My first impression review on the Ruhla NVA Kampfschwimmer 5-5

[lvt]

Now the crown, it was one more surprise for me. The huge 8mm crown we see, is actually a canteen crown that hides the smallest setting crown I never handled in my life. To me, this adds to the cool factor of the watch and makes it even more unique. I was really not expecting that from the first pictures I saw until I read more and found out about that characteristic. The gasket is in the canteen itself and screws down a good 4 complete turns to give the watch it's certified 200m water resistance (DIN 8310). It felt weird at first to set the time, but i got use to it quickly and it's not to hard to use despite it's tinny 4mm size. I Just have to make sure not to loose the cap since it's not attached to the watch with a chain or something else, like seen on some divers, and also an other resemblance I find with Russian designs.

Thanks for the review, it's very interesting

[Nolans]

Daniel, an impressive combination of an excellent review garnished with your normal standard of photography. Thank you, oh well, there goes another one onto the list. :)

[sharkfin]

Great review and congrats Dan.

Interesting diver, cool details, especially the canteen crown.
The bead blasting finish is so smooth, I thought at first it was titanium case, looks nice.

[jason_recliner]

One of the best reviews I have ever read. Thanks for taking what would have been a lot of time to get this done. I really appreciate your effort.

And yeah, I love this watch!

[DM71]

Lvt, Sharkfin, Nolans and Jason, I really appreciate all your comments, pretty kind from you guys. Yes it was longer to write that I thought it would be, but I had a lot of fun to do it. It's even nicer to see that you enjoyed it too! Again thanks for all your compliments! : )

[Nolans]

Jist thinking, such a great name, makes the watch even cooler.

[DM71]

Just a little update on the watch, it's been over 4 months that I have it now, and I have to say that I still like the watch as much today as i did when I first purchased it. The time keeping as been surprisingly good on mine since the watch gained 15 seconds in the first 3 months then I adjusted the time again after another photo session, so very good in my book. I was expecting the MOVT to run slow as per the info I found on the net before my purchase, but I'm happy it's a bit fast. Everything I thought about the watch on the first week of ownership hasn't change so I think I made a good move : )

[tdebug]

I purchased the Ruhla NVA quite recently and had to send it to service already. The quality is just awful! My NVA watch got loose screwbars. But even more negative experience is about how Ruhla service tried to fix the watch.
Take a look at the picture and you will understand me. Those are Ruhla NVA screwbars, with destroyed thread. That is how official ruhla service tried to fix the problem. The problem of loose screwbars is of course not fixed, but on top of that watch got few more scratches on the lugs and destroyed screwbars!

Still can't believe that limited edition, collectors watch has that awful quality and that terrible service. The watch price is about 300EUR. But you really can find much better quality in under 50EUR Chinese watch!!!

Avoid at all cost, that's the summary Or buy it at you own risk.

[DM71]

I purchased the Ruhla NVA quite recently and had to send it to service already. The quality is just awful! My NVA watch got loose screwbars. But even more negative experience is about how Ruhla service tried to fix the watch.
Take a look at the picture and you will understand me. Those are Ruhla NVA screwbars, with destroyed thread. That is how official ruhla service tried to fix the problem. The problem of loose screwbars is of course not fixed, but on top of that watch got few more scratches on the lugs and destroyed screwbars!

Still can't believe that limited edition, collectors watch has that awful quality and that terrible service. The watch price is about 300EUR. But you really can find much better quality in under 50EUR Chinese watch!!!

Avoid at all cost, that's the summary Or buy it at you own risk.

Wow! That looks really bad indeed. It's a shame to see a service center doing that kind of job on any watch IMO.

After almost a year, mine as been flawless and it still keeps very good time. I know by experience that it can be very easy to cross thread those little screws, so maybe yours were badly install when first assembled? So no experience with the service center yet. Unfortunately, I've read stories like that for about all brands you can find on the market. I do not agree with the fact that the watch is of bad quality though, but that's my opinion and it's as good as yours, I guess.

At the same time, I read the three posts you have made on WUS so far, you really look like an unlucky guy with watches. You got problems with ETA movements which was your first experience with Swiss watches and a German movements or watch, since I do not know exactly what was the problem with your watch, was it only the screw bars? Because if that's the only problem you got, then not much to scream about IMO. And I would not judge the quality of a watch by the way the screwed bars where installed on yours.

Anyways, seems like WUS is a good venting place for you, that's ok. Thanks for sharing your experience with your Ruhla, which is obviously very different from mine.

[tdebug]

Frankly, I didn't have a chance to check the timekeeping of NVA watch, but since it got quartz movement I don't think there is any problem about that. I agree that the watch looks like solid build and good quality. But unfortunately my NVA watch had loose screbars since the very beginning. That's for sure was (and is) factory problem as you can wind up screbars with a screw driver freely and nothing happens.
And the Ruhla service experience.. just decided to warn everybody what kind of "quality service" Ruhla provide. Really didn't want to insult anybody, but that was just my story.
Yes, the watch so far seems to have only screwbars problem (which is, in my opinion rather problem with thread in the lugs, than just broken screwbars). But I don't think this is small thing which you can forget. Watch body is still quite important, especially in case of military/dive watch. And in the end, you just cannot use watch with the problem like that. So...

Yeah, I definitely wasn't lucky with my last two watches, which are Ruhla NVA and ETA movement watch. But in case of "ETA watch" I don't want to share the watch brand name as that is still great watch of a very good quality. And accuracy problem, I still hope, can be fixed with just proper regulation. Kinda pity, of course, that happened with my first swiss mechanical watch. So maybe I'm indeed not the most lucky watch lover these days :-D But in the other hand, I have number of other watches too and I can't recall that any serious problem ever happend.