32xx movement problem poll and data thread

[douglasf13]

Originally Posted by DG123

It seems like several participants here are hanging their hats on commentary made by "Bas". I ask is he a Rolex engineer employee and, or how is he qualified to make definitive statements about Rolex product design?
Remember, Rolex is a $9 billion annual sales revenue corporation and I imagine that the company employs dozens of engineers, R&D staff, designers etc...

Bas “Searchart”, who just posted above, works at RSC in Europe, and he’s a longtime, trusted member of this forum. Probably as close as we’ll ever come to getting a legitimate perspective from the inside.

[EEpro]

Originally Posted by douglasf13

Bas “Searchart”, who just posted above, works at RSC in Europe, and he’s a longtime, trusted member of this forum. Probably as close as we’ll ever come to getting a legitimate perspective from the inside.

Would also add from 20+ years as a design engineer: the closer you are to the hardware the more likely you are to get the real answer.

Engineering knows about it, marketing / business dev (the ones that get bonuses up front whether it works or not) pressures program management to shoot the engineers and release the product, technicians (watchmakers) then deal with RMA'd materiel and repairs. They are well aware of an issue. They may not be able to tell you why but they know it's not right.

[douglasf13]

Originally Posted by EEpro

Would also add from 20+ years as a design engineer: the closer you are to the hardware the more likely you are to get the real answer.

Engineering knows about it, marketing / business dev (the ones that get bonuses up front whether it works or not) pressures program management to shoot the engineers and release the product, technicians (watchmakers) then deal with RMA'd materiel and repairs. They are well aware of an issue. They may not be able to tell you why but they know it's not right.

As a Porsche 951 lover, it reminds me of an old Porsche saying from the 80s: “The Porsche marketing team drives 911s, but the engineering team drives 951s.”

As more of an engineering brain, myself, I feel like this thread is an example of engineers debating marketers.

[Andad]

Originally Posted by Cassian739

I've been trying to get a balanced view on the 32xx low-amplitude movement issues and their prevalence among Rolex owners. Here's my perspective, and I understand that many may have different opinions, which I respect:

In the poll, only 1,218 members (0.4% of the +284,000 members) participated, with 284 reporting the low amplitude issue and timekeeping >5s/d. This represents a mere 0.1% of the total forum membership. Considering that the majority of modern Rolex watches since 2015 have the 32xx movement, amounting to millions of watches worldwide, I expected more dialogue on the issue. I acknowledge that many forum members may not be active anymore, may not own watches with the 32xx movement, or may own newer watches without issues. Additionally, not all members are watch enthusiasts who closely track accuracy.


Regarding comments from certified Rolex technicians, their expertise and dedication to their craft are admirable. However, it's important to remember that their experiences primarily involve working on watches with problems daily, which may not provide a complete picture of the average Rolex watch owner's experience. With millions of 32xx movements in circulation, the vast majority of which have not gone into service for amplitude issues, it's important to take this into account when considering their perspectives. Again, many people aren't checking their watches for accuracy either, but I have to assume more people would notice if their watch is running >30s/d.

Considering these factors, the data suggest that the 32xx issue is not as widespread as some comments in this forum indicate. We should be cautious about overgeneralizing the experiences of a relatively small group of watch owners.

That said, this doesn't mean the issue should be dismissed. Sharing our experiences and helping each other is always valuable.

I think you are arguing against your own forum ‘statistics’?

I am not sure if you or Kevin even own a watch with a 32** movement or if you have checked on e yourself for PR v amplitude.

My 32** movement was keeping time easily to +/-2 sec/day and the slowing down was noticed by me only after it was unworn for 30 hours.
I also noted a widening variation in amplitude from dial up/down to any other position to the point where it would not exceed an amplitude of 205, dial up, fully wound. At that point it was still keeping good time as long as it had high PR.
This could only be seen when checking it on my Timegrapher.

I have a few Rolex watches that I check on a regular basis and this 32** DJ is the only one that is a potential dud.

I have some experience in engineering having been running my engineering company for 40 years.

This 32** issue is real and is being currently under reported by owners for so many reasons.

[Devildog]

Originally Posted by DG123

It seems like several participants here are hanging their hats on commentary made by "Bas". I ask is he a Rolex engineer employee and, or how is he qualified to make definitive statements about Rolex product design?
Remember, Rolex is a $9 billion annual sales revenue corporation and I imagine that the company employs dozens of engineers, R&D staff, designers etc...

Bas works in a RSC

He's made loads of posts about it, shared insighful posts and has built a stellar reputation on this forum as a very respected contributor.

I would suggest taking some time to research all of that - its quite simple, click his username, click statistics, click on threads started by and decide for yourself

[saxo3]

Originally Posted by Cassian739

I've been trying…

Welcome to the forum as member since 06.02.2023 with a total of 21 posts, your first here. This thread started in January 2021.

Did you read the entire thread?

How many 32xx watches do you own?

Can you contribute to the following main objective of this thread?

"We've got several other threads talking about this movement, but my goal here is to have a single source of real data…"

[fmc000]

Originally Posted by Cassian739

I've been trying to get a balanced view on the 32xx low-amplitude movement issues and their prevalence among Rolex owners. Here's my perspective, and I understand that many may have different opinions, which I respect:

In the poll, only 1,218 members (0.4% of the +284,000 members) participated, with 284 reporting the low amplitude issue and timekeeping >5s/d. This represents a mere 0.1% of the total forum membership.

Originally Posted by Old Expat Beast

We don't have anything like that many active members. I'd be surprised if we have much more than 1% of that number actively taking part in forum discussion

Well, as Adam said the real figure of the active members should be divided by 100, so your 284,000 should read 2,840 and the percentage then raised to a staggering 40%. Moreover the affected people percentage also increases to an impressive (IMHO) 10% .

I'd say that this changes the perspective a lot, doesn't it?

[HiBoost]

Originally Posted by Cassian739

I've been trying to get a balanced view on the 32xx low-amplitude movement issues and their prevalence among Rolex owners. Here's my perspective, and I understand that many may have different opinions, which I respect:

In the poll, only 1,218 members (0.4% of the +284,000 members) participated, with 284 reporting the low amplitude issue and timekeeping >5s/d. This represents a mere 0.1% of the total forum membership. Considering that the majority of modern Rolex watches since 2015 have the 32xx movement, amounting to millions of watches worldwide, I expected more dialogue on the issue. I acknowledge that many forum members may not be active anymore, may not own watches with the 32xx movement, or may own newer watches without issues. Additionally, not all members are watch enthusiasts who closely track accuracy.

Regarding comments from certified Rolex technicians, their expertise and dedication to their craft are admirable. However, it's important to remember that their experiences primarily involve working on watches with problems daily, which may not provide a complete picture of the average Rolex watch owner's experience. With millions of 32xx movements in circulation, the vast majority of which have not gone into service for amplitude issues, it's important to take this into account when considering their perspectives. Again, many people aren't checking their watches for accuracy either, but I have to assume more people would notice if their watch is running >30s/d.

Considering these factors, the data suggest that the 32xx issue is not as widespread as some comments in this forum indicate. We should be cautious about overgeneralizing the experiences of a relatively small group of watch owners.

That said, this doesn't mean the issue should be dismissed. Sharing our experiences and helping each other is always valuable.

I have said from the beginning that nothing we are doing here can stand up to the scrutiny of real data science. Nobody other than Rolex has the real dataset to do that. But as owners we are entitled to try and assess the problem as best we can in the face of deafening silence from the manufacturer (not only to us consumers, but even to their own watchmakers absolutely no information is given).

I look at this situation from a logical, not a pure statistical, perspective. ALL manufactured mechanical items will have a non-zero failure rate. Nobody expects perfection on this or any other product line. But for one of the most prestigious watch companies, one known specifically for having "bulletproof" movements, we do expect this rate to be really low. There is nothing revolutionary about this movement. A spring-powered, lever escapement movement is hardly new tech. And Rolex are hardly new to the field. So the 32xx, their latest and greatest implementation, built on everything they've learned in over a century, should be very, very reliable, right?

What number should we put on that expectation? 1% failure rate? I personally feel Rolex would be insulted if someone implied that 1% of their movements were bad. I think they'd like to assert something more along the lines of 0.1% or less. But let's say we go with 1% as a pessimistic worst-case value for the sake of this thought experiment. If we have a thousand people in this conversation then it shouldn't be hard to understand why there are 10 of us who have had bad watches, right? The problem is the multiple bad watch scenario. If the failure rate is 1% then the odds of getting 3 different watches that are all bad is 1 in a million. We have multiple owners in this thread who have 2 or 3 bad 32xx watches. I just find it hard to believe that all these "lotto winners" just happened to have found our little corner of the internet.

It seems to me that someone like our friend saxo, who has had all 3 of his 32xx watches show issues, represents something more like the 1% case - common enough that we hear about it, but obviously not happening to everyone. And if we work backwards from there, that would require about a 20% failure rate on a per-watch basis.

Is that a concrete number? Of course not. Neither is the poll. But now we get back to the logic part of this. All signs point to this not being a 1 in a 1000 situation. Does it really matter if the failure rate is 2% or 20%? Either number is way, way higher than it should be. Rolex can do better and Rolex customers expect it.

Originally Posted by EEpro

Would also add from 20+ years as a design engineer: the closer you are to the hardware the more likely you are to get the real answer.

Engineering knows about it, marketing / business dev (the ones that get bonuses up front whether it works or not) pressures program management to shoot the engineers and release the product, technicians (watchmakers) then deal with RMA'd materiel and repairs. They are well aware of an issue. They may not be able to tell you why but they know it's not right.

This is a hugely important point that so few seem to recognize. As well, people keep trying to swat down this issue by saying "well it's a service center, of course they are seeing lots of bad watches." But after only 8 years of producing a movement which is supposed to go 10 years before needing a service, they shouldn't hardly be seeing ANY 32xxs compared to the mountains of previous calibers produced over the prior 70 years. If the 32xx is even a blip on the radar of an RSC watchmaker at this point, that alone is reason for concern.

[saxo3]

Some numbers until just now.



Since more than 2 years the quantity of 32xx watch owners that observe and report issues with their movements did not decrease over time but remained rather constant at a level of about 26 – 30 %.

There are still 4 times more poll voters than different contributors to the thread.

As before, the majority voted but did NOT post in this thread.
Do they just vote "no issues" without knowing or any other reason?

However, this survey is not representative and no definitive conclusions can be drawn from it.

[Cassian739]

Originally Posted by HiBoost

I have said from the beginning that nothing we are doing here can stand up to the scrutiny of real data science. Nobody other than Rolex has the real dataset to do that. But as owners we are entitled to try and assess the problem as best we can in the face of deafening silence from the manufacturer (not only to us consumers, but even to their own watchmakers absolutely no information is given).

I look at this situation from a logical, not a pure statistical, perspective. ALL manufactured mechanical items will have a non-zero failure rate. Nobody expects perfection on this or any other product line. But for one of the most prestigious watch companies, one known specifically for having "bulletproof" movements, we do expect this rate to be really low. There is nothing revolutionary about this movement. A spring-powered, lever escapement movement is hardly new tech. And Rolex are hardly new to the field. So the 32xx, their latest and greatest implementation, built on everything they've learned in over a century, should be very, very reliable, right?

What number should we put on that expectation? 1% failure rate? I personally feel Rolex would be insulted if someone implied that 1% of their movements were bad. I think they'd like to assert something more along the lines of 0.1% or less. But let's say we go with 1% as a pessimistic worst-case value for the sake of this thought experiment. If we have a thousand people in this conversation then it shouldn't be hard to understand why there are 10 of us who have had bad watches, right? The problem is the multiple bad watch scenario. If the failure rate is 1% then the odds of getting 3 different watches that are all bad is 1 in a million. We have multiple owners in this thread who have 2 or 3 bad 32xx watches. I just find it hard to believe that all these "lotto winners" just happened to have found our little corner of the internet.

It seems to me that someone like our friend saxo, who has had all 3 of his 32xx watches show issues, represents something more like the 1% case - common enough that we hear about it, but obviously not happening to everyone. And if we work backwards from there, that would require about a 20% failure rate on a per-watch basis.

Is that a concrete number? Of course not. Neither is the poll. But now we get back to the logic part of this. All signs point to this not being a 1 in a 1000 situation. Does it really matter if the failure rate is 2% or 20%? Either number is way, way higher than it should be. Rolex can do better and Rolex customers expect it.




This is a hugely important point that so few seem to recognize. As well, people keep trying to swat down this issue by saying "well it's a service center, of course they are seeing lots of bad watches." But after only 8 years of producing a movement which is supposed to go 10 years before needing a service, they shouldn't hardly be seeing ANY 32xxs compared to the mountains of previous calibers produced over the prior 70 years. If the 32xx is even a blip on the radar of an RSC watchmaker at this point, that alone is reason for concern.

You’re making really good logical points! I have Four 32xx movement watches, I would be very upset if even One of them failed in 7-10 years. A 1% failure rate for a company like Rolex would unacceptable. I’m struggling that this isn’t broadly discussed outside of a little corner of the internet by owners and Rolex watchmakers. Maybe this thread is one of the few proverbial Canaries in the coal mine, which is a terrifying thought for all of us if correct. Anyway, only more data and time will tell. Hope everyone has a great Sunday!

[fmc000]

Originally Posted by Cassian739

I’m struggling that this isn’t broadly discussed outside of a little corner of the internet by owners and Rolex watchmakers.

Well, Worn and Wound is the first online magazine that clearly mentioned the amplitude issue in an article, let's hope than other will follow that path.

[HiBoost]

Originally Posted by Cassian739

You’re making really good logical points! I have Four 32xx movement watches, I would be very upset if even One of them failed in 7-10 years. A 1% failure rate for a company like Rolex would unacceptable. I’m struggling that this isn’t broadly discussed outside of a little corner of the internet by owners and Rolex watchmakers. Maybe this thread is one of the few proverbial Canaries in the coal mine, which is a terrifying thought for all of us if correct. Anyway, only more data and time will tell. Hope everyone has a great Sunday!

I appreciate the dialog! When I first read your response I actually thought "well, he's got 4 that don't have obvious issues, doesn't that datapoint alone cancel out the argument I just made?" It seemed like it might, so I ran the numbers.

If we go with the 20% per-watch failure rate (which I'm still not claiming is a real number, but which we should all agree would be a terrible number if even remotely close), we get a 41% chance of buying 4 and having them all be good. Not awesome, but not far off of a coin toss. Meanwhile, to get 3 bad ones, there's only a 1% chance. What's the point? Simply that getting several good ones is still going to happen much more often than not, even with a very, very bad failure rate. So when people jump in these threads saying "I have X good ones, so this is obviously nonsense" (which I want to make clear you definitely did NOT come off that way) I always have to bite my tongue a bit.

A good day to you as well! Hopefully you have something more enjoyable than this thread planned

Originally Posted by fmc000

Well, Monochrome Watches is the first online magazine that clearly mentioned the amplitude issue in an article, let's hope than other will follow that path.

Do you have a link? I've seen the two places that Worn & Wound have mentioned it recently, but have not come across any other references.

[DG123]

Originally Posted by EEpro

Would also add from 20+ years as a design engineer: the closer you are to the hardware the more likely you are to get the real answer.

Engineering knows about it, marketing / business dev (the ones that get bonuses up front whether it works or not) pressures program management to shoot the engineers and release the product, technicians (watchmakers) then deal with RMA'd materiel and repairs. They are well aware of an issue. They may not be able to tell you why but they know it's not right.

Are you an employee of Rolex ? If not then I expect your commentary is speculation based on your experience with other companies.

[CedCraig]

Originally Posted by fmc000

Well, Monochrome Watches is the first online magazine that clearly mentioned the amplitude issue in an article, let's hope than other will follow that path.

Do you have a link? Worn&Wound recently mentioned the issue twice. Yesterday I commented on a Watchadvisor YouTube video and Alexander replied to ask for more information. Another comment on that video also mentioned the issue. Will be super interesting to see if there’s some traction.

https://wornandwound.com/the-rolex-e...new-40mm-case/

https://wornandwound.com/hands-on-wi...rolex-daytona/

[Andad]

I would have thought that W&W would have known that the SS Daytona was not a 40mm diameter watch.

But then they didn’t have callipers handy?

[fmc000]

Originally Posted by HiBoost

I appreciate the dialog! When I first read your response I actually thought "well, he's got 4 that don't have obvious issues, doesn't that datapoint alone cancel out the argument I just made?" It seemed like it might, so I ran the numbers.

If we go with the 20% per-watch failure rate (which I'm still not claiming is a real number, but which we should all agree would be a terrible number if even remotely close), we get a 41% chance of buying 4 and having them all be good. Not awesome, but not far off of a coin toss. Meanwhile, to get 3 bad ones, there's only a 1% chance. What's the point? Simply that getting several good ones is still going to happen much more often than not, even with a very, very bad failure rate. So when people jump in these threads saying "I have X good ones, so this is obviously nonsense" (which I want to make clear you definitely did NOT come off that way) I always have to bite my tongue a bit.

A good day to you as well! Hopefully you have something more enjoyable than this thread planned



Do you have a link? I've seen the two places that Worn & Wound have mentioned it recently, but have not come across any other references.

Sorry, it was indeed W&W but I'm not allowed to edit my post to correct my mistake (I asked for Moderator's help fo fix my post).

[Vince_76]

Amidst all the craziness, big shoutout to Bas and Saxo3 for fighting the hood fight.

From an objective vantage point, there are issues with the 32xx movement and I hope Rolex addresses them

[EEpro]

Originally Posted by DG123

Are you an employee of Rolex ? If not then I expect your commentary is speculation based on your experience with other companies.

Of course it is speculation. What a pointless comment.

Ironic comment as well considering you're the one questioning Bas who IS a Rolex employee for not being an engineer in 3840.

Rolex hasn't invented a new kind of engineering where the people who touch the hardware don't know anything about it but the marketing folks do.

Originally Posted by douglasf13

As more of an engineering brain, myself, I feel like this thread is an example of engineers debating marketers.

A damn good synopsis of this thread for sure.

[HiBoost]

Originally Posted by douglasf13

As more of an engineering brain, myself, I feel like this thread is an example of engineers debating marketers.

Indeed, although I feel it's actually broader than that. The root cause here (which to be clear, nobody has identified) is surely a very technical matter. But participation in this topic need not be. I see the two main camps in this debate as the curious and the incurious.

[saxo3]

As discussed above by our friend HiBoost, it is very unlikely that one owner purchases several 32xx watches, which all develop the 32xx issue during the 5-year warranty period.

Nevertheless, we have owners in this thread, who have several watches that all needed a repair due to very low amplitudes after full winding.

An impressive example of this "multiple bad watch" scenario is member EasyE who owned 8 watches with 32xx movements, 6 of his watches clearly developed the movement issue, the other 2 will probably follow.

Let us calculate what EasyE's chances were to buy these 6 watches that all developed the problem. It is rather simple to calculate the probability, as only one free parameter I varied the assumed caliber defect rate, from 0.1 % to 99%.

For comparison, I also show bad movement scenarios for 3 watches and 1 watch (trivial case).



For a movement defect rate of assumed 10% EasyE's chances were 1 : 1'000'000 (10^-4 %) to buy 6 watches with a 32xx issue. For a much higher defect rate of 30% the probability increases to only 0.07 %.

For my three 32xx watches, I had a chance of 0.1% to get the problem with all watches assuming a defect rate of 10%. For a defect rate of 1% the probability was 0.0001 %.

In other words, one needs to assume a VERY higher caliber defect rate to explain the two described scenarios for 6 and 3 watches.

[HiBoost]

^^^ Looks at those sexy curves!!

Seriously though, this visualization of the probabilities is fantastic.

[douglasf13]

Originally Posted by saxo3

As discussed above by our friend HiBoost, it is very unlikely that one owner purchases several 32xx watches, which all develop the 32xx issue during the 5-year warranty period.

Nevertheless, we have owners in this thread, who have several watches that all needed a repair due to very low amplitudes after full winding.

An impressive example of this "multiple bad watch" scenario is member EasyE who owned 8 watches with 32xx movements, 6 of his watches clearly developed the movement issue, the other 2 will probably follow.

Let us calculate what EasyE's chances were to buy these 6 watches that all developed the problem. It is rather simple to calculate the probability, as only one free parameter I varied the assumed caliber defect rate, from 0.1 % to 99%.

For comparison, I also show bad movement scenarios for 3 watches and 1 watch (trivial case).



For a movement defect rate of assumed 10% EasyE's chances were 1 : 1'000'000 (10^-4 %) to buy 6 watches with a 32xx issue. For a much higher defect rate of 30% the probability increases to only 0.07 %.

For my three 32xx watches, I had a chance of 0.1% to get the problem with all watches assuming a defect rate of 10%. For a defect rate of 1% the probability was 0.0001 %.

In other words, one needs to assume a VERY higher caliber defect rate to explain the two described scenarios for 6 and 3 watches.

Excellent work! I've seen multiple forum goers here and elsewhere mention they've had multiple 32xx watches with the issue.

[csaltphoto]

Originally Posted by saxo3

As discussed above by our friend HiBoost, it is very unlikely that one owner purchases several 32xx watches, which all develop the 32xx issue during the 5-year warranty period.

Nevertheless, we have owners in this thread, who have several watches that all needed a repair due to very low amplitudes after full winding.

An impressive example of this "multiple bad watch" scenario is member EasyE who owned 8 watches with 32xx movements, 6 of his watches clearly developed the movement issue, the other 2 will probably follow.

Let us calculate what EasyE's chances were to buy these 6 watches that all developed the problem. It is rather simple to calculate the probability, as only one free parameter I varied the assumed caliber defect rate, from 0.1 % to 99%.

For comparison, I also show bad movement scenarios for 3 watches and 1 watch (trivial case).



For a movement defect rate of assumed 10% EasyE's chances were 1 : 1'000'000 (10^-4 %) to buy 6 watches with a 32xx issue. For a much higher defect rate of 30% the probability increases to only 0.07 %.

For my three 32xx watches, I had a chance of 0.1% to get the problem with all watches assuming a defect rate of 10%. For a defect rate of 1% the probability was 0.0001 %.

In other words, one needs to assume a VERY higher caliber defect rate to explain the two described scenarios for 6 and 3 watches.

Very interesting. Not to mention that if a person has multiple watches the individual wear and tear is even less when worn in rotation. But that makes for an interesting question. What type of design defect would make itself apparent over time vs mileage? Unless they are really the factory running for shit and it's just being swept under the rug which is hard to wrap my head around. The movements are certified before being cased.

I'm not going to speculate since I don't know enough about watch movements to offer even a guess.

[the dark knight]

Originally Posted by saxo3

As discussed above by our friend HiBoost, it is very unlikely that one owner purchases several 32xx watches, which all develop the 32xx issue during the 5-year warranty period.

Nevertheless, we have owners in this thread, who have several watches that all needed a repair due to very low amplitudes after full winding.

An impressive example of this "multiple bad watch" scenario is member EasyE who owned 8 watches with 32xx movements, 6 of his watches clearly developed the movement issue, the other 2 will probably follow.

Let us calculate what EasyE's chances were to buy these 6 watches that all developed the problem. It is rather simple to calculate the probability, as only one free parameter I varied the assumed caliber defect rate, from 0.1 % to 99%.

For comparison, I also show bad movement scenarios for 3 watches and 1 watch (trivial case).



For a movement defect rate of assumed 10% EasyE's chances were 1 : 1'000'000 (10^-4 %) to buy 6 watches with a 32xx issue. For a much higher defect rate of 30% the probability increases to only 0.07 %.

For my three 32xx watches, I had a chance of 0.1% to get the problem with all watches assuming a defect rate of 10%. For a defect rate of 1% the probability was 0.0001 %.

In other words, one needs to assume a VERY higher caliber defect rate to explain the two described scenarios for 6 and 3 watches.

This is amazing.

[DG123]

Originally Posted by EEpro

Of course it is speculation. What a pointless comment.

Ironic comment as well considering you're the one questioning Bas who IS a Rolex employee for not being an engineer in 3840.

Rolex hasn't invented a new kind of engineering where the people who touch the hardware don't know anything about it but the marketing folks do.


.

Honestly, I am unclear as to which Rolex service operations have Rolex employees. A dozen years ago I remember Dallas and NYC having RSC's which were supposedly the only authorized Rolex service operations within the USA. Whether those places were/are staffed with employees of Rolex I do not know.
These days within the USA it seems like there are many more "authorized Rolex service departments", including some jewelry store AD's. Certainly, technicians at the independently owned jewelry stores and Boutiques are not Rolex employees. I have no idea if "Bas in the Netherlands" is a Rolex employee.
As far as "touching the hardware" is concerned, in my home area if I questioned half a dozen watch maker/repair technicians who work on Rolex watches, I would likely get six different opinions about this or that watch movement.

[HiBoost]

Originally Posted by csaltphoto

But that makes for an interesting question. What type of design defect would make itself apparent over time vs mileage? Unless they are really the factory running for shit and it's just being swept under the rug which is hard to wrap my head around. The movements are certified before being cased.

I'm not going to speculate since I don't know enough about watch movements to offer even a guess.

I don't believe we've had an owners here who reported a brand new watch that was running very low on amplitude, but Bas has mentioned brand new watches which have never been sold which are significantly low, so he must have seen this.

In my case, I have seen the watch degrade about 15 degrees in amplitude for roughly each 20 days it has been worn. That's a shocking large drop in performance for a shockingly small amount of wear time. Clearly overuse isn't wearing it out. The only theory I've seen along the way which seemed to address this was the "oil migration" idea. One can imagine how oil may move (e.g. from gravity) over time even if a watch is not in operation. This would also explain cases where owners said they had not worn the watch for a while and once starting it again it was running quite slow, but after a week of continuous use it had improved somewhat. Getting things moving again might redistribute the lubrication.

The info we have still suggests that oil migration is an issue, however, the latest report is that this is not the only issue. Even when oiling is known to be correct (i.e. just performed) there can still be issues achieving proper amplitude. The net net is the most reasonable explanation at this time is this movement is facing multiple issues.

[BruRol]

The pictures of excessive wear that were posted waaaay back in this thread suggested a materials issue. Probably from a bad batch of components that went into many watches and are likely difficult to trace. They simply need to be removed from circulation when / if the watches hit an AD for service. This will likely take decades.

[saxo3]

Originally Posted by Vince_76

Amidst all the craziness, big shoutout to Bas and Saxo3 for fighting the hood fight.

Originally Posted by HiBoost

^^^ Looks at those sexy curves!!
Seriously though, this visualization of the probabilities is fantastic.

Originally Posted by douglasf13

Excellent work!

Originally Posted by csaltphoto

Very interesting.

Originally Posted by the dark knight

This is amazing.

Thanks

[Omarion07]

https://youtu.be/stEk78O7ZxE

Rolex has just posted this on YouTube. Their "predicting the unpredictable" hasn't been on point so far. Hopefully they have this issue fixed by now.

Sent from my SM-S918B using Tapatalk

[Mountain]

Originally Posted by saxo3

Thanks

Some very interesting analysis throughout this thread; thank you.

Might it be that having multiple 32xx watches increases the probability of each individual one developing the fault, rather than just owning one and wearing it each day? In the latter case the watch would remain wound so reduced chance of the lubricants migrating (if indeed that is one reason).

Obviously, my assumption is that those not worn are allowed to run down and not kept fully charged on a winder.