Hi OF,

I've received a quote for a repair of a Zenith 2562PC that is astronomical (as in, I could likely buy a running watch with the same movement that works for half the quote).

All in the quote was £350... The repairs they said were required are:

Replace hairspring & mainspring
fix auto system (I suppose the winding mechanism)
fix calendar system (I suspect this is an issue with the keyless works, or just replacing the stem)

A service is also included in that quote.

Can you share you're preferred watchsmith with me so I can get some competing quotes? The place I got the quote from has a physical stand in Hatton Garden, so I suspect a large part of the quote is the rent markup...

Cheers,
Rahil

 

Rahil, that's not a bad price. You've got £100+ in parts and then less than £250 for 6 hours work over three days (or more) including the service, timing and so on. You can pay less if you shop about but stop and ask yourself, first, if you really want to?

You've got a watchmaker who's had years of training; many more years of experience; tens, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of equipment ... and you think £40 an hour is too much?

 

Thanks, I had no idea parts were that expensive. I suppose when you break down the cost like that it's quite cheap... Maybe I should start negotiating my own rates in the same way

For some reason in my mind the cost of a service for such a movement is around £175, and the marginal effort of fixing issues is replacing parts while reassembling. I suppose one of the resident watchsmiths will be along shortly to cringe at my thought process.

Anyway thanks for your thoughts, I'll likely just give them the go ahead and not shop around.

 

Watches are more expensive than cars to maintain (unless you have only 1 watch ) ... and a lot of watches that fellow members have are worth more than cars...so its par for the course...

 

When someone brings a watch to me for servicing it, what they paid or could buy another one for is irrelevant. I base my fees on the time needed to do the work, not the value of the watch...

As noted, you might find someone who can do the work cheaper, but doing the job right is what counts.

Cheers, Al

 

You could try WatchGuy

http://watchguy.co.uk/price-list/

Hard to get a booking slot though, but his pricing is more reasonable than what you've been quoted on hand. The spare parts shouldn't run that much.