Learning curve: Two-year IWC maintenance, or wait for five?

Dear Forum Folks:

The new IWC Service Video, which is--no surprise--excellent and informative, shows me, as usual, on a steep learning curve: Up to now, the only maintenance service I have been aware of is the five-year one. Now I learn of a recommended two-year maintenance. I should have sent in my Mark XVI a couple of months ago, I guess.

Has anyone had the two-year service done for any of his watches? How advisable is it, really? What's likely to need looking at after such a relatively short time? Since I don't do deepsea diving or wear my watch while swimming or bathing, I'm not too worried about rubber seals or anything of that sort.

Please advise!

Cheers!

Donald

My first job was for a watch importer in London for Oris. One lesson I learnt was the oil in a watch would barely cover a coin the size of 1 cent piece and the balance wheel travels approx one revolution of the earth's circumferance in a year. So assuming the service manager was not telling me a load of porkies, I think it's fair to say two years between sevices is a lot kinder to your watch than five.
Memo to self, practise what I preach, get overdue watches serviced ASAP.

All my mechanical watches run well, even my Portuguese Perpetual Calendar that is 8 years old. They never saw the service center for periodical maintenance. At IWC self I was told that simple watches should go every five years and complicated watches when a problem occurs: the logic behind this is not clear to me. I adhere to the latter for all my watches: it is easier, cheaper and apparently good enough.

Kind regards,
Paul

I don't have a very long experience with complicatde watches but so far but I have been practicing Paul's logic for as long as I have owned mechanical watches - and that has seemingly worked out well.

Good to always send your watch in for some maintenance just before the end of the expiry of the 2 year initial warranty period, in my opinion.

If you buy a perpetual and you run it for eight years without a service, would you likewise buy a car and run it for five or eight years without a service? No brainer in my opinion, the advice given to run a watch until its playing up is hopelessly wrong.

Risk evaluation makes this easy. With a car no, as I or others could get killed, with a watch yes, as no harm is done and the price of an overhaul is relatively high but quite constant. The expert opinion at IWC confirms this.

Kind regards,
Paul

Routine servicing means minimal wear, prolonged service interval means excessive wear and bigger bills. Dry lube points result in excessive wear and those components needing replacing sooner rather than later. Whether its cheaper or not over say thirty years is incidental as the watch has been kept in good order rather than allowed to be described as in poor internal condition due to running dry.