Service cost and what is involved in a CW service

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nordwulf

Service cost and what is involved in a CW service

Post by nordwulf »

There have been some recent discussions on the CW forum and social media about the cost of servicing a watch and what is involved in a service. It appears many are quoted different prices so I figured may as well get this cleared up. As I couldn't find any information on the CW website, I sent an email requesting more information on Friday and received a response from CS on Sunday.
Servicing is around £100-£200 per watch, each watch is inspected and priced differently depending on the movement and model of the watch, service will include a new battery in the quartz. You can find the servicing details on the about us page and go to servicing gives you a run down of everything involved.
I was curious about the cost for their most popular model C60 automatic with ETA/Sellita movement and received this response:
The servicing cost for that particular C60 model would be £150.00 (pounds).
I never knew this page about servicing was available so sharing it here in case you're curious. Even servicing a quartz watch involves more than just replacing the battery.

https://www.christopherward.co.uk/watch-servicing

It would be great when they would have a price list for servicing of watches based on the movement (i.e. quartz, ETA/Selitta, SH21, chrono/regular and so on) like Omega has on their website.
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Re: Service cost and what is involved in a CW service

Post by Jame5m »

Thanks for that, just sent mine in today 😊
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Re: Service cost and what is involved in a CW service

Post by Ttf23 »

Thanks for sharing - useful to know.
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Re: Service cost and what is involved in a CW service

Post by Essex Paul »

Would be nice if they could turn around the servicing quicker. (Short staffed?).
What have you people been quoted for time it’ll take?
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Re: Service cost and what is involved in a CW service

Post by Lavaine »

Why is CW unwilling to provide prices for movement servicing? Rolex, Swatch, even Lange publish service price lists. Being secretive and only providing them after receiving the watch is how one member ended up being overcharged for a basic service. It also makes it appear like they are hiding something (I'm not saying they are, but why so secretive?).
Secondly, are CW not providing battery change services anymore? It sounds like they will only do a battery change along with a quartz service. If this is the case I'd love to hear the justification. I've never seen any watchmaker recommend a service with every battery change.
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Re: Service cost and what is involved in a CW service

Post by H0rati0 »

Interesting that they disassemble quartz movements too, in which case I guess £150 is sorta justifiable, but why raise the price so much recently? What changed I wonder?

Disclosure: quartz for me is throwaway. No way would I invest good money in a high end quartz. Sooner or later (almost certainly sooner) it is obsolete, but not heavy enough for an anchor or even a diving weight.
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Re: Service cost and what is involved in a CW service

Post by Essex Paul »

I’m completely miffed about “quartz servicing”.
No one pulls a quartz movement apart do they?

My wife’s Tag has a new battery and is water/pressure sealed and tested at approx £65 every 3 years, (or whenever the battery runs out), at a Tag service centre.
Not once have they said it needs “servicing”.

And CW want £150?
Don’t get it. 10 year battery maybe?
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Re: Service cost and what is involved in a CW service

Post by FullFat »

Lavaine wrote: Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:20 pm It sounds like they will only do a battery change along with a quartz service. If this is the case I'd love to hear the justification. I've never seen any watchmaker recommend a service with every battery change.
My C7 IRR Cosc is in now for a battery change £20 no mention of a service.
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Re: Service cost and what is involved in a CW service

Post by jtc »

Perhaps CW previously (mis-)used the word "service" for quartz watches that just meant a battery change, but now if you request a "service" of a quartz watch you get exactly that, while requesting a battery change doesn't (obviously)?

It might all down to be semantics and training of their support staff.
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Re: Service cost and what is involved in a CW service

Post by PaulJS »

Essex Paul wrote: Thu Jun 20, 2019 3:22 am I’m completely miffed about “quartz servicing”.
No one pulls a quartz movement apart do they?

My wife’s Tag has a new battery and is water/pressure sealed and tested at approx £65 every 3 years, (or whenever the battery runs out), at a Tag service centre.
Not once have they said it needs “servicing”.

And CW want £150?
Don’t get it. 10 year battery maybe?
Could not agree more - am I really going to pay to have my £225 C4 'serviced'? Anything over about twenty quid for a battery change is an uneconomical outlay.

I would be interested in the evidence used to determine that stripping down a quartz movement is either necessary or cost effective. Equally, the whole power consumption testing process sounds like complete guff to me.

As an engineer and engineering manager my business was all about ensuring reliability and quality of performance balanced against cost and one thing I do know is that you don't spend man hours stripping and rebuilding a cheap component even if it is U/S let alone just to find out how well it is working!

I would love to know the science behind the quartz servicing rational - is there published information on such things as mean time between failure, for example.

TBH this all sounds like hokum to me. For the cost / value of a typical quartz (and certainly the bog standard ones that CW knock out) the only sensible approach is to stick a new battery in each time it stops working until this doesn't solve the problem and then do one of four things:

- If you are really attached get the movement replaced at an independent ( since I assume CW will want full bunce for wasting time with 'diagnostics' as part of the service.
- Stick it on fleabay as non working.
- Bin it if you can't be bothered with either of the above.
- Keep and use as test bed for honing your watch disassembly / reassembly skills if this interests you.

It sounds to me like this is modelled on the vehicle serving approach that main dealers use to mitigate the fact that cars are now so reliable :

Complete a four page check list of many items for which there is no basis to believe a problem exists and then charge £200+ for an oil change.

Smoke and mirrors.

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Re: Service cost and what is involved in a CW service

Post by Lavaine »

FullFat wrote: Thu Jun 20, 2019 6:56 am
Lavaine wrote: Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:20 pm It sounds like they will only do a battery change along with a quartz service. If this is the case I'd love to hear the justification. I've never seen any watchmaker recommend a service with every battery change.
My C7 IRR Cosc is in now for a battery change £20 no mention of a service.
So they do still offer battery changes. Of course, the average customer is not likely to know this since the website buries the mention of a battery change service at the very bottom of the service page (without a price), and CW refuse to provide any sort of service price list.
I would be interested in the evidence used to determine that stripping down a quartz movement is either necessary or cost effective. Equally, the whole power consumption testing process sounds like complete guff to me.
Quartz watches will require service over time. The torque on a quartz movement is much lower than a mechanical one, and so service intervals are greatly extended. I cannot find any sort of consensus on how often they should be serviced. Power consumption testing is actually a standard test used by watchmakers to determine if a quartz movement requires service. Power consumption outside parameters is an indication that the movement is in need of service.
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Re: Service cost and what is involved in a CW service

Post by Alex r »

Update on quartz service cost. Now £100
After several emails to ask about what is involved in a quartz service and price increases etc. i bit the bullet and booked the service. Was informed i had been quoted for an automatic service on a C60 not the C6 i sent in. Hopefully it gets better from here.
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Re: Service cost and what is involved in a CW service

Post by DavecUK »

If I buy quartz it's the eco drive/solar type. I have never had to have a quartz movement serviced and wouldn't unless a hand fell of, started jumping or some obvious signs of wear, or in my case if the battery/capacitor failed. The cost of the quartz services to me seem excessive, I believe you could actually buy a replacement movement for less.

My old Casio solar wavecepter has been faithfully running for 15 years, used, abused and travelled the word, in the sea, in swimming pools in the shower and it's still "waterproof" to this day. The metallic coating on the plastic has worn off, the acrylic is scratched a bit....It cost 42 in 2004 and I have not spent a penny on it since. It is one of my favourite little watches even though I have far more expensive watches. When it finally dies, I will attempt a rechargeable battery replacement myself if I can get the part....It's why I specifically avoid battery quartz, because of the so called "servicing expense" and breaking/reinstatement of the water seal. Some other brands of watch have 10 year batteries, they seem fine without servicing.

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Re: Service cost and what is involved in a CW service

Post by QPRcat »

Is serving conducted at HQ in Maidenhead?

I’ve just sent two watches back. 😬
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Re: Service cost and what is involved in a CW service

Post by Andy-Smith »

I have one of these Casio. Issue with it is that the minute hand flops back & forth a bit. Not sure its worth trying to do anything about it.
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