(Potentially) hot take: Seiko’s 6R movements are terrible given the market segment they occupy

Seiko under $1000 is a great value and class leading in many instances. When you get over that amount there are a lot of options, and some better.

Have heard this a lot about the 6R movements. Can they be regulated to perform better do you know?

Seiko overall is often overrated, with problems being brushed aside by people with "there's just something about Seiko", it has so much horological significance*...

I much prefer a Miyota 9000 series movement, or a SW200/ETA 2824. They are thin, and have a more visually appealing beat rate. It also doesn't help that Seiko tends to be pretty loose with their tolerances, and I don't want a $1000 watch that runs +34 seconds a day.

*I have come to the conclusion that "horological significance" is mostly just a way to fanboy for a brand without sounding like you're fanboying. It's up there with "iconic", which essentially means watch influencers like it, so you should too.

I had one regulated, but the watchmaker could only get it to around +10 s/p/d with positional variance. Not ideal

I have the opposite experience, 2 Seiko’s with 6R movements, both fast, running at 3+sec/day

My worst performing 4R is around -7. As a Seiko fan boy it’s just disappointing and puts me off the 6R’s 😑

You're right, it's totally unexcusable. Seiko has some great looking designs, but their movements are total crap. I have a couple Seikos that I like, but the timekeeping (sort of the watch's job, ya know) is horrible. I'm not buying any more Seikos.

I have a 6r35 and I've considered taking mine to get regulated. Not sure how effective it will be or what the cost would be though

I have had similar experiences to yours with 4 and 6 series Seiko movements in Seiko watches. On the other hand, I have a few micro brand watches with Seiko movements that keep great time. Each of these micro brands advertise that they regulate these movements themselves. My preliminary conclusion is that Seiko movements are fine but Seiko just doesn’t take the time to adequately regulate them.

I have a seiko with the 6R31. I bought it for the porcelain dial. It's on a dress watch so doesn't get much wrist time. Mine currently runs about -4 seconds a day so I'm thankful.

As someone who has bought dozens of Seikos (and continues to buy them), I'm not afraid to admit Seiko movements are largely awful. They often arrive, brand new, to the end user running way fast or way slow on average, with low amplitudes and laughable positional variance. They also tend to be really moody as the mainspring approaches half wind or lower. They're ugly, and I don't know how the community has decided to consider them "bullet proof" as it's clear their build quality is nothing special. There are plenty of stamped sheet metal parts, etc in there. I have some really old t-shirts that don't have any holes in them, and I can assure you it isn't because they're bullet proof.

Despite all this, and many other issues with Seiko, I continue to be a customer. The combination of local availability, nice cadence of new models, generally attractive designs, less-than-swiss-luxury pricing, and a certain comfort that comes with familiarity makes them tempting enough to keep buying, enjoying for awhile, and selling on for something else.

uh oh! Did I hit the angry button? 🙂 It's ok if you don't care about accuracy.. I just happen to care about it. Agree to disagree.

You roll the dice with what you get out of the box. My first Seiko with 6R35 is a Alpinist which to date runs +5 seconds out of the box and I have left it that way. Second was my 62mas which was running about 8 seconds slow out of the box but ended up regulating it since I like my watches ti run fast so did it after a couple of months of use and now it runs +3 secs and has been keeping great time.

Latest acquisition are a MM200 and Willard. The MM200 has been surprising, barely deviates more than +2 secs but my Willard is running +22 seconds so that needs regulation. I will use it for a couple of months for the movement to settle and then regulate.

Currently my most accurate Seiko is my Presage GMT with the 6R64 (although 6R but it is a 4hz movement), barely deviates more than +5 seconds after a week of use. I did regulate it since it was running slow when I got the watch but has been more than impressive than the BB58 I owned which was about 15-20 seconds fast after a week.

If Seiko regulates these movements, it would perform quite well but they don't bother to do it. With the number of watches Seiko is pumping out, you can't compare it to a micro brand which would be not even producing 10% of the watches Seiko does in a day.

Unless Seiko ends up doing something like Swatch by changing the traditional regulation to automated regulation using robots, won't be seeing a tighter tolerance. But then you also lose out on outside serviceability of the movements and will end up in a ecosystem needing to rely on the factory service center.

I’m currently wearing a Willard that’s running a 6R35 at -120sec/day. Hahahaha. In general, a 70hr movement isn’t much of a selling point when you have to set the watch every day. I can’t afford to repair it right now, but maybe some day. It’s an admittedly expensive watch for what it is, and it’s by far my least accurate watch. I love it, wear it, and want more. I don’t know that this hobby is known for being rational.

It costed me $25 and took me about 15 minutes at a watch shop. Quite straightforward since Seiko movements are easy to work.

You can also do it yourself if tou have a timegrapher.

shrugs

Seiko 4R and 6Rs these days feels a lot like ricer cars. You buy them so you can customize and tune the heck out of them.

Which is a pain in the butt when you all you want is to just wear it and go but very good if you want to learn how to be a watchmaker, I guess.

Not a hot take, they're not as good in my experience as the 4r's.

Even sent a Willard X to Seiko UK to get it sorted & they replied they don't offer a regulation service 🤣

Im honestly not too fussed about accuracy on my mid tier Seiko's , I've other watches for that.

1. You definitely bought from a responsible seller plus maybe King Seiko has a tighter policy in place compared to a 6R35 movement , I believe King Seiko have an 8 series movement, which is supposed to be superior to a 6R35 . I may be wrong completely:)

I must be lucky but the field prospex alpinist is very accurate but I have to admit that I do not really care about the accuracy of a watch since I like to set them once in a while. I like the automatic watches for that. It's a moment when I'm happy to pull the crown up and set it.

I think we have quartz watches if accuracy is a major concern. I understand it's importance if it's a watch you wear alot as your main work watch or gada tho. Mine is good enough for my use so maybe I'm just not picky enough about accuracy.

A +1000 usd seiko watch with a 6r movement is a shit watch

Imo with seiko you either go full affordable, or full luxury. Anything in the middle isn't worth it

The watch store reps were helpful,apologetic,and showed concern for this situation.If I had more money I’d definitely return for more of their fancy watches.FYI KS has 6r31 movement.

As a Seiko fan, I have to agree. I think they do a great job with quartz, but in my experience, the 6R does as much for me as the 7s26 in an $80 SNK (hacking and hand winding aside).

I will say they do a great job with other things like finishing and dials, but their terrible QC and sub par automatic movements have driven me away from the brand after liking them for years.

My SPB149 was beautiful, but it wasn’t up to snuff with watches half its price.

They're easy enough to regulate to within a couple of seconds, but the main issue I find with the 35 is it just drifts off again quickly if you don't wear it all the time. The 15 is far more stable, the 3 or 4 of those in my rotation are pretty solid at plus 2 or 3. I don't even bother regulating my 35's until they get to half a minute, even then I'd rather skip the hassle and wear something else.

Thanks for the info and glad you’ve found a dealer your happy with 🙂

Thank you,now to find a watchmaker.Mine retired due to health issues.

I haven't given any brand a pass, this is a Seiko thread so my points were about Seiko. If this was an Omega Rolex, JLC, Breguet, etc., thread I would make the same points about their marketing fluff. As I already pointed out in the post you are replying to... Which I assume you didn't actually read.

In case it was too far down the reply for you to make it the first time, here is what I said in the post you're replying to.

I hold all brand's marketing fluff in the same regard, it just so happens that this thread was about Seiko. If it was about Omega, Blancpain, Rolex, Timex, or Daniel Wellington my stance wouldn't change.

No, and I never said people who buy Seiko are gullible.

I also happen to think the Moonwatch silliness is overrated as well. I even used it as an example of other marketing fluff that I don't care about, and think is overrated.

Reading my comment again, I don’t like the words I used. It was a bit flippant.

To expand a little more, I’ve had 5 watches with either a 4R or 6R movement. 4 of them either had a movement or QC issue. I still like Seiko, I just wish they would put movements and QC into their watches that matched the things they do better like finishing and dials. I have purchased more Seikos than any other brand over the last 12 years and I am just sad that the product has not improved in line with the price increases. I know that my experience is limited, but I think QC and movement performance are pretty objective measurements where I have seen Seiko get worse. I still love the brand and will buy more of their watches (because this is a hobby based on emotion), it just feels to me like the brand could easily do better in this segment and refuse to do so.

Absolutely a fair point. I didn’t mention that I had one 4R and one 6R stop running without an easy fix. Also, learning about the accepted “drift” of minute vs hour hands that change their degree of misalignment throughout a 12 hour period is another indicator to me that the movements are not as solid as they should be given where Seiko is placing themselves.

Historically, I liked the 7s26 for being so long lasting and didn’t expect much accuracy out of a $130 watch. I hope the 4R and 6R prove to have the same endurance, but I do wish that Seiko would regulate the movements. Especially the 6R, which is in watches more than 10x the cost of what a lot of 7s watches were selling for new not long ago.

I also don’t think they are necessarily badly made, it’s just the issues that Seiko has with watches from $1k-2k are problems that you typically don’t see in watches half the price. I believe there is a gap right now between Seiko and the competition and I just hope they close it. They make a TON of watches and I appreciate that makes it harder to account for these things, however, their push upmarket should come with improvements in these areas.