Ok, I gotta set some things straight. Unless ziggy or some other pro watchmaker chimes in and says I'm wrong, I have seen this a lot during my current return. So, here is my soapbox, and:
1 this thread is nowhere near loony. Every post has been on point. Irrelevant but on point.
2. I have been here since early 2005.
3. I have had at least 70 reps go through my hands.
4. I have had 4 franken, custom projects
5. Had watches serviced, relumed AR - bought straps from 10 diff dealers from 20$ to 230$
I've seen it all. From before we had an a7750. The only chrono was a lemania (not really but called) manual wind. When AR wasn't really AR and was just a coating on the dial that made reflections look purple.
The sec at 12 is a very reliable movement. Most reps do not need to be serviced to get a good life out of them.
You new guys - especially in the last year have skewed vision of reality. Eddie Lee used to say, waterproof? Maybe, you can run to your car in a light rain and a rep is a rep.
These watches are not gen, they are not tanks, not ment for diving or flying. It's a decent watch with some high end features. Due to "super reps" dealers now need to advertise reps as 1:1
they cant respond - hey, it's just a rep, don't treat it like a gen. While I'm on it. Don't buy a 100$ watch and put 700$ in mods. I don't piss on sales threads, cause there is no fraud, but it's entirely uneseccary and adds no actual value to the watch, just perception.
Ok back to movements, unreliable is the first generation of seconds at 12 daytonas, first generation portugese, no seconds pams
When a movement is unreliable there are mass posts, lots of pissed off buyers cursing dealers. And almost no one buying and especially no one buying second hand.
Although dealers guarantee against customs or defect on delivery reality is, there are no guarantees. And, we as the board are not here to puff up dealers answer for their faults or make their screwed customers satisfied. They make a shitload off this board. We have 2 purposes. 1 enjoy the community, discuss watches and learn from each other.
2. Be organized so overall we have the purchasing power to keep dealers honest. As a courtesy we advise newbs. It's not a right, it's a courtesy.
Now, as to movements
1 a7750 - great mov, running the chrono is fine doesn't hurt it at all.
2. Reliability - the watches your buying are built in basements and random places by people that have no experience. Shit happens. Any 1 watch could fail. Don't send $$ to china unless your prepared to lose it. I'm serious. 98% of the time everything will be fine. But, these are not built by skilled workers, and this is a criminal enterprise. If you were buying spoiled milk and selling it as real (my ex wife's cousin) you wouldn't wine about the milk carton is not crisp writing under a 10x magnification.
Unless you see a long post from a trusted watchmaker that a movement is crap don't buy or a flood of horror stories then it's find. They sell thousands of these things. believe me, there would be pissed people lining up with dead 600 watches.
Will it last longer if you service? Most likely yes. Will you get 3 yrs out of it with moderate wear time? I'd give that a 95%.
Please go to RWG.cc and check my signature, I have a series of videos documenting chinese watchmaking and Swiss watchmaking.
I need to create a post about this stuff.
Conclusion. This hobby is a risk. You could lose $$ you could go to jail. Or like 99.99999 % of us you could get awesome watches and enjoy them for a period of time that far exceeds the value paid.