zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

I see this all the time. People spending more money on a watch than they ever have before sometimes become extremely hypersensitive to details. This causes people to unnecessarily stress or fret over issues of anything that can possibly be perceived as imperfect on the watch they are buying.

Unfortunately, just because watch dealers may have decades of experience *selling* watches does not mean they understand the mechanical nature, tolerances, and operational issues with all of them. As you pointed out, by reading the zOwie FAQs, you knew a lot that they didn't!

Here's the real story -- which would have made you leave a happy customer from their shop if only they had known this to tell you:

A barely perceptible alignment difference (1 or 2 hundredths of an inch) between the bezel and dial markings is normal. Same thing with the stopping points of the hands on the quartz models possibly being perceptibly imperfect in alignment with the dial markings.

These are not defects or imperfections! In both cases, these are moving parts (hands, rotating bezel), whose exact stopping positions are controlled by mechanical parts (springs, gears, and ratchets). These mechanisms will settle in over time and with use. So the exact positioning of the stop points may shift +/- by 1 or 2 hundredths of an inch over time.

In the specific case of the bezel, believe Omega intentionally sets it a small fraction of an inch off to compensate for how the mechanism the settles in from use.

So there is nothing wrong with your watch! You merely perceived a detail far below most people's level of perception. Since this is an uncommon question for the average dealer -- they had no idea what to tell you.

Far from being an arse, the dealer appears to have been quite accommodating by ordering a replacement over an issue that they could only barely perceive.

: on each side...but do you need that one half
: link right next to the clasp or can you just
: have a full link connected to the clasp?

The half links are not needed. Yes, you can connect the full link directly to the clasp.