Servicing a £200 watch?

PunkRoquefort

I am looking at a watch, not high-end, but still nice, at around £200. 

It is a Bering.

On asking the jeweller/dealer about servicing, he recommended servicing every few years, at around £150.

If you own a watch in this price range, do you bother getting it serviced or do you just get it seen to when you know something needs work?

I van see the need for much pricer watches to be serviced regularly.

Thank you.

MikeJXE

I bought a Seiko 10 years ago that was £200 

It's solar powered and never been serviced

Keeps perfect time 

victor2

If it's battery powered, get a dealer to replace that when necessary, rather than the chap on the market. Otherwise, don't bother with "servicing" unless something goes wrong.

TELLIT01

I've only ever once been in a position of wanting a watch servicing.  The watch cost over £300 and a couple of the buttons were sticking, making it impossible to use some of the functions.  Price to service was about £180 but I decided to get it done because the watch has great sentimental value.  A couple of weeks after taking it in to the jeweller I had a call to say they couldn't get it serviced as the manufacturer's service centre no longer holds part for it.  The watch is under 10 years old, so I wasn't impressed.  That's a Citizen watch.

facade

Anecdotes away!

My Citizen would cost about £250 now, and it has worked continuously for the last 15 years without a service. (solar powered) I wear it when swimming, in the bath etc. too.

Do the maths, a £250 watch is not worth a £150 service every few years, 2 services buy a new watch.

Now if the service was £15, I'd say get one every two years

flaneurs_lobster

£150 to service a watch that cost £200? Well that's what my chap charges me to service my Jaeger every couple of years.

Not sure why a service should cost less for a less expensive watch, they're both battery quartz jobs and presumably take around the same amount of time to complete. 

cymruchris

Unless the watch is going to be absolutely special to you for sentimental reasons, and must stay working at all costs for decades to come, I'd not bother servicing it until it went wrong, and then if it wasn't repairable, buy something else.

My dad had a Rado watch that I recall cost around £1k, and it went wrong after around fifteen years, it cost £300 to get it serviced and back up and running (a couple of bits were replaced and fine-tuned) - and then sold it for £450 advertised as being recently serviced.

RumRat

This site gets around the Bull.....The Definitive Guide to Getting Your Watch Serviced — NO BS WATCHMAKER
Admitted it's American, but, no less valid and worth a read to set your mind at rest.
My Omega Seamaster 300 cost around £600 to service by Omega. I've had it done once and as it was a presentation watch with some sentimental value, as well as the fact that it would cost thousands to replace, I thought it worth it and will have it done again. Omega recommended 6-8 years for the next one, if only to check the waterproof integrity, so, I save a little each month for the next one.

John_Gray

Surely the question is: What is a watch FOR?

a) if it's a piece of jewellery, then it doesn't need servicing - and it doesn't actually need to work or be set to the right time!

b) if it's intended to tell the time, then it doesn't need servicing* and you can get a perfectly adequate and accurate quartz-movement watch for no more than about £20

* OK, the battery will need changing every few years, but that's it

RumRat

John_Gray said:

Surely the question is: What is a watch FOR?

a) if it's a piece of jewellery, then it doesn't need servicing - and it doesn't actually need to work or be set to the right time!

b) if it's intended to tell the time, then it doesn't need servicing* and you can get a perfectly adequate and accurate quartz-movement watch for no more than about £20

* OK, the battery will need changing every few years, but that's it

Obviously if all you use it for is to tell the time then any cheap old thing will do. The same could be said of anything. Why could a watch not be both a piece of jewellery and a timepiece requiring it to be accurate? In fact most are.
Some are used in a professional capacity.....Who knows, but, yes you are right if you don't do nice things it won't matter.

matelodave

I have a Longines, which I've had for nearly thirty years. It was gift and of sentimental value, so I get the battery change and reseal done by am authorised dealer rather than Timpsons and it costs me around £60 every three years or so. It's had one service around five years ago which cost about £150. (The current replacement  value of a similar one is around £1600)

My standby watch, which gets used when the Longines is away for a battery change, is several years older, gets a Timpson's battery when it needs it and has never been serviced.