Ha! Andy, I think you've flagged up what may well be one of the issues. And it could be to do with the production date of the item. I bought the unit that failed from Sports Direct, via Amazon. After reading yr post I compared the serial numbers of the original and the replacement. And there's a massive difference. The Vector was first introduced in 1998, and by extrapolating the numbers it could well be that my failed unit that shipped to the UK retailor was manufactured some seven or eight years ago.

Whilst this would have nothing to do with the mechanical fault that I experienced, a long storage time under unknown conditions might have caused the condensation you encountered? When Suunto spoke with Cotswold and said "I couldn't possibly have bought it when I did as it was far too old." then I guess this goes some way to validating my theory. Possibly they bought in a quantity in the last century (keep up at the back there . . . )

I had an Altimax - bought in Benasque in '99 - with absolutely no probs, Rock steady.

A plastic strap perishing after 198 months - 16.5 years - is OK in my book. Only kidding . . .

And, as you all can see, I have nothing better to do whilst waiting on the draw than write this nonsense! Good luck to all entrants! I understand that the Koor-In8-OR is building an extension to store vast quantities of Ardbeg as we speak. The security code I had to type in to send this was "AGE8" which is about right, I guess.