Japanese Warranty vs International Warranty

My understanding is that if it’s a new watch, then the warranty is a 5-year international manufacturer’s warranty, with Grand Seiko. Anything goes wrong, you send back to Grand Seiko for warranty service. 

If you're not in Japan, go with the international warranty. The Japanese warranty won't do you any good outside of Japan.

Thank you, so your suggestion is to get the one with the international warranty, right?

Thank you, so your suggestion is to get the one with the international warranty, right?

Sorry, I should have been clearer.  (All of the below is just my understanding, and I could be totally wrong.  Best bet is for you to email them and ask them explicitly if all the following is true or not.)

• When GS sells a watch, the watch comes with a 5-year international warranty.  GS watches don't come with "Japan-only" warranties, nor "U.S.-only," nor "EU-only."  All GS watches come with 5-year international warranties
• So, if that SBGE255 is a new watch, then the warranty card is good for 5-years and Seiko will honor it no matter where you live and where you bought the watch from, so long as you have the warranty card
• There are lots of dealers who offer "in-house" warranties.  For example, I once bought an Omega Speedmaster from Watchshopping.com.  The listing said that the Omega came with a 2-year Watchshopping.com warranty.  Great.  I couldn't care less.  The Speedmaster was new, so it came with box and papers, and the Omega 5-year manufacturer warranty.  The reason places like Watchshopping.com say in their listings that their watches come with in-house 2-year warranty is because they sell a lot of used watches, and the manufacturer's warranty on those old, used watches have already expired, so Watchshopping.com is offering their own warranty beyond the expired manufacturer's warranty

So, in conclusion, it shouldn't matter whether you buy that SBGE255 from Sakura or Seiya.  If it's new, it should have the GS 5-year manufacturer's warranty card with it.

But, most importantly, you should contact them yourself and confirm that that's all true!

Yes, or as HotWatchChick69 suggested, ask the seller to clarify. Good luck!

Update from Sakura itself. Seiya hasn't responded back to me, yet.

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info@sakurawatches.com

Hi,

Thank you for your request.

Our products are made for Japanese domestic market and come with the official Japanese warranty card.
This warranty valid only in Japan and require the watch to be returned to Japan for service and repair.
Return instructions will be provided by us.

We hope for your understanding and are looking forward to your order.
 
-- 
Best regards, Kota
https://www.sakurawatches.com
https://www.facebook.com/sakurawatches
 

The response from SeiyaJapan

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Customer Support (seiyajapan)

Dec 20, 2022, 08:14 GMT+9
Hello from Tokyo,
 
Thank you for your inquiry.
 
You may contact your closest Seiko customer support center directly before purchasing.
https://www.seikowatches.com/global-en/customerservice

Please note that Seiko US doesn’t sometimes accept warranty work, especially Japanese domestic models or direct online purchases. 

In that case, you can always send a watch purchased at Seiyajapan.com back to me so that we make an arrangement for warranty work at Seiko Japan which is better.

If you have any inquiries, please don't hesitate to let me know.
 
Best regards,
Seiya.K
SeiyaJapan.com

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I guess I'm contacting Seiko US now.

So how does one go about calculating customs for this? Does Seiya or Sakura help with that?

Yeah, so you get a discounted price buying from these sites, and in most cases you won’t have any problems to need warranty service so you will be fine. But then again that is why some people forgo the cost savings and pay a little more just in case warranty service is needed.

on the other hand, if warranty service is needed and you are comfortable sending the watch to Japan then you don’t have any issues here. 
 

For me even though I know most likely there won’t be any problems, but I like to purchase watches from a physical store where I can see the physical product before payment. 
 

Good luck and let us know how it goes. 

From Seiko USA

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Customer Service <custserv@grand-seiko.us.com>

Hello @jcRUwithME,

If purchased from an authorized Grand Seiko dealer, the watch would have the international warranty.
You would need to receive the original warranty card filled out with the warranty registration number.

Best Regards,
Grand Seiko Customer Relations
800-334-0962