Opinion: Thoughts on Rolex’s Extended Warranty

I’m sure by now just about all of you have heard Rolex lengthened its warranty – from two years to five – for watches purchased on or after July 1^st. While I find this is very exciting in its own right, what really got me thinking was their 10-year service interval comment. After mulling it over for a few days, I’ve some thoughts on what this could mean from Rolex’s perspective, as well as longer-term implications for the market as a whole.

First of all, the five-year warranty comes off as a clear shot at Omega and Breitling, and their longer-than-normal warranties on in-house movements (four and five years, respectively). Of course, all of Rolex’s movements are in-house, so applying the new warranty across the lineup makes sense. Rolex is the watch brand of watch brands, and it’s only right they have an industry-leading warranty.

So, is Rolex altruistic? Hell no. You can bet that even if this was partly a move to fart in the rest of the industry’s general direction, a lot of math was done behind the scenes. It can’t be hard to fathom most of the issues in a brand new Rolex occurring within the two-year warranty period happen inside the first six or twelve months. Beyond that, the vast majority of Rolex watches can last without any issues for quite some time, making the two-year warranty useless for maybe 95-99% of buyers. And if that stat is anywhere near accurate, I would be willing to bet adding another three years to the warranty might knock off only a few percentage points, at most. The amount of money Rolex will eat in service costs is likely negligible compared to what a five-year warranty will do to their already bulletproof reputation.

In Rolex’s letter to its authorized dealers, they made a somewhat ambiguous comment regarding a 10-year service interval. Here is the direct quote:

“However the typical timeframe between service intervals has grown to approximately ten years.”

After doing some digging around on the forums, this has been interpreted in two ways: (1) Rolex now believes their watches require servicing only every ten years, or (2) Rolex has observed its customers bringing in watches for servicing after 10 years. Given the major difference between the interpretations, greater clarity would be nice. One member of the Rolex Forums contacted Rolex UK and learned it may be more of an observation on Rolex’s part, but also that watches sold after July 1^st, 2015 will come with an initial service recommendation of 10 years. While this pulls from both interpretations, it does kind of make sense. Rolex is confident that watches fresh out of the factory have been assembled such that they can last 10 years before servicing. On the flip side, watches that go in for a second servicing, now having been opened a second time since purchase, might not be able to go another 10 years before seeing a watchmaker. Notice this hasn’t been publicly declared by Rolex. In other words, they will probably expect authorized dealers to continue to suggest servicing inside of 10 years, knowing that the watches would be okay otherwise. Let’s be honest, if you tell people their Rolex can last 10 years without servicing, most folks will probably wait even longer.

Why would opening the case a second time make a difference? Well, in my non-watchmaker opinion, there are two primary elements that lead to a necessary overhaul: lubricants and contaminants. Today’s lubricants are usually synthetic, and are in many ways far superior to older, organic lubricants. They stay put much longer, even when the movement is dormant, are more resistant to oxidation, and degrade only after many years. In a perfect world, synthetic lubricants could maintain a movement for – correct me if I’m way off – a couple of decades. However, and this is a big “however”, assembling a movement and casing it is far from a perfect world situation – this is where contaminants come into play. Gaskets break down and/or aren’t always as tight as they need to be, movement parts with poor tolerances are a possibility, and improper lubrication happens. All of these can lead to contaminants finding their way to places they shouldn’t be. It doesn’t matter how fresh your lubricants are, if they get over-contaminated, a watch’s performance will eventually suffer.

Rolex has arguably solved these problem areas to a higher degree than everyone else. Their machinery is the best, their clean rooms are cleaner than a Quaker’s RAP sheet, and their quality control is beyond reproach. When a watch leaves their factory, it will almost truly be better then than it ever will be in the future, even if they perform the first servicing. Factoring in Rolex’s quality control, and their normally conservative nature, when they say their watch can go 10 years out of the factory without a service, I tend to believe them.

Omega’s current position with their Co-Axial watches is that they can go seven years without servicing. I hope this is the case, and time will tell, but I don’t know that their quality control and processes are quite at Rolex’s level. With rising prices and a move to in-house movements, Omega has clearly been aiming at Rolex’s position in the market, and now Rolex is responding. In the end, a race for longer warranties and suggested service intervals is a win for the consumer. I have to imagine we’ll see other mid-tier watchmakers follow suit in the next few years, and increase the duration of their warranties. As technology continues to advance, who knows, we could be seeing 10-year warranties by 2020 (wishful thinking?).

Although I think Rolex could have made this move years ago, it’s better late than never. I’ve heard countless stories about Rolex watches keeping good time for decades without a service, and now Rolex is lending credence to those stories to some degree. Cheers to the unofficial watchmaking king for making a marginally risky move, and here’s to hoping we see more of it.

P.S. Tudor, please follow your big brother’s example.

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