Tudor Watches: A People-Friendly, Durable “People’s Rolex” with a Self-Produced Movement

If watch friends want to understand Tudor, they must first understand the positioning of Tudor watches. The Rolex Group positions its brand Tudor as a people-friendly and durable watch, which can also be said to be a "people's Rolex." Tudor's original styles were basically designed according to the feel of Rolex, and then used ETA's universal movement on the movement. Until 2009, Rolex decided to transform Tudor and constantly inject new elements into new watches. Typical examples are the Biwan series and Qicheng series. By 2015, Tudor launched its first self-produced movement-MT 56 series. Let’s focus on this self-produced movement.

1) Advantages of Tudor’s self-produced movements

If Tudor launches its own movement, it will definitely learn from Rolex's 3 series movement design. This is inevitable. After all, there is ready-made technology. The structure of the open movement MT 56 movement is very similar to that of the 3135, and it also has a bridge-protected balance wheel. There is a two-piece cover under the balance wheel. This design is also for the overall stability of the movement and helps to stabilize the movement.

When we disassemble the balance spring, we can see that this is the classic Rolex bridge guard. The silicon single-layer hairspring can resist the influence of magnetic fields and temperature differences. The only difference between the shock absorber and Rolex's is that the Incabloc shock absorber is not Rolex's KIF. After all, MT56 is a new movement. It is superior to the 3135 movement in some configurations, such as the bearing-type automatic rotor. The advantage is that it is not prone to swinging and has lower wear after long-term use. The independent movement of the main rudder has also been improved in terms of kinetic energy storage, and has a 70-hour kinetic energy storage, which is also the current main flow storage of the movement.

2) Disadvantages of Tudor’s self-produced movement

First of all, Tudor is positioned as a people-friendly model, so the polishing and polishing of the movement is basically a matte sandblasting process. It is not polished and looks slightly rough. In addition, the overall design of Tudor's movement is relatively thick. The MT56 also experienced repairs in the early stage, but this is understandable. Early failure repairs are the only way for independent movements. After later improvements, Tudor’s independent movements are generally relatively stable.

Summary of tips: Tudor has inherited the tradition of Rolex in terms of quality control, and has a relatively low failure rate. The upgrade of its own movement has brought Tudor super competitiveness, allowing the brand to compete with Omega and Breitling in the market. What do you think of Tudor? Please leave a message to share.