Earlier this year I came into possession of a Rolex Submariner very similar to this one courtesy of my uncle’s estate. I brought it to the only authorized Rolex dealer and repair center in Madison to have it appraised and “tuned up”. This cost me (well, I had the estate pay for it) about $650.
I got it back 3 months later, and within a few days, the date-adjust function failed. I let this slide because I didn’t really care about the date, and it was a pain to remember to adjust it anyway after short months. In another 3 months it stopped working altogether. Actually, when I shook it a bit, it would run backward, which was a new experience for me.
I called the jeweler and to my relief I found out that the they warranted their work for a year. When I described the problem to the watchmaker he said, “Your mainspring broke. Ya know, Rolex says we should replace the mainspring during overhauls, but these watches have so few problems that I don’t do that. I guess yours is one of the very few that actually needed it.” And I asked myself did I just hear what I thought I heard? He just doesn’t bother to do the work if he doesn’t think it’s necessary, even when the manufacturer says it should be done? And when I was paying for it, btw.
When I got home I called Rolex corporate headquarters in NYC and started asking questions. Do you have a list of items to do for a Submariner tuneup? Yes. Are these reccommendations or suggestions, or mandatory? They are mandatory. “There is a regimen of parts to replace and tests to perform to assure your watch is running as well as it was the day it came out of the factory”. Since it’s a diver’s watch all the seals should be replaced and it should then be pressure tested. Etc. The woman ran through a number of items and I begain to understand why a tune-up costs as much as it does. It’s pretty comprehensive. And she made absolutely clear that these were not mere suggestions. Certified Rolex repair centers are obliged to do every step for every watch.
But the guy already had my watch back in the shop. Rolex offered to make good, btw, if I’m ultimately dissatisfied with the repair. If I ship my watch and receipt to New York, they will perform the tune-up and fix whatever is broke for no additional charge. I may still take them up on this.
Fast forward to today. Another solid month has passed since I brought in the watch for the second time – it’s been in the shop as much or more as it’s been on my wrist, and I wanted to know when it would be ready. “Oh, you can come by and pick it up today!” WTF?? They’re supposed to call when it’s ready. I have voice mail at work and at home, and there was no call, and how long has it been sitting around with the work done??
And I am just steamed when I go into the store to get it, and I recognize the owner, but he’s in the midst of dealing with a very loud and apparently drunk customer who wants to by a watch and wants to haggle over the price, but the owner won’t haggle. It’s all rather unpleasant, and I don’t want to stick around to witness it, so I just pick up my watch and go.
Once I get home I do call the store and talk to the owner by phone and lay out the whole story. And I told him that his watch guy is apparently ripping off every single Rolex customer who gets a major repair, whether they know it or not, because he is not followng the prescribed Rolex protocols. I don’t know how long the list is, and I don’t know which items he doesn’t consider worth doing, and I don’t know what wasn’t done to my watch that should have been.
But in the end, I don’t come up with any demands to make for them to make this good. I mean, the guy did some work at least, the watch works again, and there is a one year warranty on the work – though I’m certainly not brining it back there again. I do tell the owner that I will not bring in the watch any more, but I also tell him that I don’t really know what will make it good. I did give the owner my name and phone number and email and asked him to let me know how he ultimately addresses these issues. He did promised to do that.
At one point I think to myself I should demand a refund, and then I think that since Rolex is willing to make good the work if I provide evidence of payment, it doesn’t seem fair to them to send them a receipt for what I paid, if I get the money refunded.
I dunno, maybe I should offer to pay the cost of replacing the mainspring, which is the one piece of work I know WAS done, and demand a refund of the rest.
Or maybe I should give the owner an opportunity to think about what a fair resolution is and make me an offer.
Just another aside, a few months before the first watch repair, I had another encounter with the store and the owner what was entirely positive. My uncle had a large number, maybe 50 pairs, of cuff links, some of which looked like they might be valuable. I brought them into the store and the owner happened to be there and unoccupied, so he sat down with me for about half an hour and went through the whole pile with a jeweler’s loupe, and didn’t charge me a penny.