Servicing a grey market watch

E Edgeworth

This maybe belongs in the watchmaking forum. If so, sorry.

Let’s say you buy a brand new grey market watch, but it’s an older model that was manufactured 7-8 years ago. But brand new out of the box.

Much of what is done in a full service by Omega is focused on inspecting and replacing worn parts of the movement, as well as aesthetic improvements to the watch case and bracelet. This work would be unnecessary for a brand new watch.

But would there be any need to clean and lubricate? The cleaning seems unnecessary, but I guess in theory the movement lubricants could become less effective over time even if the watch was unused.

So I’m thinking it would be total overkill to send this watch to Omega for a full service. I know a local watchmaker who is well regarded by my WIS friends who works on Omegas. I don’t know if he has an Omega parts account but that shouldn’t matter for a brand new watch. I could possibly pay him to simply disassemble the watch, clean and lubricate the movement, then check the gaskets for water proofing. Even this last step, I think, would be unnecessary for a new watch.

Archer

If the watch is a co-axial model, then you should check with the watchmaker you are considering to ensure that they are trained on these movements, and have the appropriate specialized tools that are required to service them properly. If they are not Omega certified, it is unlikely they are properly equipped for these.

gbesq

If that were true, wouldn’t it imply that the synthetic oil in modern car engines never needs to be changed? All lubricants degrade over time. The synthetic variants just take longer to do it than their conventional counterparts.

Archer

You are correct, they do not degrade like the old oils did - they degrade in a completely different way.

Older natural oils would get very viscous, and gum up the watch, causing it to stop fairly quickly. Synthetic oils tend to just evaporate, and not leave behind a really viscous residue.

Here's some degraded natural oil on the underside of a jewel - it's like a gel:



Here's some in a balance jewel:



It looks like liquid oil, but it's not, as you can see when I took it apart - it's solid enough to support itself:



This is what modern synthetic oils do when they degrade:



They just dry up. The watch continues to run, so unlike natural oils that can cause noticeable timekeeping issues, or even stop the watch when they fail, modern oils just let the watch keep on running. This means that the way they fail is not at all protective - they continue to run and the parts will then begin to wear. That's when the nice parallel cylindrical pivots, end up looking like this:



Or this:



These oils do last longer than the old natural oils, but they are not everlasting by any means. So for the OP, if the watch is 7-8 years old, that is at a questionable age for letting it go. It might be okay, but without being able to examine the pivots of the jewels to see if there is liquid oil still there, it would be tough to say with any certainty that it's okay. It might be at that age, but there's also a good possibility it won't be.

How that translates into having a service done or not, is really up to the individual. You can "run it until it stops" and then send it to Omega, and it won't cost you any more than sending it in now would. But if you are someone like the OP who has what I call mechanical sympathy, and dislike the idea that your watch is damaging itself, it might not sit well with you.

Cheers, Al

Archer

You are correct, they do not degrade like the old oils did - they degrade in a completely different way.

Older natural oils would get very viscous, and gum up the watch, causing it to stop fairly quickly. Synthetic oils tend to just evaporate, and not leave behind a really viscous residue.

Here's some degraded natural oil on the underside of a jewel - it's like a gel:



Here's some in a balance jewel:



It looks like liquid oil, but it's not, as you can see when I took it apart - it's solid enough to support itself:



This is what modern synthetic oils do when they degrade:



They just dry up. The watch continues to run, so unlike natural oils that can cause noticeable timekeeping issues, or even stop the watch when they fail, modern oils just let the watch keep on running. This means that the way they fail is not at all protective - they continue to run and the parts will then begin to wear. That's when the nice parallel cylindrical pivots, end up looking like this:



Or this:



These oils do last longer than the old natural oils, but they are not everlasting by any means. So for the OP, if the watch is 7-8 years old, that is at a questionable age for letting it go. It might be okay, but without being able to examine the pivots of the jewels to see if there is liquid oil still there, it would be tough to say with any certainty that it's okay. It might be at that age, but there's also a good possibility it won't be.

How that translates into having a service done or not, is really up to the individual. You can "run it until it stops" and then send it to Omega, and it won't cost you any more than sending it in now would. But if you are someone like the OP who has what I call mechanical sympathy, and dislike the idea that your watch is damaging itself, it might not sit well with you.

Cheers, Al