In a way, the whole thing is much weirder. As Shteyngart notes, mechanical watches are in almost all ways inferior to quartz in terms of utility. But because o

In a way, the whole thing is much weirder. As Shteyngart notes, mechanical watches are in almost all ways inferior to quartz in terms of utility. But because of that inferiority (and sensitivity to manufacture), the difference between poor and high quality mechanicals is much more readily observable by the owner than for a quartz. (If my watch gains or loses 30s/day--a reasonable performance for a Seiko 7s26--I will quickly notice, whereas if my quartz gains or loses one second, I may not.) In the car case, the spectrum is basically continuous; in watches it's segmented in this very peculiar way.