Seiko UK and many independant (that are here on forum) will repair this,no need for sending it home.
I have a 1988 Tuna which has a small issue with the crown. It does not pop out when unscrewed, and after setting (time, day, date etc.) when pressed in does not immediately re-engage, but can take two applications of pressure before the hacked movement restarts. This sounds as though it may be a problem with any spring-loaded feature that the crown may have (as I don't have anything to compare it to, I don't even know if the crown is spring-loaded!). Could anyone advise me please? And, as I have a feeling that Tunas have to go 'home' to Japan for service/battery change/work, is there anywhere in UK that could deal with this for me?
Seiko UK and many independant (that are here on forum) will repair this,no need for sending it home.
I own a SBBN007 (my second one, actually) and I can confirm that the expected behavior is not what you're seeing with you're watch. That said, I think that every serious watchmaker who knows Seiko and diver's watch in general can service your watch without problems, as it has a normal caseback and it's not a monocoque watch. I can't speak for UK but here in Italy I have mine serviced by my usual watchmaker.
The crown/stem on my '07 sbbn007 also doesn't pop out when unscrewed and I'm pretty sure that a weak spring, which is part of the stem, causes this. Like igorRIJEKA and fmc000 already said, this issue can be solved easily by any watchmaker with access to the parts as well as your local Seiko Service Center.
I'm living in Germany and I'll have this fixed by Seiko Germany next time when a battery replacement is due. Since a couple of my Seiko Tuna's have been serviced by Seiko UK, I'm pretty sure that they are able to fix this as well.
Thanks for the advice everyone - at least I now know what the problem is likely to be. As it doesn't really affect the operation of the watch, I'll wait for the next battery change (or if it gets any worse) and try to get it sorted out then. Thanks again.