zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

1)OK,Georges, the only way I can reply here and
not be exceedingly confrontational is if I
put the title of your message in front of
most of your comments...

2)Because, if I don't proceed the part starting
with " Omega " with " my personal thoughts " I am not certain if any one can say that.
It certainly seems that Omega is having more
than their share of quality control issues and spates of problems with movements than other brands are. I'll be upfront and open that I don't follow quite a few of the brands that Omega competes with as closely as I follow developments at Omega, and TAG-Heuer. However, if Breitling, or Zenith or Rolex was having a slew of problems with their watches, I'd fully
expect the apologist/propaganda society of
the c.33xx to point them out to me with
glee.I suspect the problems may be interrelated and an outside cause partially to blame. It
seems to me that when Omega first introduced
the Co-Axial's they did a smart thing: They
released a very limited number of them
(three limited editions of less than 500
pieces in each of three case materials) and
they waited to see how they faired before
releasing any further models. As we know,
nearly all of these watches needed to be
returned for servicing very early because of
problems. The Co-Axials were supposed to
have much lower friction with it's
escapement, meaning longer service intervals
and enhanced accuracy. What apparently
happened was the first batch of Co-Axials
actually had too much lubrication on the
escapement and needed remediation.So suffice it to say, Omega is learning as it goes with the Co-Axial's. What has resulted is a history of hopes, expectations and revised reality about the service intervals for the Co-Axials. Much of this is because of a couple of factors:
a) The Co-Axial Escapement was never offered in any significant numbers prior to Omega's
Involvement. George Daniels offered extremely low production runs (certainly under 100 and I believe under 50) of this escapement.
b) No one else has the rights to produce this
movement (other than Daniels or people whom
he grants permission).
c) Patents have a limited lifespan. It'll only
be a matter of time before everyone will be
able to offer Co-Axial's once the patents
expire, as happened to Rolex/Wilsdorf (Which
was why we had Bumper automatics for many
years).
Thus there was a certain amount of pressure
for the Co-Axials to be ramped up in as
quick a fashion as possible and that is a
diffcult thing to reconsile with nailing
down all of the specifics with the Co-Axial
movement.

3)I have my own pet theory about why Omega is
having all of the QualityControl/Movement/Communications issues...
And this brings me back to why I have to
include " my personal thoughts "
in front of so many of your comments... My
own pet theory is that the biggest cause of
the issues that Omega is suffering is either
pressure or management's inability to deal
with said pressure. I believe that Omega is
being pressured, either by it's existing
mangement or by Swatch or by the Hayek's to
move faster than it can make these moves
while still maintaining proper testing,
quality control and communications. I feel
that Omega is being pressured to "move
upscale" and to "beat Rolex".
Would Messers Hayek's time be better spent looking into these problems we've been following rather than jousting with Rolex and trading barbs with reporters?I don't know the answer but I think it's a good question.
My point is, I don't think we can simply say
the confusion that exists with regards to
the Co-Axial is due to marketing hype and
tests made in laboratories. It's one thing
to make a production run of 50 or 100
Co-Axial's and send that many employees home
with them and tell them not to baby the
watches, but if you're under pressure to get
the product debugged and out the door in
mass quantities at some point you have to
bite the bullet and release it out into the
wild and see if they survive.

4)(I probably should include " my personal thoughts " here too...) Perhaps that is true. But the fact is, none of us has a real good idea how long Omega was working with Mr. Daniels
on the Co-Axial before they came out with
the Co-Axial's... If the lab work was only
for a couple of months, yes, I can agree with that, but what if Omega had been working with Daniel's from 1998 through 2001? Three years... What if they'd been working on it since 1996? Five years... At some point you have to either give it a shot or move on.

And here is where I believe the pressure
comes in. It's no secret that has been
wanting to move upmarket for several years.
They want to scrap with Rolex in the worst
possible way. In my opinion pressing
products into the distribution channel
without proper Quality Control, Testing and
a support structure ready to handle the
added pressure is (sadly) going about this
in the worst possible way ! As a result we
have confusion throughout the firm as to
what the actual situation is. With the
Co-Axials, with the c.33xx's, with the
various quality control issues of dust on
dials of new watches, watches coming back
from repair with debris inside them, why
repair service is (and has been) so bloody
poor in the USA (and many other geographic
regions) and Customer Relations staff making
little sense. My response was " Oh my GOODNESS! She didn't say that did she?" Just because the friction is " practically reduced to zero " doesn't mean it is zero, and aside from the escapement, the rest of the watch is ETA. Meaning it would have to have lubrication.
It's true that many of the early Co-Axial's
needed to be returned for repair because of
too much lubrication on the escapement. But
I'm pretty sure there is at least a minimal
amount of lubrication on the escapement even
if it's just a light buff with a swab which
has a wisp/mist of oil on it or something.
It seems to me that Omega really needs to sit
down, get their act together, their stories
straight and not be saying one thing in one
communique and the opposite somewhere else.
But that is all just my opinion.The thing is, I'm just one guy, sitting at a computer near the geographic center of the North American Continent about 4,000 miles away from Switzerland, Bienne, Swatch Group and Omega. For all I know I'm really off base. I mean I see a lot of stuff on the boards. I get a lot more information in my travels on the web, and in my email box, but I'm no where near the real action. And frankly, despite the fact France and
Switzerland share a common border, I'm not
sure if you have any more of an "In" at Swatch or Omega than any of the rest of us.

5)For the movement is based on an ETA 2892-A2 movement nd that is a known solid dependable
movement. And please, Georges... We really don't need another disertation as to how much you
distain the ,,cookie-cutter, mass-produced
boring movements that aren't in-house,, ...
We understand how much you dislike ETA's.
However, ETA are a fact of life, they aren't
going to disappear anytime soon and
denouncing them the vast majority of times
you post, regardless of it ETA's are
germaine to the topic at hand get's tiresome
and depressing rather quickly. No Mas! can we give that a bit of a break?

6)First off, Omega was never a 100% manufacturer. At least not since the 1930's or 1940's... Omega has never (with the possible exception of the LCD Quartz models of the late 1970's and 1980's and prior to the 1940's) made any of it's chronographs as a 100% manufacture .
Secondly, it's not an apples and oranges
comparision to compare revolutionary Omega Calibres of the 40's, 50's, '60's and '70's with a revolutionary escapement like the Co-Axial, at least from what I've been lead to believe about the Daniel's Co-Axial escapement). What your saying is akin to saying: The Japanese Automotive industry never had the problems with it's piston engines like Mazda is having with the Wankel Rotary Engine.
It's at best an Apple and Orange comparision.
Additionally, we all can complain as much as we
ant, the days of Omega doing all of their own movements like they did before the twin Japanese and Quartz onslaught is likely over and buried, precisely because the market conditions won't support Omega being their own manufacturer and them remaining profitable. I know it's sad, disappointing and a shame, but we aren't likely to see $4,000 427ci dual-quad carb muscle cars
being sold at the local Ford, Chevy and Dodge dealers because our gas prices are closer to $3.25 a gallon in the US, vs. $0.25 a gallon and the EPA, DOT and Insurance companies won't stand for it. Again, we get you don't like the movement
Omega uses in the vast majority of their
products, but there are no economically
viable alternatives so where does constant
complaining about it get us? Nowhere and it
casts a pall over the forum.
Lastly, we didn't have the internet and instant
communications back in the day. It took
calling up the operator and having her connect you to an Overseas operator to simply phone someone. We didn't have Instant messaging, emal, on-line discussion forums back in the 50's, 60's, and '80's, we had magazines, the postal service and word of mouth at the local jewelers. So we really don't have a good handle on what problems the 100% manufacture movements had back
in the day, other than the memories of those
who've been around that long.
And aside, John Diethelm retired a couple years
back after 40 years of service to Omega, and
he started in 1962.

7)A lot of vintage movements were already in the field before John was employed as a young man. Lord knows We didn't have the record keeping facilities At our disposal back then that we do now.

8)No it isn't. Ford used to make the entire widget, now they subcontract a lot of subassemblies out, same thing at GM, Damler-Chrysler, etc.The quality of today's cars is probably better than it was when firms made the
entire widget.100% manufacture is not necessarily a Pancea to every situation...

9)SCOFF! F. Piguet? If you want to set it gently in a winder and watch it, yeah, it's an ok movement, just don't try wearing one as a sports chronograph in the real world.

10)Lemania makes some great movements, and I know you didn't forget to include Valjoux because of your dislike of Valjoux. But Valjoux made excellent chronograph movements and I have
seen no fall off in the quality, reliability
or durability of the 7750 since Valjoux was
bought by Swatch Group and folded into ETA.

11)It's my believe that many of these problems as well as the Quality Control, Communications and Customer Support issues might possibly be
more mangagerial in nature and also due to
the pressure being applied to move Omega
into a confrontation with Rolex.

12)If one was to invest $2,000 in a Speedmaster Mark IV or Speedmaster 125 in minty condition and it will have to be serviced in less than years too! And those are movement's you like!

13)Which still would have to be serviced every 3-5 years if you maintain your watches as per
recommendations.

14)Ok, Georges,We get it. You strongly distain what Omega is and wish it was what did things they way they used to. Frankly I'm less than thrilled with many aspects of the way Omega is conducting itself these days, but I understand and acknoledge that Omega could not survive in today's market environment using 50 year old movements, production facilities and business strategy. You see, I know what Heuer was in the 50's, 60's, 70's and early '80's... And I've
always said, that I'd rather have a live and
profitable TAG-Heuer than a dead and largely
forgotten Heuer. I also know that I wish
that there was a modern Gallet watch company
like either Omega, or TAG-Heuer or
Breitling... So I wouldn't have to educate
people how there was this little firm in
Switzerland called Gallet who was in the
watch business longer (by 100 years or so)
than Rolex, and Heuer and Omega that may
have made the world's first wrist
Chronograph for the British Army,used to
make watches like this:But due to the "Quartz crisis" were forced to cease operations until the firms assets were sold to a Luxury Goods firm in 1996. The new firm was renamed "Gallet Group, Inc." but it does not appear to be
offering watches currently. That could well have been Omega's fate if they had kept to the business plan that Omega nearly rode to it's demise in the early 1980's. In the 20 years between 1970 and 1990 the Swiss watch industry went from 2,000 firms producing watches to about 500. So many firms went away, Heuer was owned by
Lemania for a while and it took a Saudi to bail them out. Breitling ceased operations for at least a year. Zenith was bought by the American Zenith Electronics company and the tooling for the El-Primero was ordered to be destroyed by the new management, and it was a few long time employees who smuggled the tooling to a safe location that allowed the El-Primero to survive. They, and Omega, were the lucky ones. It wouldn't have taken to much of a nudge for all of them to have disappear, like Gallet and so many others.If you'd rather long for the days when Omega made their own non-chronograph movements, fine.

If you wish to believe that Omega could survive
in today's marketplace producting watches
the way they did when they were a 100% manufacture,that's fine too.

15)Omega had to move from the c.321 to the c.861
because Lemania couldn't make the c.321
quickly and inexpensively enough for Omega
continue to use them in the Speedmaster and
Seamasters. I really don't understand why
you seem to believe the the non-chronograph
movements wouldn't be similarly affected by
market demands. But hey, you can feel about
that as you please too@

16)I just don't think the rest of us need to hear
how Omega used to be great & now sucks,
and that ETA's and Valjoux's are crap quite
so often. Often when the topic(s) being
discussed are not really related to your
thoughts. I'm not saying you can't say those
things, I'm not saying you aren't entitled
to express your opinion, but it get's old
and tiresome quickly. I'm not saying this as
one of the principals of Chronocentric/OTD,
but rather as a fellow contributor to the
Omega community who sometimes agrees with
you and feels that you frequently bring
interesting discussion to the fore. But
going on about in-house and ETA so much and
so often is a turn-off to many people. Just
so you know. It simply detracts.

17)I hope you understand where I'm coming from.
I DO hope that Omega overcomes their current
problems. I really do. I would really really much rather be typing happier thoughts about how good Omega's products are, how good their customer support is, and how much improved their
watch servicing in the USA has become the
past few years than what's happened the past
five years (since 2001). But I really don't
think that Omega's dropping production of
their own movements 20 plus years ago are
the cause of their current woes, but rather
a myriad of other factors (of which I only
described the tip of the iceberg) and
pressures that need to be dealt with better
than they have been done the past five
years.

1) being honest and direct is the best thing to do even if we often disagree

2)Those quality control issues were unexisting before hayek took control of Omega and merged the SSIH and the ASUAG to form the Swatch Group and also appeared with revolutionnary new movements like the 33xx and 36xx.The fact is that those movements aren't modified by Omega themselves but by Piguet for Omega in this case isn't the best thing.Agreed for teh rest part on the coax.

3)The thing is that by trying to beat Rolex rather than solving issues on movements or improving their after sales-customer service Omega didn't pay attention to those and rather focused itself to launch new models with defective movements with the 33xx or 36xx as well as not provide to Omega New Jersey a qualified and experimented personnel when it comes to service and repair watches not some n00bs or unqualified personnel. I can't say that RSC in Dallas or NY is great but Rolex makes very durable and very accurate movements.

4)Why would I risk money on something that was never proven or tested in real conditions over the years for then having returning constantly for repairs? To please the firm maybe? No way. A firm has to be responsible for what it says and back up its claims before saying that thing is that great when it is not.

5)The 2892-a2 is one of the thinnest movements of its category, it was based on the eterna matic 3000 built in 1975. In the 70's and even in the early 80's, it was never regarded as a high grade movement and it was never able to compete with Omega cal 1000, 1010, 1020 (all fast beat inhouse Omega movements) and Rolex 3035 in terms of quality, finish and reliability. I was told that by several watchmakers not by one.
When many firms stopped to manufacture their own movements they chose that movement as an economic alternative for having cosc graded watches, they chose the eta 2892-2 for this task. If I go into detail while we are it, the ball bearing winding system of the 2892-2 is far less robust than the jeweled pivot winding system found in the rolex or in the vintage omega movements. You also didn't mention the precision regulating of the Eta 2892-2 which is the etachron, is not the best regulating and adjusting precision system compared to a microstella or a triovis regulation precision system. I never said the 2892-2 was bad simply that it wasn't something excellent.

6)Disagree, Omega started its handwound movements in the first 1890's if not before. Omega never subcontracted its handwound or selfwinding movements prior to 1984, all of those were strictly inhouse movements. The chronographs are another chapter. Omega was working with Lemania in the early 20's and merged with Tissot and Lemania to form the SSIH in 1932, Omega sold Lemania to Heuer in 1984. Heuer sold Lemania in 1989 to a saudi fund company who resold the Lemania Lugrin watch company to Breguet in 1999. Omega was always closely associated to the name Lemania, Lemania has played an enormous role to build the reputation of Omega in terms of Chronopraphs.Good comparison with the automobile chuck, you see some of tehse old cars still going and going strong as compared to the new cars who use more plastic more electronics and who aren't more solid or more reliable. I would rather have a lincoln town car from the mid 70's with a 460ci or a 1970 cadillac eldorado with a 500ci engine than any modern car. Both are easy to fix engines and very reliable too, I am not also mentionning than the turbo hydramatic 400 or the lincoln twin dual range (ford c6) are heavy duty gear boxes made to last a lifetime. Perhaps in the past there weren't internet,instant messaging and other things but people were more paying attention to their customers and there was a real human contact something which is far rarer than before.

7) ok no disagreement

8) cadillac makes its own engine the northstar since 1991 still considered as one of the very best engines produced in the world, chevy makes the ls7 also one of the best engines made in the world and also cadillac is planning to make its own v12.chrysler relaunched it so called hemi which isn't hemi but a motor with polyspherical heads. The other firms subcontract we agree.

9)You also didn't mention the Piguet 1150, a movement of almost the same dimensions than the 2892-2 introduced in 1988 with a 72 and also 100 power reserve capacity found in Blancpains and Breguet which is also found in the Omega Cosmic moonphase reedition model. Just this small parenthesis while we are talking about movements.

10)I have nothing agaisnt valjoux so you are wrong again. I just don't like the finish and the fact that the spare parts are a pain in the ass to find are also braking me to buy one valjoux 72. The venus 178 and the excelsior park movements are something I appreciate but spare parts are rare if non existant it makes restoration costs and service costs much higher. The 7750 isn't a bad movement but I find it less mooth to activate as compared to the 5100 or the 1040 it also has less power reserve plus I am not a fan of the 7750 dial configuration.

11) no disagreement here

12) no disagreement here

13)I know some people who never serviced their subs since ten years or their old connies with cal 1011 and the fact is taht they still work perfect. It does confirm that some movements need too much tlc.

14)Good analysis Chuck,I have to agree wit hit. However introducing a new movement is one thing but claiming they are reliable when they aren't (case of the 33xx) is another. Having uncompetent watchmakers in watch service centres and having a watch which is badly serviced is also unadmissible.I am very demanding when it comes to after sales services and reliability of a product. You may call me "old fashioned" in terms of buying but that is what I am. When I buy a watch over $2000 or 2000€, I expect a 5 stars flawless after sales service

15)the 861 is always good in my book so no worries

16)I never said Omega sucked simply that it was mismanaged,that is a big difference. Omega does have some strong models like the speedy pro, the triple date speedies. The fact that there were are so many problems ongoing with the 33xx and also some of the 1120s stopping aren't good signs either. I am not even mentioning the quality of the customer service in New Jersey.The too repetitive problems, the badly serviced watches and the wrong claims about the coaxial aren't really helping Omega today and aren't forgiving from a customer standpoint for a such prestigious brand. When you pay high bucks for a watch you are in the whole right to demand a 5 stars flawless customer service and watch.

17)I always appreciated your honesty and frankness. Also I must state that we can't agree on everything but we nevertheless do agree on some points ;) I am however someone realistic and it will go completely against my honesty to saying something is good when it is not the case or when it is subject to too many problems.It is good to be optimistic but I prevail realism over optimism.Just my 2 cents.

regards and have a great week end

georges