Budget Mechanical Watches

Mechanical movements are surprisingly durable and don't require as much maintenance as you might think. My aquaterra needs servicing every 8 years and there's little reason that with normal use it would break. If it's a more affordable automatic watch, most run on readily available seiko or citizen movements (NH36/38 or Miyota Mvmts). However, even these shouldn't be breaking easily unless something happens to it directly

I’m gonna jinxed myself but I have a relatively budget mech/auto watch collection. Been collecting for years and haven’t taken any into service and they run fine.

If you’re concerned about nuts on accuracy, stay with quartz or be ready to drop a boatload of cash for COSC certified chronometers. Otherwise, just buy, wear, and enjoy the beauty and craftsmanship of a mechanical.

Many budget mechanical watches use the NH35 Seiko movement. It's a robust movement and can be serviced/replaced very cheaply. I have a dozen or more of them and every one is fine. In budgert watches you're not talking about exotic movements that are expensive to maintain/repair/replace. I also have one YN55 Epson movement, also easliy/cheaply maintained/replaced.

Mechanical will never by as accurate as quartz so if that is important get quartz. My NH35s all run from +3-+8 after I've adjusted them. I won't service them unless there is a problem and even then I'd probably just replace the whole movement. Hope this helps.

Last time I had my SKX007 serviced was maybe 6 years ago at a small shop and the guy did it for $40 USD, realistically swapping the 7S26 out for a new movement wouldn't have been much more expensive so I think the servicing or replacement costs for fairly ubiquitous movements like Seiko's 4R/NH movements or the Miyota 8000 series shouldn't be too exorbitant

On the other hand my biggest pet peeve with quartz movements is when the seconds hand doesn't hit the markers, I've had bad luck with many Seiko, Ronda and Miyota movements in this regard, but Casio quartz movements have been pretty consistently good regardless of the price point, hats off to the god tier 😘 [chef's kiss]

Personally, I think a good in-between would either be the Seiko mechaquartz movements like the three hander VH31 and chronograph VK64 movements or the ultra smooth sweep of the Bulova Precisionist movements, this way you get the mechanical sweep coupled with accuracy of quartz and all you need to do is pop in a fresh battery ever couple years and don't have to worry about servicing

Some years ago it was a slippery slope, but in the past few years budget watches quality has increased exponentially. I have a few and they're quite well made.

I believe, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong but, Seiko don't service many of their watches. They just replace the whole movement with a new one. So, thats my plan with the NH34, 5's etc that I have. Cheaper for me to swap the movement over than get it serviced when they start running poorly.

🎯

Totally agree on quartz….it completely kills the watch for me when the movement doesn’t at least “touch” each marker.