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Your experience of a Grand Seiko service - what, why , when, how much?

3K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  hpark21 
#1 ·
Quite a few of us have GS with the service involving a trip back to Japan. I was recently told by Japan that I had to deal with my local service centre in Australia, so I'm interested to hear of global experiences of Japan GS service as a reference for WUS GS owners.

In this thread I invite people to detail: model; service or repair; price; time.

My experience. Bought a spring-drive SBGA101 from Japan, not an AD. Emailed yserv and they graciously sent me an international warranty after they had confirmed the serials. Very impressed. Unfortunately, the watch's power-reserve did not increase during the day even when the day involved a vigorous 50min walk. Therefore, I could wind it to full power, and because it lost 10hrs every night and didn't increase during the day, the power reserve would theoretically last 7 days even though I was wearing it every day for 12-14hrs. Took it to Seiko in Melbourne who sent it to Seiko Sydney. Now I explained the problem in detail, suggested it was a sticky rotor, and noted that I had 40 watches. I'm not your typical punter was my message. Two weeks later got a call from Melbourne to say the watch was back and that nothing had been done. I was told it was working in spec and that I needed to involve more lateral motion in my day. Anyway, I spoke to the CS manager in Sydney and pointed out my autos didn't require any specific motion, and that the spring-drive user guide says wind it 10 times to get it going, then wear for three days (14hrs/day), and Bob's your uncle: a full power reserve. Bless him, I got the impression he thought he would be upsetting me by sending the watch back to Japan for 8 weeks (I don't think 8 weeks is that bad). He mentioned it looked new (it had been worn for three days) and left it in the box while shaking it. It looks like the local service centre will not open GS SD. Anyway, the watch is being returned to Sydney for them to post to Japan. Expecting to see it early November, but lost a few weeks because of the boomeranging between Melbourne and Sydney. It's under warranty so no charge.
 
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#2 ·
SBGC001. (about 3-4 years ago...)
When the reserve was lowish (maybe about 1/4 left in reserve) watch would stop occasionally if left alone, not an issue if worn though even if reserve was low.
Now, full service was done but I THINK it just might have been a magnetized part but I hear there are couple of parts in SD that are magnetized and can not just demagnetize the whole watch(I may be totally wrong).

Anyways, I think it took about 2 months, sent to USA service center in NJ. They forwarded the watch to Japan. Cost: $1250

At that time, Yen was rather strong so it may be a lot cheaper now. Funny part was, NJ Seiko service center can NOT charge more than $999 per invoice so they had to split the charge in 2 invoices. I guess they do not get a lot of 4 digit repair orders or something. (I would think something like crystal replace + dial replace is involved on this watch, it would EASILY be over 4 digits. Not just this one but probably many Grand Seikos..)
 
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