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Why isn't it illegal to deny customers to buy spare parts?


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I own a Ford. At any time, I can go to a Ford spare parts store and buy any part for my car that I like. The spare part is always hugely overpriced, but I have every right to buy it. What I do with the part is entirely up to me. By law, Ford and other car manufacturers cannot deny me to buy spare parts.

I have now visited various luxury watch brand sites and they all deny me to buy spare parts. That is, even if I own a genuine watch of a particular brand and I am in need of a spare part, I am denied buying it. All that’s offered is a service by an authorized repairer who will replace parts by their own whim, charging me way more than if I could have bought the part and done the job myself. At my own risk, of course!

The way A.Lange & Söhne expresses it is typical:

"Can I order spare parts or individual parts?

The assembly and finishing of a Lange watch sometimes takes many weeks and, depending on the degree of complication, can only be carried out by a few watchmakers. Even improper opening of the watch can cause serious damage to the movement.

Therefore, the overhaul or repair of a Lange watch may only be carried out by our service centre or by the few authorised service partners. Only they are therefore authorised to order the spare parts necessary for a repair."

Basically, this is just BS. If I destroy my own watch, or my own car, it is my problem, not the problem of the manufacturer. For example, when I need to repair my car, my neighbour “all brands car repairer genius” tells me what original part to buy. I then bring the part to my repairer and he does the job. A job that I know is equally good or even better and less expensive than the job done by my Authorized Ford Workshop. Sure, a watch is likely a lot more complicated than a car, but there’s no reason a skilled independent watch repairer can’t do the job and do it just as well.

If it is illegal for car brands to deny people to buy spare parts, then why not for watch brands? After all, it's my watch and it's my car, and the risk is on me! :pulling-hair-out:
 

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All This Bull Sh*t is protectionism on the part of the manufacturer. You only have to look at SWATCH to see how that works. The most commonly used movement the ETA is now under their brand and the legal wrangling carried out by Robin Cousins of Cousins uk w ho took his case to the , European court. As SWATCH is Swiss owned   the European court kicked the ball into the long grass sooner than take up a fair challenge on behalf of the consumer so as not to up set a major contributor and there the ball stays and the manufacturers do as they please.  

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Short answer, no it is not illegal, like this fact or not. Cousins UK ave been battling against this posture since some good 5 years, spent a lot of money to attack and defend themselves without any result. Neither the EU or anybody other regulatory body in the world do care, even less now with much bigger problems at hand. In the end it is about luxury, unnecessary spending, if you want to play or do business with repairing watches either understand what the rules of the games are, or live with the frustration. 

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I suppose we are in a fix and nothing much can be done. If we all refused to buy watches where spare parts were made unavailable, things would change rapidly, but of course, that's never going to happen. The normal consumers are simply too easy to deceive and they don't really care.

I checked about 10 parts for ETAs 2824-2 on cousinsUK and they were, to my surprise, only restricted by quantity. I wonder if there's been a change lately. If I remember correctly most parts used to be restricted, or I could be wrong about this. If I get the chance I'll check the availability of the parts for the entire movement.

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1 hour ago, VWatchie said:

I own a Ford. At any time, I can go to a Ford spare parts store and buy any part for my car that I like. The spare part is always hugely overpriced, but I have every right to buy it. What I do with the part is entirely up to me. By law, Ford and other car manufacturers cannot deny me to buy spare parts.

I have now visited various luxury watch brand sites and they all deny me to buy spare parts. That is, even if I own a genuine watch of a particular brand and I am in need of a spare part, I am denied buying it. All that’s offered is a service by an authorized repairer who will replace parts by their own whim, charging me way more than if I could have bought the part and done the job myself. At my own risk, of course!

The way A.Lange & Söhne expresses it is typical:

"Can I order spare parts or individual parts?

The assembly and finishing of a Lange watch sometimes takes many weeks and, depending on the degree of complication, can only be carried out by a few watchmakers. Even improper opening of the watch can cause serious damage to the movement.

Therefore, the overhaul or repair of a Lange watch may only be carried out by our service centre or by the few authorised service partners. Only they are therefore authorised to order the spare parts necessary for a repair."

Basically, this is just BS. If I destroy my own watch, or my own car, it is my problem, not the problem of the manufacturer. For example, when I need to repair my car, my neighbour “all brands car repairer genius” tells me what original part to buy. I then bring the part to my repairer and he does the job. A job that I know is equally good or even better and less expensive than the job done by my Authorized Ford Workshop. Sure, a watch is likely a lot more complicated than a car, but there’s no reason a skilled independent watch repairer can’t do the job and do it just as well.

If it is illegal for car brands to deny people to buy spare parts, then why not for watch brands? After all, it's my watch and it's my car, and the risk is on me! :pulling-hair-out:
 

This debate has been going on for many years. I warned my fellow horologists in article that was published in the BHI magazine that the Swiss decision not sell parts to the general trade would not only destroy many horological businesses but it would cost the Swiss companies such as SWATCH big time. Remember SWATCH at the time had the industry sown up with many watch companies just installing ETA movements. BUT instead of investing in an interchangeable smart watch movement it decided to fight in the courts to defend its position. Companies such a APPLE could believe their luck and filled the gap. Cousins have lead the fight spending copious amounts of money in the courts. In the mean time the Japanese manufactures (such as seiko) have increased their market share. The mistake the Swiss made is bad news travels such as a Rolex service  £600 etc etc. Many horologist just retired and the loser was the buying public. 

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19 minutes ago, VWatchie said:

The normal consumers are simply too easy to deceive and they don't really care.

Yes they are but when it comes to mechanical men's watches nor having precious material,  most buyers are Western World men below 50 yrs of age, and well informed about "whats is what", emerging trends, etc. Now, try to convince them that Euro 10,000 for a Rolex/Omega/Patek/Grand Seiko etc is too much? And that not much less for a Breitling/Oris/etc, is still too much? They know what they are buying, they know how hard is to earn that money, and they still buy the product. I think have a point, when with few exception that is an "investment" that will hold value in the long time, perhaps just a bit diluted by the exorbitant official service fee, if one chooses to go that route.

19 minutes ago, VWatchie said:

I checked about 10 parts for ETAs 2824-2 on cousinsUK and they were, to my surprise, only restricted by quantity. I wonder if there's been a change lately. If I remember correctly most parts used to be restricted, or I could be wrong about this. If I get the chance I'll check the availability of the parts for the entire movement.

All 2824 parts are available but the problem comes when you look for a special execution part like a different height hand carrying wheel, top grade parts, etc. Or when you go up the scale for other movements. Now look, at this time Cousins is adding desirable original Rolex parts. Try asking them details about how they get these and they would be in their right to not answer. I have no problem believing that things are more fluid and based on good old business sense than just  a blanket "no parts period" posture.

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I have a major problem with vendor lock in.

To my mind it is one of the most insidious aspects of human behaviour. A cynical move driven purely by greed.

The simple fact is, there is absolutely nothing unique about a {insert name of manufacturer here} watch part.
A gear is a gear, a spring is a spring, brass is brass, gold is gold.

Even if you make your part out of unicorn droppings and elf sh*t, it is still a part at the end of the day.

It is not some magic incantation that allows you to open someone else's wallet and help yourself to the contents, simply because your part forged from unicorn droppings  failed.  

I am not advocating cloning or ripping off other peoples designs, I am simply stating that a part for a watch should be readily available at a reasonable price to anyone who needs it.

This is of course not the way we have collectively decided to behave.

We are constantly being reminded that were are mere consumers, and we have a duty to consume (apparently).

Therefore, repairing stuff is anti-consumerist, and we should all be ashamed of ourselves for even thinking that we are worthy enough beings to be allowed to fix stuff.

"Shut up and buy new stuff, and the hell with the planet" seems to be the mantra we are meant to be following.

Edited by AndyHull
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1 hour ago, clockboy said:

Companies such a APPLE could believe their luck and filled the gap.

I believe I read somewhere that Apple has an enormous market share in watches (or wrist worn computers as I like to call them). If I remember correctly over 50 %, although I'm not sure.

 

1 hour ago, clockboy said:

In the mean time the Japanese manufactures (such as seiko) have increased their market share.

My impression is that the availability of Japanese watch parts is very limited and that many parts are under restriction as well? Well, at least we can buy complete Japanese movements from CousinsUK, but some parts are definitely needed more often than other parts, so I guess far from an ideal situation. Perhaps SEIKO/Citizen/Miyota parts can be ordered from Japanese suppliers?

 

1 hour ago, clockboy said:

Many horologist just retired and the loser was the buying public.

All in all and long term I'm sure it is a loss for everybody. What's sad is that the buying public doesn't have a clue.

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The sad reality is the luxury watch industry just isn't big enough like electronics and automotive for consumers/repairers to make a big enough stink about it. If we have a big enough coalition to take these guys to court and win we might make a difference but we all know that's not gonna happen.

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The situation is not unique to watches of course.
Years ago when the world was young, (and so was I) you could repair computers. In fact I made a good living doing this back in the day.

You could also repair pretty much everything else,  TVs, radios, watches, even kettles. Slowly we became more lazy and stuff got cheaper, so nobody bothered any more.

Of course the true cost of never repairing anything is not fiscal. It is the cumulative and slow poisoning of our environment.

We all rush around making money to buy stuff so we can show off our stuff, to the people we are working with who all buy stuff, and make money so they can buy stuff (rinse, repeat etc.)

All the while this happened.
 

I have to admit, having seen it, it is pretty impressive in a deeply depressing sort of a way.

I grew up in sunny Scotland, and when I started my working life, there were fields on my way in to Glasgow from the leafy suburbs.

3294915_93f0991f.jpg

There were also fields in the vicinity of Linlithgow, and even in the rural Scottish borders, much loved by the tourists (I believe they love the  landscape, rather than the landfill). 

wrap-landfill-by-the-sea.jpg

Over the course of my many miles and many years of driving round the country  making money to feed my consumer habits, two smaller, but no less depressing mountains sprang up in those fields. These were the lesser garbage alps of Glasgow and Edinburgh. I shudder to think what all is in these stinking piles of crap. They are capped off with turf now, and lined with pipework to extract the methane from the decaying detritus, and will no doubt be there for many years to come.

Other similar consumer driven pustules on the landscape have since taken their place as repositories for all of our discarded consumer crap. Of course a lot more of our waste (particularly dangerous or difficult to process stuff) was exported, and no doubt some of it may well be in the monstrous Delhi mega pile of festering garbage in the video above.
 

With this in mind, it should indeed be illegal to sell stuff that cannot be repaired at reasonable cost, and easily recycled if it is beyond repair. That includes everything, from the humblest of wristwatch to the fanciest of Pateks.

Luxury goods should not be exempt, or treated any differently, simply because they are "luxury".

Edited by AndyHull
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Something else to remember here, here in America we have a culture of anti-monopoly. Much of the rest of the world has not established any infrastructure to combat the power they create for themselves. What Switzerland and ETA did was essentially block all competition. If you want something fixed you can only ever go to authorized service centers which ETA/ swatch and the Swiss government will have full control over. One of the largest monopolies in the world is a company we should all be somewhat familiar with, Debeers. Yes, The Diamond People, Debeers! They own every aspect of the diamond industry except one. One that never sold out to them and one that Debeers is force to bend to, to get what they need from them. This one hold out is where you get your "Hand Cut" diamonds from. These are the Jewish diamond cutters located in several ares including New York City, USA, Antwerp, Belgium and a couple other locations. To the best of my knowledge Debeers is not allowed to conduct any business here in america because of our strict anti-trust (anti-monopoly) laws. However, they are forced to use representatives to deal with the diamond cutters in New York. Just over the boarder in Canada these laws do not exist and Debeers has massive operations in full swing up in the arctic circle. Has anyone watched the show on the Discovery channel, "Ice Road Truckers"? They were basically the delivery service for the Debeers mines. Sadly there is not a thing Cousins or anyone can do about this. Because the Swiss government is in bed with the Swatch group, they can make any law they like and exclude everyone as they have here. This is a shame for small business watch repairmen, hobbyists and large distributors like cousins. I hope that The Swatch Group notices a decline in their sales because of this decision, but I seriously doubt it. One final thought, Debeers has had some pretty serious competition recently in the area of Synthetic diamonds. The Russians have developed and refined the process of manufacturing synthetic to the point where they are almost completely indistinguishable from the natural diamonds Debeers peddles. Debeers has taken to using lasers to micro-etch serial numbers and company logos on every diamond over a certain carat weight. And, as I read it, Debeers recently began manufacturing and selling synthetic diamonds because it couldn't shut them down. A new version of "If you can't beat them, join them", lol.

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I should have mentioned that to become a "authorised service centre" companies had to install the recommended Swiss tools even if the tools already being used were perfectly good they had to be replaced. If my memory serves me well it was in the region of €50,000. Many experienced horologists just retired and who could blame them. 

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11 hours ago, VWatchie said:

My impression is that the availability of Japanese watch parts is very limited and that many parts are under restriction as well? Well, at least we can buy complete Japanese movements from CousinsUK, but some parts are definitely needed more often than other parts, so I guess far from an ideal situation.

There is no restriction for basic mov't like 7S26, 6R15, etc you can get all parts. Going up to middle-level you can send a request and they may try to get it. No parts for Grand Seiko, which can only be serviced in Japan.

11 hours ago, VWatchie said:

Perhaps SEIKO/Citizen/Miyota parts can be ordered from Japanese suppliers?

Not really. There is no material house that sells online in Japan, and even if there was they would probably not ship overseas. You can, however browe on Yahoo! Yapan and buy there using an agent.

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11 hours ago, AndyHull said:

To my mind it is one of the most insidious aspects of human behaviour. A cynical move driven purely by greed.

Welcome to Capitalism, Liberalism, contemporary Chinese Communism, and let me throw Neo-colonialism in there too. These are the well accepted standards in 95% of the world now.

11 hours ago, AndyHull said:

The simple fact is, there is absolutely nothing unique about a {insert name of manufacturer here} watch part.
A gear is a gear, a spring is a spring, brass is brass, gold is gold.
Even if you make your part out of unicorn droppings and elf sh*t, it is still a part at the end of the day.

Right. But, who has invested and is able to to make an object or part supposedly has the right to sell for the profit goals that he freely decides. That according to common sense and the laws that "we" accepted since centuries. Good luck meeting them, if he can, then must be taxed accordingly. Ooops.. I've mentioned taxes and international business, are we sure that is all right in that field?  Many individuals on the planet have become incredibly rich, but (most of) the states are deeply in debt, so many be is not right?

Then about the non sustainability of consumerism, with which I'm also horrified. What about all the other bad habits and luxuries of the Western World plus India (for those that can afford it) and China? I am referring to pervasive use of private transportation, cheap flying everywhere, these are the most directly related to pollution and energy reserves depletion. Food wastage and pervasive packaging does not help either. And then we like to run countless refrigerators, and heatings even when maybe it is not really required, the list could go on.

Some soothe a bit our guilty conscience supporting ecologism initiatives, international aid to poor countries, etc. I will be happy if these will do some, but I'm afraid it will not. Right now a lot of people in the world has lost income and are really struggling, they will jump on anything that will let them pay off their debt and feed themselves, I don't think they will listen to any "sustainable economy" argument. The fact is that unfortunately, sustainability means degrowth, at least in the short and medium term. And nobody has ever been elected promising that, actually word in is an euphemism for depression. In my country the Green party has practically disappeared, but the problems they were fighting have not.

Concluding. Do I like how the world works, no. Do I have a recipe or idea for that to change, or hope that it will? Not really.
I just try to limit my behaviors that are shamefully anti-planet or enrich who's rich already. Admittedly, I have mixed results in doing that, probably just like all the others reading here.
But, when it comes to what is luxury, unnecessary item like mechanical watches, it doesn't really prevent me to sleep the notion that some rich people in a rich country dictates their rules when it comes to extracting money from other (more or less) rich people.

I focus on economical / used watches which personally I like, for which is easy to find parts, good thing they also very popular so I can also do a bit of trade and build reputation with guys in my same social range. If someone comes with a part that can't be had I try to find an alternative solution, explain that "Swiss are just like that", and move on.

I find pointless and a bit narrow minded to keep beating the drum against Swiss watch brands policies when the world is devastated by immense greediness, injustice, and plain craziness.

 

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35 minutes ago, jdm said:

I find pointless and a bit narrow minded to keep beating the drum against Swiss watch brands policies when the world is devastated by immense greediness, injustice, and plain craziness.

Perhaps, but if we don't call out these restrictive practices when we find them, we have simply given in to the bullying tactics.

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I agree that trying to put the bell on this particular cat may not be the world's top priority, but none the less we cannot simply ignore the problem either. 

Edited by AndyHull
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41 minutes ago, jdm said:

Going up to middle-level you can send a request and they may try to get it.

I forgot about this excellent service that Cousins provide. All I did was search for SEIKO 6R15 parts which yielded 9 hits of which only 4 were "in stock", 1 "out of stock", and the rest "Obsolete". A search for MIYOTA 9015 gives 6 hits of which all are “Obsolete” except one which is “Restricted”. 36 parts are listed for SEIKO calibre 7S26. 12 of these are “Obsolete” and 9 are “Out of stock”. It doesn’t exactly make you happy and it isn’t a clear indication to me that Japanese is the way ahead either.

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13 hours ago, AndyHull said:

You could also repair pretty much everything else,  TVs, radios, watches, even kettles. Slowly we became more lazy and stuff got cheaper, so nobody bothered any more.

Again, excellent post Andy!:Bravo:

I am old enough to remember that it was a matter of course to try and repair everything that was broken if possible. My impression is that most of what was created up to about the 1950s was intended to last and be used for as long as possible. My father, who is now over 80 (he was very young when I was born) was a craftsman and when he was educated, quality meant everything, not least to his professional pride. The work itself and the development of the skill made life meaningful. He simply cannot understand the modern world where money means everything and quality almost nothing. It's really sad!

If we could go back to focusing on creating real values instead of money, probably all environmental issues would end, and I think we would be much happier. Unfortunately, it will not happen because too many of us are greedy and as you put it, lazy.

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50 minutes ago, VWatchie said:

It doesn’t exactly make you happy and it isn’t a clear indication to me that Japanese is the way ahead either.

I'm  happy with the service I get from Cousins when it comes to Seiko parts. I'm sure that there is no intent by the Japanese  to not sell parts. I have confirmation of that by my jeweller friend in the US which is able to buy parts with a reseller account and no service shop.

What helps more is that with the 7S/4R/6R is easy and cheap to get complete movement or watches, new or used, get what you need and store the rest for future use, or resell on Ebay if you're after Euro 5 or so.

Call me opportunistic or cynical but since I was a teenager I learnt to pick my fights, live happily and avoid black eyes.

Edited by jdm
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8 hours ago, FLwatchguy73 said:

This is a shame for small business watch repairmen, hobbyists and large distributors like cousins. I hope that The Swatch Group notices a decline in their sales because of this decision, but I seriously doubt it.

If parts for good quality Japanese movements were readily available we could help promote them but it doesn't look like it. Japanese movements yes, but other than that parts seem difficult to source.

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8 minutes ago, jdm said:

I'm  happy with the service I get from Cousins when it comes to Seiko parts.

I'll definitely give it a try.

 

9 minutes ago, jdm said:

get what you need and store the rest for future use

Well, that's a good idea, but the problem is you're bound to need certain parts a lot more frequently than other parts. Nevertheless, it's magnitudes better than not being able to get any parts at all.

 

11 minutes ago, jdm said:

since I was a teenager I learnt to pick my fights, live happy and avoid black eyes.

To me that sounds like excellent advice!

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25 minutes ago, VWatchie said:

I am old enough to remember that it was a matter of course to try and repair everything that was broken if possible. My impression is that most of what was created up to about the 1950s was intended to last and be used for as long as possible. My father, who is now over 80 (he was very young when I was born) was a craftsman and when he was educated, quality meant everything, not least to his professional pride. The work itself and the development of the skill made life meaningful.

This of course is the nub of the matter. We are being sold this idea that "quality" is an optional extra, and that if you buy a "quality" watch, you need to pay through the nose to have it serviced and repaired.

Quality I assure you is not optional. As has been stated more than once on this forum, If you buy cheap then you can expect to buy twice, however what galls me is that often what passes for quality is simply bling. I have a petrol lawn mower that is still running after the best part of 20 year.

This is no accident. When I bought it, I looked at all of the machines on offer, and chose the most robust one I could afford. What will finally kill it is not the motor, but the weather. It is made from steel, and steel doesn't last in this cold wet and windy part of the world. Even though the machine has always been stored out of the weather, it is in an unheated shed, where condensation leads to rust, no matter how well you clean the thing prior to storage. It also gets subjected to flying rocks, spun up by the blades and the constant abrasive and damp conditions caused by chopping up vegetation and soil. I expect it to fail ultimately, and sure enough it now has a few rust holes in the metal skirt. I give it maybe another five years before it becomes unserviceable simply because there is not enough metal to hold it safely together.

I have repaired it several times. The carb has been rebuilt, the blades sharpened, the clutch and fan cleaned out, the pull start cable repaired and so forth. This is because it is repairable, and the parts are available.

I looked at the replacement machines available today for around the equivalent cost as this one 20 years ago. They look however much cheaper. More flimsy plastic bits, more go faster stripes, more marketing b*llox and less quality. I don't expect to get as robust a machine now as I did even then. This despite all of the "greenwashing" that the manufacturers are splurging on their advertising.

I also looked at a "Robot" mower. This thing trundles round your lawn and cuts it apparently, thus saving you from one of the few forms of light exercise still pressing on your precious time. No doubt while it is trundling round the lawn rapidly heading towards its first breakdown, you can think of at least a dozen excuses to not to use the time it has freed up, to not go to the gym. It costs five times as much as the equivalent of my current mower. It has bluetooth and wifi, and an app, and is made of marketing w*nkery and other flimsy crap. So that means you need to spend five times as long doing whatever task it is that brings in the pay-check as you would  if you simply bought a decent mower and used it to cut some grass. Actually for that money, if you are really lazy or unable to do it yourself. you could pay someone to cut the grass, but that is not what a "Robot" lawn mower is for. It is not there to cut the grass, it is there to say "I can afford a Robot lawn mower, 'aint it smart, and 'aint I the bees knees".

Arguably that is also true of most of our toys of course. Was I tempted to buy a "Robot mower"... of course I was. I'm only human after all.

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1 hour ago, VWatchie said:

My impression is that most of what was created up to about the 1950s was intended to last and be used for as long as possible.

Yes, decade more, decade less.

 

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