Luxury goods are also made to last – many get inherited in the family or auctioned off to fellow aficionados and investors. Value beyond provenance is guaranteed by mechanical and aesthetic qualities, which therefore must be preserved even if it’s in daily use. When purchasing such an item, customers pay for more than just an object or a one-time shopping experience. They acquire a piece of the brand itself and rightly expect to have a smooth and professional relationship with it. This includes top quality product, and equally high class service through generations.
All of which make the client excited about the piece and gradually loyal to the brand to an extent they communicate positively about both. And of course the higher the initial purchase value was, the more furious the comments will be when the client feels let down at any stage of the after-sales treatment.
According to Forbes, Rolex ranks in the top segment of the elite group of the most valuable brands. More than any other watch company, Rolex has been extremely successful in igniting love in one’s heart, while hate in another’s. Nevertheless, for the genius branding, the mechanical and aesthetic qualities have provided rock-solid pillars. Famously durable and serviceable calibres, such as the 3155, 2135 and 2235 or the 4130 chronograph have reliably served models that are so well recognizable by their design.
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Oyster Perpetual Datejust Pearlmaster, set with an orange to yellow gradient of 48 baguette-cut sapphires
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The past years witnessed booming interest in Rolex pieces at auctions, exchanging ownership over rare and well-maintained Daytonas, Day-Dates, Submariners or GMT-Masters.
Rolex international warranty upgrade
Recently, Rolex made few but significant changes to its global warranty terms to the benefit of present and future Rolex owners. This was a great excuse to pop by to the Rolex Petite Genève boutique again, who to replicate their successes in Belgrade will soon open their official servicing workshop in Budapest, too.
The announcement, which was made pretty quietly, leeking information through Rolex boutiques and watch blogs in June, had two main axles.
The so far two years of warranty was extended to five years for every new purchase from an authorized dealer starting from 1 July 2015. What’s also remarkable is that a one year warranty extension is offered to all Oyster and Cellini pieces sold in the last two years (1 July 2013 – 30 June 2015) on top of their original two years of warranty.
Additionally, showing an increased confidence in long-term reliability of mechanisms mainly driven by clever designs, new materials and lubricants, the recommended service period has been lengthened from 3 to 10 years. This in itself reduces the costs of ownership, since regular service charges has been borne by the owners.
Naturally rumors already started to surface, about what could be behind these decisions of Rolex, but this is another story…
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Rolex Guarantee Manual
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Reliability and serviceability has always been in focus at Rolex – the 4130 chronograph calibre bringing Daytonas alive since 2000 was developed in-house. Compared to its predecessor (the 4030 Zenith based movement) it includes fewer components, a new high-performance and serviceable vertical clutch (that connects the chronograph with the movement), rearranged and simplified chronograph counters, and many more improvements that make maintenance easier and the whole system more efficient.
With the new calibre 3255 introduced at Baselworld 2015 we’ve yet to gain experience. It operates in every new Day-Date 40mm model and again it brought many innovative designs and materials which aim to increase resistance to shocks and physical forces over a longer period of time.
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Oyster Perpetual Day-Date, with sun dust dial, stripe motif
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The maintenance of Rolex timepieces are performed by authorized servicing partners. Such activity endeavours to reinstate the working characteristics and the aesthetic perfection of a new piece. It requires the complete review and rework of the watch, which involves disassembling the case and the movement, cleaning all components, identifying and replacing defected parts with genuine Rolex components, lubrication, re-calibration, refinishing the case and the bracelet, assembling, sealing and testing.
All this can be accessed in more than 100 countries world-wide. Service partners can perform the entire “refurbishment”, and only some timepieces are sent back to Switzerland, those which require very special machinery. For example the sealing of Rolex Deepsea has to protect in depths of 3,900 meters, which during servicing is tested artificially in the Rolex HQ.
While at Petite Genève, we shook hands with the novelties of 2015 once again and picked some new favs with the great help of the Boutique’s team.
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Oyster Perpetual Day-Date yellow gold, black dial, set with diamonds
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Photo credits: Loupiosity.com.
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