Client Service>Caring for your Watch

Caring for your timepiece

Patek Philippe timepieces are designed to last many generations. To ensure your legacy endures, we recommend a regular service every five years (three years for non-waterproof models) to keep your timepiece in perfect working order.

In order to preserve the value of your Patek Philippe timepiece, it is important to regularly service your watch. Watch maintenance should only be undertaken by an accredited Patek Philippe Service Center. Below we explain our recommended maintenance guidelines:

  • Quartz and mechanical watches (whether manually wound or self-winding): must be serviced every five years (three years for non-waterproof models). However, as batteries normally last only two or three years, quartz watches will need to be returned to an authorized agent more frequently for a battery change.
  • It is advisable to have a water-resistance test carried out every year on water-resistant watches. This is a simple procedure that takes only a few minutes at a properly equipped point of sale.
  • A Patek Philippe service is guaranteed for one year by the Authorized Service Center that carried out the check-up. Any intervention performed by a non-authorized agent renders the Patek Philippe guarantee void.

User recommendations and care

In order to preserve watch characteristics in the long-term, we recommend users to:

  • Carefully read the user guide and follow the maintenance instructions
  • Have watch water-resistance checked by an authorised watchmaker once a year or each time the watch is opened
  • For manual winding watches, wind the watch once a day, preferably in the morning
  • Ensure the watch bracelet is suitable for the anticipated use and that it is correctly adjusted to wrist size at the time of purchase
  • Avoid wetting a crocodile strap or prolonged exposure to sunlight
  • Avoid subjecting the watch to extreme temperature variations
  • Avoid all watch impacts and shocks (have water-resistance checked after a severe shock)
  • Avoid wearing the watch during activities that may generate strong and repeated vibrations
  • Avoid wearing a jewel on the same wrist as the watch
  • Avoid exposing mechanical watches to magnetic fields as this may disturb watch settings
  • Not use control functions, pushers or the time setting crown under water or out of water if the watch is not dry
  • Ensure the time setting crown and pushers are in place and screwed in after each manipulation
  • Rinse the watch in fresh water after use in salt water or a swimming pool

Magnetic fields

Timepieces are exposed daily to magnetic fields, magnetism being omnipresent in our day to day environment. Steel components of the mechanism are particularly sensitive and their functioning can be disrupted by it.

Kindly find below a list of common devices emitting magnetic fields:

  • mobile phones
  • Tablet PC's
  • audio and video systems
  • Microwaves
  • Hair dryers
  • TV's
  • refrigerator doors
  • magnetic closures of handbags, purses,...
  • ...

The influence of magnetic fields can have three main effects on the watch depending on its intensity:

  • the watch is temporarily fast when the magnetic field is of low intensity
  • a magnetic field of medium intensity magnetizes mechanism components and effects the interaction between them. The effect will remain until the watch is demagnetized.
  • The watch has stopped due to a magnetic field too intense.

Whatever intensity of magnetism the timepiece is exposed to, the regulation and amplitude of the movement will return to normal after demagnetizing it. This intervention has no consequence on the timepiece but it must be completed by an Authorized Service Center.