Hello,
Be prepared for a long rant. ...sorry.
In January I took my Datejust 1603 into Rolex UK St James's Square.
It had been 6 years since it had last been seviced and as I was in London I thought that I would drop it off.
3 months later the watch is ready, £490, they post it back to me ( I live 200 miles away), I open the plastic service box A DIFFERENT DIAl !
At no time on the Estimate did they say the dial needed replacing !
My dial was Silver in colour , the new dial was Off White almost Cream.
I phoned Rolex service in London. A girl answers the phone , I complained that the dial is new and the wrong colour, she checks on the computer and informs me that their records show that they have not fitted a new dial omly cleaned it, and it must look different bacause it had been cleaned.
I inform her again that the dial is a different colour, she then says that the dial will look different because they have fitted a new Plexiglass !
I then tell her that my silver dial had T SWISS T at 6'OClock and this one has just SWISS, my silver dial had some chipping (degradation, grazing whatever you might want to call it) around the edge, and this new dial was perfect. She insists again that the records show that they have not fitted a new dial.
Now I have owned this watch since 1969, my late Father bought it me when I was 16 ( lucky me ) and I have worn it at school, University and all my working life. I retired last year. I do know what the original dial looks like !
I post the watch back to them. Next day I get a phone call from the same girl in Service, repeating the same Cr*p that they haven't changed the dial & that this dial is what they call silver (even though it is obviously cream in colour).
She puts me through to customer services in the Kings Hill branch where in fact the Datejust was serviced. Nobody is available, as it is lunch time and nobody phones back. I phone them back again after lunch and a polite lady listens to my rambling complaint.
She says that she will get St James's square to send the watch to Kings Hill in Kent where she will look at it and phone me back in 2 days to discuss how this new dial differs from my original dial.
2 days go by and nobody phones. I phone customer relations at Kings Hill only to be told that the haven't got the Datejust yet. They will phone me on Monday when the service manager will liase with the technician who serviced the watch.
Let's see what happens on Monday, but I guess I will never see the original dial again which is a great shame as it obviously had great sentimental value.