WATCH POP

Hi All,

I am now on my 2nd PO. (The first was replaced when it filled with condensation - BTW Omega claimed there was nothing wrong with the original one, and my AD said Omega were going to polish it up and re-sell it as new!!!!...). Anyway, this 2nd one has been with me for a month now, and has been regularly gaining 4-6 sec per day.

Last night however, I re-set it against the atomic clock, and by this morning it had lost over 5 minutes, (I set all my other watches at the same time, and they have all kept good time overnight - so it's definitely a problem with the PO).

I wear this watch everyday,so it should be fully wound up. Any advice as to what could cause this? It wasn't subjected to any trauma at all, and has come completely out of the blue...

Hope you can suggest some ideas. I'm going to check it closely over the next couple of days, and see what happens. Can you tell me, are automatic watches prone to throwing the odd tantrum like this, or should I be concerned?

Cheers,

Andrew. 2006 Omega Planet Ocean 2208.50.00 - 1997 Breitling Pluton - 2005 Citizen Nighthawk Titanium - 1997 Citizen Aqualand Duplex I've had mine for over a year now and if I wear it everyday it's within +3 daily sometimes better, it settled in after 2 or 3 weeks but within that time it was never over +6 which is certainly well within COSC specs. It does seem to be a watch that gets better if worn daily, try setting the watch in different positions at night crown up, crown down I've seen some posts that guys have indicated they have noticed a slight difference on nightime storage. I've also never noticed any problems with any of the sluggish timekeeping on any of my automatic watches Omega or not. I seriously doubt your AD's comment that Omega will just polish your previous watch up and resell it. Another thing I happened to think of is make sure to hand wind (40-45 turns) the watch to the full power reserve sometimes depending on how much activity you have daily they sometimes don't fully wind just by wearing them. After that daily wearing should keep the reserve on full. I wasn't there when you set your PO but on occasion I have "mis set" a watch by five minutes by being in a hurry or careless. As this is a "one time" event, keep an eye on it and see if it does it again. Watches don't fix themselves so if it doesn't happen again, I'd suggest you just set it to the wrong time. A misconception of automatic watches is that the winding mechanism replaces the need to wind the watch. It doesn't - all it is really meant to do is to maintain the power reserve. Of course it all depends on how much you move your wrist when you wear it - if you are sitting at a desk all day, the power reserve will obvioulsy decrease as you are not moving your wrist enough.
So, just wearing an automatic watch is not enough to keep it powered up - you have to physically wind the crown every once in a while.
Omega f300 Tuning Fork, Omega Speedmaster Professional "Snoopy Award" Limited Edition 3578.51.00, Porsche Design by IWC 3702, Omega Seamaster CK 2518 (c. 343), Breitling SuperOcean Steelfish A17360 I am sorry, once you get an automatic watch started by hand winding it, they should be able to maintain themselves indefinitely while on the wrist. At least all my auto watches do this.

No need to hand wind it.

Some low-end Seiko's (notably the orange monster) don't even hand wind.
Time Report I also got my PO for a month now. In the first week, it was fast by 8 sec/day no matter dial up/down, crown up/down on resting; but was 4-5 sec fast each day on wrist.

I guess you need to ensure the watch is fully wound in the first place. I did not give it a full manual wind when taken it from the box and worn it the first week. After that, I fully wound it when setting the time and it's been consistent since then, now it is 3-4 sec fast each day no matter what position is day or night, very consistent.

I'm also envied that other owners reported the accuracy as 3-5 sec per week or month. Is it real?

Another thing to note is the consistency among different positons. In contrast to many comments, the rate does not vary on how it is positioned. on the amount of activity of the user. If you do not move around enough the watch may not always be sufficiently wound for best accuracy. If you are really inert it may stop.

If one is going to do timing tests then you have to assure that the watch is fully wound for best performance. The simplest way to do this is to manually wind the watch first before embarking on your testing.

You are correct in that, for a normally active person, an automatic watch should be able to keep itself near or at a fully wound state. The point I was trying to make is that by just wearing an automatic watch is not enough to keep it fully wound - it is the wrist motion that keeps it wound. In your case, your wrist action may keep the power reserve at or near 100%, but for you to assume that would be the case for everybody is simply wrong.
Omega f300 Tuning Fork, Omega Speedmaster Professional "Snoopy Award" Limited Edition 3578.51.00, Porsche Design by IWC 3702, Omega Seamaster CK 2518 (c. 343), Breitling SuperOcean Steelfish A17360 I think many of us here can tell of at least one personal incident of waking up freaked out to see our watch was 5 minutes (!!!) off. Surprisingly easy mistake to make, and I've even caught myself *almost* doing it a few times since the time I *actually* did it. Vita somnium breve. So,

It seems I may have been a bit of a tit!! Since the fated day, it has gained approx 5sec/day, so is back to where we were before!

Thanks for your help.

PS - Callawayyyy - My AD had no reason to lie to me about Omega re-selling the watch, indeed it would have been better to keep that piece of info to himself, as I was disgusted by it. Yet he felt it was perfectly okay, as they had tested the watch and found no problems with it. Wish I still had the serial no. so I could warn others about it....

Cheers,

Andrew. 2006 Omega Planet Ocean 2208.50.00 - 1997 Breitling Pluton - 2005 Citizen Nighthawk Titanium - 1997 Citizen Aqualand Duplex