Winding an Automatic Movement Causes Premature Wear?

[vesnyder]

Any truth to this? I brought in an ETA 2892 movement to to be rebuilt and the watchmaker told me that winding an automatic movement will cause premature wear. Of course, the movement I brought in showed none of this type of wear despite having manually wound it for a lot of it's 25 years. I had never heard this before and wanted to run it by the forum.

[G3Z]

Nonsense?

[214270Explorer]

Heifer Hooey.
The auto-wind feature does the same thing - it winds the watch. Just automatically instead of you having to wind it manually.

Your "watchmaker" is not a "real" watchmaker. He is a dolt.
And I would go somewhere else, by the way.
I would not trust someone so clueless.

I truly hope he does not compromise your movement.

[Tools]

There are a few movements where the manufacturer has used smaller parts in the winding mechanism for their automatic versions than they did previously for the manual wind version.

I can't remember the ETA movement most known for a weak winding mechanism but it could be researched.

Naturally, simply winding an automatic would have no way to wear any parts "prematurely". How would anybody even define premature wear?

A few decades back, it was not uncommon for watchmakers to remove the auto-wind mechanism in a movement because they were not as robust as they should be, and turn in back into a manual wind only watch.

[George58]

iI never wind my autos going on 10 years of owning rolex an patek I simply gently rotate in a circle to get them started less wear on the gears but mostly on the crown gaskets
my pp manual states only wind 10 times to start the watch that tells me winding is not good for the movement now flame away on put on my old retired fire gear for it

[Andad]

Originally Posted by vesnyder

Any truth to this? I brought in an ETA 2892 movement to to be rebuilt and the watchmaker told me that winding an automatic movement will cause premature wear. Of course, the movement I brought in showed none of this type of wear despite having manually wound it for a lot of it's 25 years. I had never heard this before and wanted to run it by the forum.

I agree with your watchmaker.

Some automatic movements including ETA are prone to wear if wound manually on a regular basis.

I know this from experience.

[Rolex tom]

I’ve come across 2892’s in the past where the stem has worn the barrel bridge and the hole the stem slots through, when that hole wears down and becomes loose this can cause the the winding wheel to not revolve concentrically and can in more extreme circumstances cause the winding wheel to wear into the main plate. I’ve attached photos of a watch that was in sorry state but you can get the idea. Manually winding it everyday would cause this kind of wear to happen at a faster rate than if you were to simply own the watch and wind/set the date and time occasionally over a few years or decades.

[HiBoost]

Originally Posted by George58

iI never wind my autos going on 10 years of owning rolex an patek I simply gently rotate in a circle to get them started less wear on the gears but mostly on the crown gaskets

my pp manual states only wind 10 times to start the watch that tells me winding is not good for the movement now flame away on put on my old retired fire gear for it

I don't think a person needs to wind an automatic (which gets worn) on a daily basis, but I feel like you are jumping to conclusions on the "only wind 10 times" part. I just consulted a PP owner's manual for a manual wind reference and they indicate to wind the watch 25 turns daily. It's hard to imagine that the same manufacturer would put such a poorly designed winding mechanism into an automatic reference that the same behaviour (I.e. 25 daily winds) would cause damage.


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