Wenger Waterproof Watch!!

These are pictures of my Wenger Waterproof watch. I had owned this for about six months when I first took it diving in October of 2000. I did about 4 dives with it, and reached a maximum depth of 90 feet. The watch filled water, but kept working. The local Wenger shop offered to 'blow out' the watch, but since it was salt water I spent the $8 to send it back to Wenger for repair.

All was fine for about 8 months after I got it back until I got the opportunity to go diving again. The pictures you see below are the result of submersion to about 25 feet. The spot on the right side of the face is the date window rusting away (especially apparent in wenger3.jpg).

As you can see from the last picture the back of the watch says "Water resistant 100 M". I guess this means that only a little water will get in. Of course if that is the metric why not just say 'Water resistant to the bottom of the ocean'? The result wouldn't be any different. This is from wenger detailing how deep you can go with a watch, note the discrepancies around 100M.

Wenger says the watch is out of waranty and probably to badly damaged to be worth repairing.

update:

Joel Benton from Wenger contacted me, and has replaced the bad watch with a fancy new one that is rated to a deeper depth (200m: suitable for recreational scuba diving)! The new watch has a screw down crown, which I'm told is important for dive watches (although the cheapy one my wife uses doesn't have it and has been okay so far).

Anyway, pics of the new watch will be up soon, and kudos to Joel and Wenger for coming through in the end.

waterproof_watch.jpg
115.16 KB

This is from the Wenger FAQ on depth and water resistance:

What are the various levels of water-resistance? Watches with the lowest level of water resistance are labeled simply "water-resistant." They can withstand splashes of water but should not be submerged. Above that (or below it, literally speaking), the most common designations are

-50 meters (1 meter is about 3.3 feet), which means the watch is suitable for swimming;

-100 meters; indicating it can be worn snorkeling; [ But according to Swiss Watch Industry Federation, "Divers' watches must be water resistant at 330 ft (100m) minimum. They must also feature a time controller and comply with standards provided by NIHS 92-11 (ISO 6425) : luminosity, shock resistance, anti-magnetism, band solidity." ]

-200 meters, suitable for recreational scuba diving and, believe it or not,

-1,000 meters (roughly three-fifths of a mile). Watches in this last category can endure deep-sea diving. Their gaskets are made of materials that can withstand the helium used in decompression chambers. Some have valves that let the wearer release the helium that has seeped into the watch so the case won't explode as the watch and diver adjust to normal atmospheric conditions, says Peter Purtschert, technical director at Breitling USA.

Keep in mind that the depth specified on the watch dial represents the results of tests done in the lab, not in the ocean.