Old Tag Heuer Advice
Discussion
Afternoon all,
I have been gifted an Tag Heuer by my mum. The watch belonged to my dad who sadly passed away around 6 years ago and my mum had forgotten about the watch until recently – it’s been in a drawer in her house for years! I think the watch is around 18-20 years old.
I’m keen to get the watch serviced and install a new battery. I have no interest in selling it for obvious sentimental reasons. Any ideas what this is likely to cost?
I’m also keen to find out a bit more about the watch. It has a gold and stainless steel bracelet and 3 smaller dials inside the main watch face.
I have been gifted an Tag Heuer by my mum. The watch belonged to my dad who sadly passed away around 6 years ago and my mum had forgotten about the watch until recently – it’s been in a drawer in her house for years! I think the watch is around 18-20 years old.
I’m keen to get the watch serviced and install a new battery. I have no interest in selling it for obvious sentimental reasons. Any ideas what this is likely to cost?
I’m also keen to find out a bit more about the watch. It has a gold and stainless steel bracelet and 3 smaller dials inside the main watch face.
Honestly, full servicing is unlikely to be needed or warranted, no matter how much the makers would like to sell it to you.
Neglecting service of a quartz movement until it shows symptoms will not cause it any harm as it would with a mechanical - there simply isn't enough power in them to continue working once the lubrication fails.
Even if they did keep moving, the gear train has no constant force on it. It spends about 99.9% of its time under no load whatsoever - a roughly 1 millisecond drive pulse followed by 999 milliseconds of doing nothing each second. So a 100 year old quartz movement would only have 1 year of actual wear in its train.
Also, most quartz movements are currently cheaper to replace than service so, even ignoring the last two paragraphs, keep putting the batteries in (and checking the seals) until it plays up, then either service or replace the insides (depending on prevailing movement prices) and start again.
Neglecting service of a quartz movement until it shows symptoms will not cause it any harm as it would with a mechanical - there simply isn't enough power in them to continue working once the lubrication fails.
Even if they did keep moving, the gear train has no constant force on it. It spends about 99.9% of its time under no load whatsoever - a roughly 1 millisecond drive pulse followed by 999 milliseconds of doing nothing each second. So a 100 year old quartz movement would only have 1 year of actual wear in its train.
Also, most quartz movements are currently cheaper to replace than service so, even ignoring the last two paragraphs, keep putting the batteries in (and checking the seals) until it plays up, then either service or replace the insides (depending on prevailing movement prices) and start again.
Nice old Tag from before they cheapened too much (while simultaneously raising their RRP).
The movement's an ETA 251.262, also used by Breitling amongst others, and borderline worth servicing rather than replacing if it's showing problems. If it's working ok then, as above, keep fitting batteries until it doesn't. Then decide whether to fork out on service or replacement - a lot of that decision may rest on what happens to ETA quartz movement prices in the future.
At least that movement is built well enough that it can be serviced / repaired unlike their later quartz chrono offerings!
The movement's an ETA 251.262, also used by Breitling amongst others, and borderline worth servicing rather than replacing if it's showing problems. If it's working ok then, as above, keep fitting batteries until it doesn't. Then decide whether to fork out on service or replacement - a lot of that decision may rest on what happens to ETA quartz movement prices in the future.
At least that movement is built well enough that it can be serviced / repaired unlike their later quartz chrono offerings!
With something like this it might actually be worth buying a couple of spare movements, removing the batteries and just keeping them safe for twenty years. Obsolete parts are a pain anyway, but with Quartz and Accutron watches you see loads being consigned to the back of a drawer due to the difficulty in finding spares.
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