Repair + Service: TAG Chronometer 560.206R – calibre ETA 251.262

Robert sent me his TAG Chronometer for a new battery. As you might know, I don’t do quartz watches. Not that I can’t, I just don’t feel too passionate about them. But as Robert had just let me do his beautiful Omega, I couldn’t refuse.

He also has problems with the hands not resetting properly to 0.

With quartz watches, there is only so much you can do when you service them. You take apart all the mechanical bits (there aren’t that many), clean everthing, put them back together and oil. This one has five motors, so that is already a bit of work. Plus the gears for the hour/minute hands, you spend quite a bit of time servicing the movement.

But when you have problems like not properly resetting to 0, it’s a new movement. As they aren’t that terribly expensive (about £95 for this ETA 251.262), this is an easy decision to take. Rather than spending hours cleaning the movement only to find out that the resetting problem is electronic, I order a new movement in.

The original movement with the run-down battery and the five motor coils.

There is some damage around the 1/10s dial – looks like somebody inflicted that when last removing the little hand.

The new movement has arrived. It comes with hands for testing – these aren’t meant to be put on a watch, but allow you to check the function of the movement.

The new movement comes with a white date ring, whereas the original one is grey. I swap them around.

Now the hands go back on.

Having cased the movement and put a new back gasket in, it’s time for the leak testing. Everything is fine.

Quartz or not, a nice looking watch!

9 thoughts on “Repair + Service: TAG Chronometer 560.206R – calibre ETA 251.262

  1. I have a “jumping” chronograph minute hand on this movement it moves randomly when the Chrono isn’t active. So maybe a new mechanism is the answer. Is this something you could do for me

  2. I have a same watch. It accidentally fell in to a fuel container which distorted it. Well I would really like to get it fixed.
    Therefore I would be needing a complete new machine along with the dile.
    Plz help

  3. I would guess it is fairly common practice to replace rather service a quartz movement where they are still available and cheap, but it still seems a bit wasteful!

    TAG do make some nice looking watches 😉

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