FEATURE: How Accurate are my Quartz Watches?

Quartz movement inside my CT1113 Searacer

TRIGGER WARNING: This post may contain pro-quartz and what could be perceived as 'anti-mechanical' sentiment, please approach with caution and if you feel upset have a cup of tea and a biscuit.

While there is always much talk about accuracy in the watch community, it is usually centred around mechanical pieces. These can vary in accuracy from +/-2 to +/-20 seconds per day and still be within the manufacturers accepted tolerances. Seiko are particularly poor in this regard actually, I believe some of their watches can be -20/+40 seconds per day and still be deemed to be running at an acceptable rate!

Quartz watches, on the other hand, are generally assumed to be (and are indeed) way more accurate, with figures of one second a month often bandied about. Indeed many people use a quartz watch as a 'control' when setting and monitoring their mechanical pieces, but there are factors which affect the accuracy of quartz watches (battery life, age, time since last being serviced etc...) so I thought it would be interesting to have a look at how my watches (which span from 1986 until 2018) are performing.

I painstakingly set all my watches to the second when I adjusted them to GMT at the end of 'Summer' two weeks ago, so these results are deviations over the last two weeks. 

Aside from the ones I know have been serviced by the TAG Heuer worskshop (my CG1110 SEL and my blue 2000 WN1112) I would assume none of my quartz watches have been serviced since being bought new (most of my watches have been bought pre-owned).

SIGNIFICANT GAINERS

The worst performing watch of the lot was my yellow/grey 'classic' Formula 1, gaining a total of 8 seconds in two weeks (I do not know when the battery was last changed as I haven't had this one very long).

Second worst performing was my two tone 2000 Exclusive, which I suspect must be coming up to needing a battery, that one gained 7 seconds.

Next up was my 4000 Series which gained 6 seconds, despite me changing the battery very recently.

Then came my beloved yellow Aquaracer Calibre S which gained 5 seconds, again I suspect the battery is due for changing soon with this one, but I am quite surprised that such a modern watch calibre is performing not all that great.

Other gainers were my classic all-black Formula 1 (4 seconds) and my blue 2000 Exclusive which gained 3 seconds (which as I mentioned already was serviced a few months ago by TAG Heuer).

 

SIGNIFICANT LOSERS

Only two of my watches lost any significant time (for the purposes of this post I'm counting that as +/-3 seconds), those being my black and yellow Formula 1 (4 seconds) and my silver 6000 Series chronograph (5 seconds). I've had the 6000 a while and I haven't changed the battery and again the Formula 1 is a recent purchase so I can't speak for the age of the battery in that one either.

THE WINNERS

All my other watches fell within the +/-2 seconds range, but a few were still absolutely dead on and surprisingly none of them are particularly 'new'.

First up we have my CG1110 S/EL which was recently serviced by TAG Heuer.

Then we have my blue three hander 6000 Series, which I changed the battery in myself about a month or two ago.

Finally we have my red case / white dial classic Formula 1 (the one with the dodgy date wheel), which was another recent purchase and as yet has not had a battery change.

So there we are, maybe in the real world quartz isn't quite as accurate as we are led to believe, but even in the worst case here we're still only talking half a second day, which compared to mechanical watches, some of which could easily be fifteen or twenty seconds out after two weeks and still be considered to be running extremely accurately, is pretty impressive. Especially when you consider that that watch is probably 30-35 years old and more likely than not has never been serviced! 

But then of course, quartz watches have no 'soul'... and they aren't connected to eternity, but then it turns out neither are all mechanical calibres. Apparently, some mechanical watches have 'disposable' modules for the chronograph which are replaced at service time, something I wasn't aware of until a couple of weeks ago when Jim Dollares spoke about it on the Calibre 11 forum. 

Which is weird as it rather undermines one of the key arguments for buying mechanical over quartz; that it will always be repairable / serviceable for generations to come. 

Interesting...!

Addendum.

Apparently, my expectations of normal quartz watches was way too high. I'm informed that a non-high accuracy quartz movement (i.e. non thermally compensated) is more likely to be in the order of -10 to +20 seconds per month, in which case my watches are all performing admirably! :)