Seiko Service > SRPA21 Crown Issue

[ddaly12]

I recently acquired a Seiko PADI SRPA21. Love the watch. Ordered it via Amazon in December 2016 (from seller Vanity Watches). One of the features that I loved about the SRP series was the hacking and winding movement. I felt like this was an upgrade from the non-hacking, non-winding movement in my SKX007.

Time keeping was excellent over the first month (+1 sec / day, wow!), but I noticed in January that the crown became VERY difficult to turn. Not just screwing down and unscrewing, but difficult to turn in the winding, day/date setting, and time setting positions.

I decided I should send it in to Seiko to investigate. I assumed any work that needed to be performed would be covered under warranty (1 month old watch). I mailed the watch in with its documentation, and heard back in about a week that the crown and stem was damaged and would not be covered.

I'm not sure how I would have damaged the crown or stem. I did not put the watch through any kind of tough love, but I did wind up the watch every so often to keep it running and monitor timekeeping. I have a bunch of watches that take hand-winding, so I feel pretty comfortable that it was not a "user error" situation.

Anyway, pretty disappointing, but I'm going to pay Seiko to replace the crown and stem. $61. It's not really the $$$ that gets me, I honestly expected Seiko to step up here. Seemed like a defective crown and stem set-up. If I dropped the watch or something or put it through the ringer, fine, that's on me, but literally nothing out of the ordinary happened to the watch.

I guess I could ask for them to send me to the watch back without any repairs (estimates are free of charge), and have my local watchmaker look at it. But I have no experience with my local guy (or know what he would charge) and I'd rather just have it fixed. I should get the watch back in a "week or so".

I feel like I just got unlucky. At least Seiko is being responsive and it was a relatively modest watch and repair bill. But I love Seiko and the reliability and build quality, so this is disappointing.

What's TRF's take on this situation?

Thanks,
DD