Rolex Submariner

5owners with an opinion

40%of verdicts positive

1/0positive/negative since 2024

30 yrslongest happy owner

1happy after 3+ years

Praised for design and build quality; criticized for reliability and performance.

What people wrote

Likes itOwned 30 years

n of 1 study: the Submariner that I purchased 30 years ago required one maintenance visit during that period. Its accuracy certainly isn’t going to match something that’s talking to a time server but it’s better than the clock in my car which drifts forward by 2 minutes per month. But for a purely mechanical device it’s remarkable.

Doesn’t like itOwned 3 years

> I am not sure if this justifies the price difference of a $50 fake vs $5,000 Rolex. I owned a five year old Rolex Submariner and had it for about three years. You could tell it was a solid, well built watch. However, after the first six months, I found it was not keeping very accurate time. Sent it back to Rolex and they fixed it and sent it back. Was fine for another six months, then it started again. Sent it back and was charged $300 for the repair. After another four months it started again and I finally gave up on it and sold it for a fraction of its worth. This is pretty much par for the course on the high end stuff I've bought over my lifetime. High end (not pro stock) hockey stuff just falls apart and isn't durable. Soccer stuff? Same thing. Dress shoes, suits, clothing? Same thing. High end mountain bikes? Same thing. I had three high end mountain bikes (all different manufacturers) and the derailleurs needed adjustment constantly, the high end Magura hydraulic disc brakes squealed constantly and the Fox forks all leaked after a few months. I was a single track guy so its not like I was doing Red Bull contests either. I got a middle tier Cannondale and have had it since 2006 with little or no issues. I found that after so many years of being disappointed with "high end" expensive stuff, your best bet is to not get the lowest cost thing or the most expensive, but the middle tier stuff I've always found to be not only durable, but far more dependable.

Likes it

Agreed entirely. My grandfather’s 5513 desk diver was passed down to me. It had scuffs and scratches and the lume had long since stopped glowing and turned to a mustard color. And while I never planned to have any of that changed because I thought it added to the cool factor, the appraisal guaranteed that decision. I was recommended a local watchmaker who could service the movement only and ensure the seals were all intact. Or I could send it back to Rolex for servicing where they’d polish the case, relume the numbers, and swap the acrylic dome for sapphire - and by doing so chop ~50% off the value of the watch. It turns out collectors love patinas and scratches and for a 60 year old watch to look its age.

Doesn’t like it

I have a couple of colleagues that collect watches - and one of them brought in a high-end replica, think he paid around $500 or so for it, and compared it to the real deal - which he also had. Some kind of Rolex submariner, don't remember what exact model. To me, they looked identical. Felt identical. If you mixed them up and asked me which one was which, I'd be completely lost. He then pointed me to some youtube vids of people dissecting them, and it seems like you really have to bring out the microscope to tell. I don't know much about watches, but I'm just thinking that if they are getting so accurate...why would regular people shell out 5 figures for a real one, when you can get those for a couple of hundred bucks? Don't get me wrong - I like artisanry, but at this point it seems like you're paying the biggest upcharge for name, and nothing much else. (As for why my colleague bought replicas, apparently he'd wear those while traveling, in case he got robbed or whatever. Even though insurance would cover the original watch, just getting a legit one from stores/dealers has been a huge hassle. Months of wait time, etc.)

Doesn’t like it

My $20 "Submariner" is plausible enough to look real to someone who isn't a watch person. The main tell is that the magnification lens and date font is smaller than on a real Rolex. The pearly doodad at 0 on the bezel is also a bit lower than it should be. When the watch isn't being worn, the other signal that it's fake is that it has a transparent window on the back, which is fun to look at but I guess too gauche for Rolex to do with their real watches. If you want to use it as a watch instead of a fashion accessory there's a few other downsides. Compared to a real Rolex the self winding is drastically worse, it'll stop ticking pretty quickly if you don't move it. Changing the date with the crown is also kinda janky and it probably wouldn't last 5 minutes if I tried to use it as an actual dive watch. I think the higher quality reps are $100+

Likes itDoesn’t say they own it

close04 pretty much nailed it with his comment below. There is nothing wrong with the Submariner - quite the contrary, it is an iconic design and exceedingly well made. The 'problem' is that as it migrated (much like, say, Leica cameras and optics) from being tools for professionals into status symbols, a lot of its owners went from basically banging it about, relishing each and every battle scar obtained to (sigh) worrying about resale value.

Likes itDoesn’t say they own it

Common... I've got tools I "inherited" from my grandpa that are still fine (brothers and I basically inherited the house and the tools where in the shed and whenever I go there on vacation, I use those tools to fix the house). I've got a screwdriver which I definitely remember using as a teenager, in the late 80s (and which I used for a variety of DIY jobs ever since) to assemble the trucks on my skateboards. And that screwdriver is a prized possession of mine: it's got a story. Hammers, saws, stainless steel scissors, hoses (to water the plants), multi-tool tools (don't know if they're stainless steel but they still look good), etc. Plenty of stuff still totally usable decades later . You cannot compare tools that can outlast humans (like my grandpa and now myself) with an Apple watch that's going to be junk in a few years at most. Even for oil that needs changing, things that needs lubricating once every blue moon (like, say, a mechanical watch): it's quite different to drop a tiny bit of lubricant inside a mechanical watch that's already 30 years old compared to having to update the firmware of whatever Internet-of-insecure-and-shitty-Thing gizmo that's going to be a thing of the past in a few years. And if you really let a nice mechanical watch idle for decades, at least someone can do this: "Restoring a Vintage Rolex Submariner with the Original Box, Paperwork... Even the Receipt!" https://youtu.be/WsImSuG-dLY While I'm really not sure there are going to be people o…

Likes itDoesn’t say they own it

> The modern US pickup truck isn't built for utility. Not really true. Something like an F150/250/350 is absolutely built for utility. It's popular for a reason. It's just not used for utility by a large number of buyers. It's a "pavement princess". The Cybertruck is an objectively bad product for many reasons of which utility is pretty high up there. For example, it's really heavy because of the steel body yet it has an aluminium frame . The problem with aluminium is that it deforms with stress in a way that steel doesn't. Why does this matter? If you're towing a heavy load over rough terrain the frame is going to face large forces up and down that will end up snapping that frame. > It's the suburban equivalent of a yuppie's Rolex Submariner. That's a funny example because it shows you know just as much about watches as you do about trucks, which is to say nothing. Sure, finance bros might buy Submariners but that doesn't change the fact that it's a very robust product designed for diving, originally. Now the need for that has been diminished because we now have dive computers, quartz dive watches and such and you can argue it's not worth ~$10k or that there as good or better options for less (which there are) but it's still an excellent product with many years of design to suit its original purpose. Even if you use a dive computer as an experienced diver, you'll generally also have a dive watch because computers can fail [1]. > I say all of that to say that making a pick…

Doesn’t like itDoesn’t say they own it

I think you think that price is directly proportional to quality. It's not. Luxury goods are made luxury through a process of branding, pricing, and scarcity. Rolex is an excellent case study. They've been sponsoring athletes since the early 20th century when they sponsored Mercedes Gleitze to wear an Oyster around her neck when she swam the channel. You'll continue to notice the brand at F1, premier golfing events, and so on. And when it comes to purchasing, you literally can't walk into a Rolex dealer and buy a Submariner, for example, because they are made artificially scarce. If you were able to buy a sub, you'd buy it at around $13K and then immediately be able to sell it for around $18K or more. Rolex own the luxury category when it comes to conferring value on the brand and its products. So if you can't even buy a Submariner, what the hell is the strategy? They have a much larger range of second and third-tier watches that they'll sell you then and there and once you have a "relationship" with them, they might hook you up with something worth far more on the used market the moment you buy it. It's just a big fat hustle that relies on some specific psychological triggers. It relies on what Cialdini would call "social proof", meaning that others think it's cool so you think it's cool. It also relies on scarcity conferring value on something that would otherwise be valueless. It relies on our innate desire to hero-worship, as a species, which is where sponsorship comes in…

Doesn’t like itDoesn’t say they own it

The Rolex Submariner does make more sense if you take James Bond seriously (which you shouldn't). The Royal Navy did use military issue Rolexes. But OMG seriously? I thought that was about as elegant a way to do a luxury product placement. It even served the scene. Vesper (subtext): "You're not complex. You are like this..." Bond (subtext): "You're not far wrong! But I'm not supposed to be." Far more ridiculous are the poker scenes in Casino Royale. Speaking as someone who likes wristwatches, what's even more ridiculous is the idea of a $12K tool watch. Only a soft in the head billionaire would even go swimming with such an expensive watch, let alone diving.