Servicing a Grand Seiko spring drive in the long run
I'm thinking of getting a GS, but does anyone actually worry that it's tech is too proprietary for anyone else to service it let's say 30 years down the line? If seiko goes out of business (not very likely but who knows...) will there be enough spare spring drives to keep the watches going for another few decades? With pure mechanical watches I would think it's not much of a problem. Perhaps worst cases we would have to salvage spring drives from other GS watches... but it being a quartz component perhaps all in the world won't survive after a few decades....?
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Hong Kong
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Last active: 1 week ago
7.00” / 17.78 cm
I think the worst case would not be Seiko going out of business, it would be them controlling the product and making it prohibitively expensive to repair. The Swatch group is already dipping their toe into this kind of thing.
I think your worries are overblown but if not get a non spring drive movement GS, their purely mechanical watches and their hi-beat look great too.
I was always planning to have mine serviced by Grand Seiko, if / when they ever need to be.
If Seiko goes out of business and nobody picks up the production then that's probably it more so than for mechanical movements. But truth be told that's true for most watches to some extent.
Even if they use third party movements that are easy to service and movement parts are readily available for that movement. Assuming there actually are independent watchmakers 30y from now, you still won't have easy access to case parts/gaskets, hands, dials, crowns and crystals which are often proprietary.
I think a good rule of thumb is, if the manufacterer goes out of business or ceases support, you're not gonna have a good time servicing the watch. Even if they start struggling and focus on other product lines/market segments. Servicing a 20y old Ebel once it breaks is more expensive than buying it in excellent used working condition. In other words, throwing it away makes more sense. I'm not even joking. If I had to guess that's because it's a legacy service for Ebel (who now make much less expensive, in line with MGI, watches with a focus on ladies) and comes with great overhead for them... even the ETAs are a b*tch.
I have a GS spring drive GMT , not worried about the service, these watches will easily 10 years or more and I don't wear it that often... Besides Seiko has been around for 150 years, I'm sure they will still be in business in 30 years