Purchase of a Rolex part

[yaniv]

Hello fellas,

I was wondering whether Authorized Dealerships are willing to sell parts in order to be installed in another place or alone?
I live in Israel and I have succeeded to purchase once a few parts, but not again.

Back where you guys live, is it possible? and if so, are the prices reasonable?

Also, I've heard that when you ask an AD to replace a bezel or any other part, the watch has to be checked and/or serviced and they charge extra for it. Rumors, or..?

Thank you all for your responses,
Yaniv.

[DocD]

Yaniv,
First of all, welcome to the forum. I'll attempt to answer your questions, though I'd like some support and comments from others on the site.

I'm not aware of any authorized dealers that sell parts to customers, because I don't believe that parts are available to dealers on a regular basis. Rolex is very protective of it's "parts" and even if a dealership has a watchmaker on premises, I believe Rolex makes it very difficult to obtain parts, since they would like to perform all service at one of their own "official" service centers. I may be wrong on this, but this is my impression.

Secondly, Rolex does not allow parts to be sold to customers, to prevent counterfeit watches from having "official" Rolex parts in them. This way Rolex can control exactly which watches have real parts and they can make sure that none of their parts end up in the wrong hands. I believe that Rolex even has and/or had a policy that watchmakers had to send back any "old" Rolex parts that were replaced in a watch, to ensure that they weren't re-circulated and re-used in counterfeit watches.

Part of what you said regarding sending a watch to Rolex is true, that they often will not perform "half of a service". If your watch is under warranty and you only want the crystal replaced, they will only replace your crystal. But if your watch is 8 years old, and you are having a problem with the watch, they will not simply fix a "part" of the problem without fixing everything they find necessary to fix.

As far as prices being reasonable, that's an individual decision. Once you've made the investment in the watch, maintaining the watch every few years at a cost of a few hundred dollars is certainly reasonable for a product that will give many, many years of reliable service and may be passed to the next generation. But, only you know what is reasonable to you.

Hope this information is useful. The best bet for service on your watch is an authorized Rolex Service Center, or a trusted local watchmaker.

[yaniv]

Thank you for the detailed answer. It surely helped!

More replies are welcome :-)

[padi56]

Well in the UK,they are a bit more flexible with changing dials bezels etc,while Rolex USA are a law to themselves.But spare parts still difficult to get hold of,but not impossible in the UK,if you know someone in the trade.

Great post Doc.

[mike]

Hi yaniv,

Welcome! I can pretty much echo what DocD has said. Here in the USA RUSA has a pretty draconian approach.
It it possible to order parts for a bracelet--extra links,but internal parts are tightly controlled by RUSA.
If the watch is sent to one of the three service centers here old parts are exchanged and kept by the service center.(I have read reports of some people getting some parts back,but that has NOT been my experience.)

Secondly, if the watch is sent to one of the service centers count on getting hit with a service charge.--$450 to $500. Same with a bracelet. RUSA will take the old bracelet in on trade.
I have sent watches in head only to keep the old bracelet--some are worth far more than Rolex will allow.

As far as an AD, my experience has been a little better. I have sent two pieces to a VERY trusted Rolex repair guy with a parts account and pressure equiment for service and have received CERTAIN parts back. --crystal, crown tube,bezel INSERT(not the bezel) main spring etc.

Additionally I have found the service to be outstanding. Price wise,not much difference (at least in my case).

The only exception, at least in my case, to the RUSA was a regulation issue with a GMT II that was under warrenty. They didn't hit me for service on that.

Hope this helps a little.

[C.J.]

Welcome to TRF, yaniv The guys have answered your question more thoroughly than I ever could, so I'll just welcome you aboard and wish you luck in your hunt for the parts you need

[Rockrolex]

Shalom and ditto to what CJ said, Yaniv. Welcome to our merry madhouse. Stick around and post some more.

[yaniv]

Thank you all for the details, answers, and the warm welcoming! :-)
Will surely stick around some more..
For those who share my problem, I do have some parts left which I will be selling here (down under 'Classifieds').

So thanks once again, and good day :-)

[JJ Irani]

Shalom and welcome to TRF, Yaniv. The guys above have just about covered all your queries. Hope you enjoy your stay on TRF.

Cheers - JJ