. One will stop sooner when the oils dry up and one will run longer, but the one that runs longer will be more impacted by wear when it does finally stop.​

Again it depends. Some designs are more easily repaired when they fail than others. Most of the watches I get for servicing already have some sort of problem, so they are either not running or are not keeping time, or some other function is not working correctly. I rarely get watches that are just being sent for routine, preventative maintenance. It does happen, but not that often.

Many people who send me watches for servicing don't know when the watch was last serviced, so often I don't have that sort of history, but there are two different examples of watches that I did get the history of. First one is a vintage Tissot:



The owner bought it in the early 60's, wore it for dress use only, and never serviced it. Don't know the total running time, but it had run long enough to wear this pivot out pretty well:



The barrel bridge was worn substantially from the barrel arbor - this hole should be round:



The main plate was also worn from the barrel arbor - you can see how much with the arbor in place:



I sourced a new barrel bridge and installed a bushing in the main plate to repair it:



The balance pivots ran dry for so long they wore an indent in the cap jewel, and this of course flattened the balance pivots:



This was an extensive repair to say the least, and in the end not inexpensive to fix.

A more modern watch is a Sinn model (ETA 2824-2 movement) that a good customer of mine had given to his father, who wore it daily for 7 years. Pretty much all the oils had dried up, and all the wheels were worn out...











You can see that some wheels in this watch that was only 7 years old, are more worn than from the watch that is 50+ years old. Newer watches often don't have the same level of hardening on pivots, so they wear faster than vintage, but it really depends on the watch and maker. No maker is immune to wear inside the watches, but some watches hide it better than others from the wearer. Many watches have weak spots that will wear quicker than the rest of the watch - some of those are easily repaired with replacing a cheap part, and other may require replacing things like the entire main plate - this is usually a very expensive thing to replace.

There are certainly circumstances where letting the watch run until it stops will be the most economically effective thing to do, in particular if it is a modern watch with plentiful parts available, and you are sending it to the brand for servicing. However using this same thinking with all watches is not ideal - if you have a vintage watch that parts are difficult to get, you want to do what you can to keep the parts inside the watch from wearing out, because the premium for those hard to find parts will make for expensive repairs down the road.

The worn wheels in that ETA 2824-2 are maybe $15 each, and I've paid as much as $150 for one vintage train wheel that was discontinued. I have a watch in the shop now that is vintage and needs a new escape wheel - the cheapest one I have found so far is $200, so I am still looking. Rare parts on a vintage watch easily double the cost of service or more...

Here is a barrel bridge from an Omega Cal. 1109 (essentially an Omega branded 2892) - the arrows point to where the next views will be and point at the wear spots



This is the lower red arrow from the above photo - this boss is worn badly:



This is the upper red arrow, and the "eye" shaped boss is worn more than any other I've seen...



Even with this level of wear (and again all the wheels were worn out in this watch, so it wasn't just the bridge), this watch was running when it arrived. Not well, but it was running, so it's pretty difficult to say just how worn a watch can get before it actually stops.

Cheers, Al

 

Thanks Al.

Sobering.

 

I think it's kind of like asking
"How close can I stand to the edge of the cliff without falling off?"
Eventually you are going to get too close, or wait too long for service and be sorry.

 

I’m still waiting for my late fathers Seiko, that I bought for him in the early 80’s. to stop. I wear it very occasionally and it will be retired when it (if?) stops. I know some will say that I should have it serviced and wear it in him memory, but it’s the way I feel about this particular watch; it was his and it will eventually be laid to rest just like him.

 

If this wear comes from the running and movement of parts, how does this change (wear and time between services) with watches that are hardly worn.

Maybe a total of 20-50 days per year.

 

The analogy with car servicing is interesting.
A service on a car is relatively simple. A few consumables are changed out. Oil is changed. A few parts are inspected. But the whole operation is not that intrusive. Things are done to prevent future failure.
Watch servicing is not usually servicing. It's a full overhaul. There is a huge difference. If a watch required a service similar to a car I expect it would get undertaken more readily. Imagine if a watch service was to open the back, some oil dropped in key places, new O ring and sealed up. £75?
But no. A watch is overhauled, it is not a service. It is taken down to its component parts, inspected against wear standards and tolerances, parts replaced, lubricated and rebuilt. It then gets a post maintenance set of tests and adjustments made.
All rather labour intensive. And often around £500?
Work colleagues laugh if I tell them what a watch "service" costs. Just imagine if every 5 years your car engine, gearbox and all the other bits were stripped, inspected and rebuilt to an " as left the factory/ as per design" standard.
We really ought to stop using the term service when applied to a watch. Yes, as a generic term it is. But really is a full strip/inspect/overhaul as per design.

 

I agree with the "servicing" versus "overhaul" analogy.
I have a GMT Master II that I wore every day for about 6-7 years until one day it just stopped. I had it serviced by Rolex, and just started wearing it again. That was at least 10 years ago, still seems fine. Now I wonder if I should have it serviced as a preventive measure.

I also have an Eterna mechanical (hand-wound) watch that my father purchased new in 1962. I believe it was repaired once in the 70s or 80s. Being old technology (parts & oils), it's probably more prone to wear. Both my father and I only wore it occasionally (a few times per year) and it runs fine. Archer's photos have me worried: if I have it serviced and it has many worn parts, can the watchmaker just put it back together? Or will I be forced into an expensive repair with unoriginal parts?

 

Forced might be the wrong word...and depending on the watch, the parts might not very expensive. For some vintage watches, parts are plentiful and cheap, but others not so much. I don't service a lot of Eterna watches (no particular reason for that, other than not being asked to) but my gut feel is that parts for this brand are not terribly hard to find for the ones that I have serviced, but of course it would depend on the movement.

Putting a watch back together with worn parts is certainly possible, but it's not recommended. The watch is not going to perform properly, and it would essentially be a waste of the money you are spending on the service.

 

Only way to chart a course of action is to find an actual watch repair guy who will check the Eterna for you. Unoriginal parts? If the repair of the Eterna is possible, it is almost a foregone conclusion that original parts would be used.

 

Actually I inherited my grand fathers watch a Rolex airking 5500 from 1957 and it’s first service was done on July 2019.... She had no big issues just loosing 7 min every 24h.

I once went to Rolex, 3 years ago, to service my Milgauss (it’s 5 years service) and the person asked me if the watch was still accurate I answeard yes he replied to me that in that case no need to have it serviced. I found his reply ackward as Rolex recommend a service every 5 years......

 

My general philosophy is if you don’t know when it was serviced last, it’s time. To use the car analogy again, if you buy a used car and have no documented service records, it’s best to get all fluids replaced and a full inspection so you have a baseline.
I totally get not wanting to throw $300+ at a watch that you paid $100 for- sometimes fun old beaters we just run until they don’t. But if it’s a watch you actually want to own for the next decade+ it’s worth it.

 

You would always choose to use OEM parts. This assumes they own the intellectual property that will specify the design. I.e. materials of construction and wear limits/ tolerances that would compel you to change the "worn" parts.
Yes, you can buy a third party oil filter for your BMW that should physically fit, and even filter. But will it do it as BMW intended it to? Who knows. You are unlikely to know( or even know you should care) and the guy selling it certainly doesn't. And yes, we've all done it.

But when it comes to watches and especially manufacturers own mechanisms you need to convince yourself about what is being fitted if it not serviced ( there you go, I used that word) by the OEM. No problem using third parties as long as they know what the OEM knows.
It's a risk. Do your own assesment. After all, it's your watch and your money. And that's why watch " servicing" costs.

 

7 min a day is big in my book

 

I was writing a reply to say the same but you have been faster
As for the topic, I have my stuff inspected by the watchmaker whenever in doubt, but it's pretty obvious a 50 year old piece bought off the bay will need servicing, therefore I know what to expect. I'm highly paranoid and have a small collection that I wear a lot, therefore I maintain all the watches in top shape by servicing when required.

Really? No inspection of the movement, just like that? I would expect better of Rolex. Truth be told, a 5 year old service was not that far ago, but with higher prices, the expectations are higher as well.