Spring Drive movement reliability

[RamyAshour]

I am strongly considering getting my first Grand Seiko which has a Spring Drive movement, and I am just wondering about the overall reliability. Mostly in terms of extreme weather temperatures due to its electronic regulator. Would it be largely unaffected if I go skiing in Norway at minus 25 degrees celcius, or go to Death Valley at 50 degrees celcius heat? Sorry if this is a stupid question.

I was recently at the botique in Los Angeles and they told me that in general the Spring Drive movements are very reliable, and service is not to be expected before 10 years

Just wondering if temperature will have any affect on precision.

[pickettt]

I would think those temperatures really aren't that extreme. You may run into trouble if you were removing any machine from -25 degree and putting into 50 degree heat immediately, but not a gradual change in temps.

[Jostack]

Maybe a little if you wear it wrapped around the outside of your parka.

[mattmartin]

I would bet that spring drive is about 5 times more reliable than an auto. The movement has not stop/start impact so there really is no wear. The wheels rotate but they have little to no friction. You can find 10 year old spring drives that were daily wearers and service them to find that they don’t actually even need servicing. Ask any watchmaker and they will say that the key wear items are the barrel arbir, the escapement. The spring drive has no escapement and the barrels are jeweled on all the springdrives.

[RamyAshour]

Thanks for the input Matt. Thats also what I heard, just thought that maybe extreme temperatures could have an impact to precision because they have an electric regulator, but maybe I should go back and study physics

[Fredrik]

Your wrist will heat/cool the watch and keep it within reasonable temperatures. I wear my watches in the sauna and when skiing in -30 degrees, no problems.

Try wearing a gold necklace in a sauna, it's fine unless you lean forward and let it hang loose in the air for a while, then you might get a burn.

[singaporepatek]

Originally Posted by Fredrik

Your wrist will heat/cool the watch and keep it within reasonable temperatures. I wear my watches in the sauna and when skiing in -30 degrees, no problems.

Try wearing a gold necklace in a sauna, it's fine unless you lean forward and let it hang loose in the air for a while, then you might get a burn.

In the sauna? A Patek would implode haha.