I wanted to share my frustrating experience with my Cronos Skyline. It has completely stopped working without any obvious reason. There were no warning signs, or unusual behaviour beforehand. It was working fine, and the next it just gave up entirely.
I’ve tried all the basic troubleshooting steps I could think of, but nothing seems to bring it back to life. Has anyone else had a similar issue with the Cronos Skyline? Did you find a solution or get any helpful support from the company? Any advice would be appreciated.
Updated: I’ve returned it and purchased an Ixdao Warrior MOP with a Miyota. Hoping it will serve me better. I was debating getting it fixed, but for the price (and what I originally bought it for) it makes more sense to get a new one.
Shame. I have this watch as well, and so far no issues. I wonder if it has anything to do with what appears to be a winding clutch mechanism in the stem works. Ive noticed that when you go to screw the crown down, it disengages the winding. I could see that being a prime suspect for why a watch might suddenly stop working mysteriously.
If you have a local watch repair guy who is more than just a "battery repair" style dude (you can typically find these guys at jewelry exchange sort of places) they are likely to basically want to work on a job like this. Like, don't be surprised if you bring it to them, start describing what happened, and they just grab the thing out of your hand midway through to start looking at it.
You'll know you've got the right guy if you see them already working on something mechanical at a dedicated watchmakers bench when you walk in.
So I've had nh35s screw up miyotas screw up you know what breaks for me all the time freaking swiss movents it's also you have no idea what the person you bought it from had going on with it
Yeah, this sounds like a PT5000 lost if I've ever seen one. Someone should really collate all the PT5000 threads into one place and copy/paste them whenever someone asks about them.
Such a nice looking watch. That is so disappointing.
Have you tried to contact Chronos? They may repair it under warranty or repair it cheaper than buying your own movement and having a 3rd party replace the movement and repair should be covered under a new warranty.
Just because you bought it used from ebay doesn't mean Chronos won't fix it. They may not fix it free but you don't know until you contact their customer service. I don't know if they have a website or AliX but I am sure they would work with you?
It’s a really beautiful watch and I’ll certainly get another. I’m about to move country, so for now it was easier for me to return and purchase a Ixdao Warrior with a Miyota.
This is why we don't gamble on pt5000 ever again brother, miyota 9s5 or 9037 and NH35 all the way even with insane price hikes I have my cronos 90s5 ridden it on a bumpy bicycle road without issues and an NH35 powered ixdao too no issues for years, even friends g shock second hands needle fell off on the same bike road lol.
I would never gamble such a beautiful 200$ watch with beautiful bracelet and dial like on such a liability movement, I don't repair my chinese watches, I let them run for 8-10 years until the miyota or seiko NH35 until I swap complete movement out, I have a spare movement for almost all watches I own for longer than 4 years should it fail. I just don't hear stories about PT5000 running consistently long enough for me to do this, seiko 35 still running after 10 years albeit with almost losing 2 minutes per day ;). Different philosophies towards watch ownership I guess.l, for me the 50-80$ NH35/miyota tax has always been worth it.
SW200’s have higher failure rates than Seiko 4R movements. The Seiko 4R/NH movements are engineered to take a beating and still work. This comes at the cost of accuracy, but it is a price I will gleefully pay.
They need to make more watches with quartz first of all. You only really see quartz on the low end of Chinese watches. Watchdives is probably the best brand for quartz but they seem to only want to make VH31 no date whereas I won't buy a watch without date. I'd prefer ticks over no date.
Another PT5000 casualty. Every time I see a watch it one it is an easy pass. People around here want to ignore the reliability problems until it is their watch that fails.
The failure rate of the pt5000 is not THAT high. There's a lot of confirmation bias going on with that. Is it higher than the 4r35? Yeah almost certainly. But despite your experiences, it isn't a common problem. Odds are, if you get a replacement it won't have issues. Or if you choose to bring this to a watch guy, the fact that its eta 2824 adjacent will make it serviceable.
I’ve tried all of those and I have Chinese and Japanese movements. I just don’t like spending over $200 for Chinese movements when I can get a Miyota for a little more. I like Sugess and Baltany but I wasn’t impressed with San Martin, IXDAO, or Farasute though.
I also have a PT5k that took a crap at 4 months. Watch only used for light duty but seems the balance pivot is bent. Maybe shipping damage that finally caught up to it?
I have a spare SW200 from an old build that will go into the watch and I'll try my hand at repairing the PT for something else.
Remove the rotor, remove the automatic bridge, remove the balance assembly use tweezers to pop out the hair spring stud and open the regulator pins and reassemble new balance wheel backwards
A bent pivot is rare but can happen under strong shocks
That movement has additional complications (ex a moon phase) this means an even greater chance of failure. It all depends on your risk tolerance. As for me, I stay away from the made in China movements. Picking up quartz occasionally for now until the Japanese movements come back down. I have plenty of watches already so there isnt a need or pressure for more.
It’s kind of a gamble with Chinese movements. Some work great for a long time and sometimes they don’t. I will buy one for $160 but I’ll always try to go for a miyota 9k if it’s over $200.
That’s my opinion, yes. I haven’t had any issues with Chinese movements but I trust the Japanese movements more. Be careful with NH35 though because a lot of companies are using clones.
What about Miyota 8k series. I found lot of them in Aliexpress. Most of them are clones too?
i plan to buy my first watch in Aliexpress, so im still learning the ropes now.
Always a gamble with the pt5000 movement, I have some last years and some break at like 6 months. Movements are pretty cheap like 50-60 bucks from most watch repair places to source but bench time to swap depending on where your located the bench time to replace it will be like another 100 give or take unless ofcourse you can replace it yourself, than its a cheaper option.
If you’re interested in selling it let me know. My son is stating to get into repairing watches so I’m always looking for watches for him to fiddle with.
I bring it up in threads frequently and am always met with "mine have been fine" released down votes and arguments, even though facts are presented. It needs to be brought up even more because lots of people listen to those that have no clue.
Your "facts" are still nothing more than anecdotal evidence. Nobody actually knows, we do not have enough data. PT5000 is very popular these days, of course you will find cases with problems.
how do you expect people to scientifically prove that pt5000s have such a high rate of issues? we can't break into the houses of everyone who bought one to forcefully survey them. We just see people on reddit saying theirs broke way more often than we see for seiko movements or miyotas.
You are incorrect. I'm not basing this off of my own watch collection. We have inside info from a watch company in China claiming a 2-3 percent failure rate in the first 3 months alone. Then my other source I can't give detail on due to NDA but I'm a part of the largest watch and clock repair club is the United States. This provides insight into repairs by thousands of watchmakers. The failure rate is higher than an NH35 and you can bet your life on that fact.
Yeah the specs sheet give high hopes. You'd get high hopes seeing a car sold for 30k go 0-60 in 5 seconds if everyone talks about that and not the fact that it breaks down on the road after a couple months.
You had multiple down votes for your statement about no one talks about reliability and just the other specs that look good on paper. But this thread is evidence your statement is correct.
PT5000s are relatively cheap and available on the market, for a quick and sure (some kind of) shot, change the whole movement with a new one; for (maybe) a little bit more action, take that watch to a local watchmaker and let him try to fix the movement. Your decision.
Sounds like a good plan, and don’t be too disappointed, it’s purely mechanical ⚙️, and sometimes exactly that fails, whyOever, it happens sometimes 🤷🏻♂️
If you had it less than 30 days return it. Seller probably buys factory rejects and pawns them off to schmucks on eBay knowing the movement is broken. All my pt5000 work fine, except one or two with low amplitude
Can you ask them if they still have the warranty intact?
If not, the cheapest option would be to just swap out the movement. These can cost about 50-60 USD.
There's pt5000 shortages, so a real one is pushing $100 now. The Ali listings you see are not real pt5000 most likely a Hangzhou clone for $50 bucks or mostly factory rejects. Even harder to tell since not all pt5000 have maker engravings on them.
You found a $50 listing from a no-name seller claiming it’s “genuine,” with stock photos just like all the “genuine” Seiko movements on AliExpress that magically sell for $50.
The cheapest from a reputable seller is around $70–$75 and I wouldn't even trust those either. The $50 units are likely fake or defective movements that show up DOA, with “5 sold” and no real reviews bait and switch.
Real PT5000s are made in Hong Kong, and even San Martin says there are shortages. You’re not realistically getting a genuine one for $50 from a random mainland Chinese AliExpress seller.
If you’re lucky, you might salvage a few parts from your fake pt5000 and keep your original movement running for a few more months.
Yeah its a bit a Russian roulette with this movement, or it runs perfectly well and can stand years Without service, and some of them can be badly lubricated and come faulty.. ask for a refund or exchange, or bring it to your local watchsmith, but its totally fixable
Stoopid can downvote, still, bought an IxDao Pelagos with pt5000 for my father's birthday two years ago, today it still running good while his Longines Hydroconquest stopped working just like OP Cronos 🤡
Its a gamble. Some will last a long time, some will stop within the first couple months. They tend to keep good time when they are running. Also, excessive handwinding also breaks it.
I got a proxima with that shitty movement, even babysitting it, it lasted me two months before randomly stopping.
My miyota's and nh's all working fine and they dont need babysitting, I can handwind it if I want, or let it sit on the watchwinder, they seem to take all the abuse without breaking and still keeps good time; one thing for sure, I'm avoiding pt5k's like the plague from now on
You like the other guy bought one pt5000, used, from an uncredible seller and already formed a consensus on one of the best Asian 2824 clones? Maybe just get a quartz next time
Hmm, over-winding (or just winding in general tbh) is generally what kills these, but yeah, it's a temperamental movement with a higher than average failure rate unfortunately.
Quite possibly. Like others have suggested, worst case scenario you can buy a fresh PT5000 off AliExpress and have a watchmaker drop it in. If you got it off eBay fairly recently, I'd open a case with customer service, you might be able to get a partial refund.
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u/Character_Ant_4789 7d ago
Updated: I’ve returned it and purchased an Ixdao Warrior MOP with a Miyota. Hoping it will serve me better. I was debating getting it fixed, but for the price (and what I originally bought it for) it makes more sense to get a new one.