Daytona Owners - Do Your Sub-Dial Hands Line Up With Their Markers?

[richbrowne]

Hi,

I bought a Daytona some months back and it has taken three versions until I have one where the small mini dials hit their markers correctly. The mini dial most problematic is the Minute dial at the 3 O'clock position. In case it matters, my dial is white MOP and the Daytona is a 2007 TT version

I am just interested to see how many owners have the same problem. Having looked at a few of the pictures on this forum I can see that a few do have this problem.

Maybe owners are not too worried if they don't exactly match up?
Maybe some of you haven't noticed?
Maybe with a mechanical watch some tolerance here is expected?

[mike]

If I understand correctly mine do..course the small seconds hand was running. LOL

[ashu2289]

Yeah, luckily my surely does.

[ohlins]

mine is ok.....

[padi56]

Myself have only heard of a few that the large centre chrono second hand did not reset exactly at the 12 o-clock position.

[richbrowne]

Originally Posted by padi56

Myself have only heard of a few that the large centre chrono second hand did not reset exactly at the 12 o-clock position.

My second one had the big hand problem.

To explain further, the problem occurs when the stopwatch is running and the minute hand is moving, obviously every minute. The minute hand does not line up exactly with every single one of the little markers. In addition, the small stopwatch hour hand may not line up exactly with all the 12 hour markers when the stopwatch hits each hour.

I suspect many have not actually watched the small hands to see if they do hit all of the marks correctly, taking this would take 30 minutes on the minute dial and 12 hours on the hour dial!

[JKnight]

I've owned 3 SS daytona's and all had alignment problems. On the first one the second counter did not point exactly at 12 when reset. The second one had the bezel alignment off by at least 3 seconds. The third had the same problem as yours where the minute counter didn't even come close to lining up with the markers.

I think it's ridiculous that the only Chrono Rolex makes can have such embarrasing flaws. It seems like every other watch company can at least get the hands aligned correctly. Didn't I read somewhere that each Rolex is "Inspected" many times by different individuals during manufacture? Well what are they looking for cause miss-aligned hands seems to escape them. Rant mode OFF... I'm OK now. :-)

[richbrowne]

Originally Posted by JKnight

I've owned 3 SS daytona's and all had alignment problems. On the first one the second counter did not point exactly at 12 when reset. The second one had the bezel alignment off by at least 3 seconds. The third had the same problem as yours where the minute counter didn't even come close to lining up with the markers.

I think it's ridiculous that the only Chrono Rolex makes can have such embarrasing flaws. It seems like every other watch company can at least get the hands aligned correctly. Didn't I read somewhere that each Rolex is "Inspected" many times by different individuals during manufacture? Well what are they looking for cause miss-aligned hands seems to escape them. Rant mode OFF... I'm OK now. :-)

I totally agree. I was amazed when I noticed the minute hand misalignment on the first Daytona and detailed to my AD that I'm sure this was the markings incorrectly spaced due to the hand hitting the marks most of the time. All concerned thought it was the hand that needed to be realigned until Rolex admitted it was indeed the dial markings. I asked for a replacement and the replacement was supposedly scrutinized by all concerned. I spent 10 seconds with it and noticed the chrono second hand misalighned by around 0.25 of a second past the top point. Obviously Rolex took a great deal of time checking it! I asked for another replacement and the third one is now almost bang on.

I say almost because being a pedantic perfectionist, I can see that it is not absolutely spot on to some of the markers but you really really have to look carefully to notice and still most would not see.

Other Daytona owners must have this problem, in fact I know they do because I have seen at least one other Daytona picture on this forum where the owner took a photo with chrono running and you can see that the minute hand is missing it's mark. I also noticed it for another make of chrono shown on this forum. Don't want to upset anyone so shall not name the owners.

Is your third one okay now or are you on your fourth?

[ashu2289]

Originally Posted by richbrowne

I totally agree. I was amazed when I noticed the minute hand misalignment on the first Daytona and detailed to my AD that I'm sure this was the markings incorrectly spaced due to the hand hitting the marks most of the time. All concerned thought it was the hand that needed to be realigned until Rolex admitted it was indeed the dial markings. I asked for a replacement and the replacement was supposedly scrutinized by all concerned. I spent 10 seconds with it and noticed the chrono second hand misalighned by around 0.25 of a second past the top point. Obviously Rolex took a great deal of time checking it! I asked for another replacement and the third one is now almost bang on.

I say almost because being a pedantic perfectionist, I can see that it is not absolutely spot on to some of the markers but you really really have to look carefully to notice and still most would not see.

Other Daytona owners must have this problem, in fact I know they do because I have seen at least one other Daytona picture on this forum where the owner took a photo with chrono running and you can see that the minute hand is missing it's mark. I also noticed it for another make of chrono shown on this forum. Don't want to upset anyone so shall not name the owners.

Is your third one okay now or are you on your fourth?

I think this is not a general problem with Daytonas but you were rather unfortunate to have that problem as I never faced this problem and not even heard of this before this thread.
Hope you get your Daytona perfect now.

[JKnight]

Originally Posted by richbrowne

I totally agree. I was amazed when I noticed the minute hand misalignment on the first Daytona and detailed to my AD that I'm sure this was the markings incorrectly spaced due to the hand hitting the marks most of the time. All concerned thought it was the hand that needed to be realigned until Rolex admitted it was indeed the dial markings. I asked for a replacement and the replacement was supposedly scrutinized by all concerned. I spent 10 seconds with it and noticed the chrono second hand misalighned by around 0.25 of a second past the top point. Obviously Rolex took a great deal of time checking it! I asked for another replacement and the third one is now almost bang on.

I say almost because being a pedantic perfectionist, I can see that it is not absolutely spot on to some of the markers but you really really have to look carefully to notice and still most would not see.

Other Daytona owners must have this problem, in fact I know they do because I have seen at least one other Daytona picture on this forum where the owner took a photo with chrono running and you can see that the minute hand is missing it's mark. I also noticed it for another make of chrono shown on this forum. Don't want to upset anyone so shall not name the owners.

Is your third one okay now or are you on your fourth?

You are correct it was the dial that was bad on mine and not the hand alignment. It would start off counting almost perfectly on the marks but by 10 minutes it was between marks.

[richbrowne]

Originally Posted by JKnight

You are correct it was the dial that was bad on mine and not the hand alignment. It would start off counting almost perfectly on the marks but by 10 minutes it was between marks.

Is your latest one okay now?

[JKnight]

Don't have one at the moment. I hope to get another one later this year.

[richbrowne]

Originally Posted by JKnight

Don't have one at the moment. I hope to get another one later this year.

What happened with your last faulty Daytona, did you get a refund or did you sell it?

Incidentally, my latest version seems to have an 'issue' with the crown. When I unscrew the crown to the winding position, it catches a bit at the end and does not full release to the winding position until I turn the crown a little in the clockwise position. Have you noticed this at all with any of your Rolex watches?

[JKnight]

I returned it.

The crown not popping out until you turn it forward is totally normal. Every Rolex I have ever owned does the same thing. If the threads feel a little rough thats not normal. Try putting a tiny dot of lithium grease on the threads and it should feel good as new.

[SPACE-DWELLER]

Read this thread:

http://www.rolexforums.com/showthread.php?t=16754



And then get a life

[Prince]

Yes, mine all line up properly.

[ashu2289]

Originally Posted by Prince

Yes, mine all line up properly.

Same here

[richbrowne]

Originally Posted by JKnight

I returned it.

The crown not popping out until you turn it forward is totally normal. Every Rolex I have ever owned does the same thing. If the threads feel a little rough thats not normal. Try putting a tiny dot of lithium grease on the threads and it should feel good as new.

Thanks for the info. Incidentally I have noticed on the Net that quite a few renowned chronographs have issues with the hands not lining up with their respective markers. Maybe people are okay with spending thousands on a time piece that have these obvious issues. Or maybe people just buy them for their looks and never intend to use the chronograph in anger. Bizarre!