zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

some thoughts Posted By: georges zaslavsky Date: 7/30/06 06:13 GMT

In Response To: An email from Time Flies on his c.3303 failing... (Chicagoland Chuck Maddox)

Well, it seems that Omega didn't do nothing in order to improve the 33xx reliability.

Well, I wouldn't go quite that far...

Omega has done more than nothing in order to improve the 33xx's reliability, it's just what Omega/Piguet/Swatch has done does not appear to be especially effective in eliminating all of the problems asssociated with the c.33xx series of movements. The extent of the retro fit parts program's ability to address the issues that have been reported by owners of these movements is certainly debatable. A debate that really has no way of being settled as only Omega/Piguet/Swatch has any solid numbers as to the failures of them.

As I said before I am starting to doubt they made any serious modifications to eradicate these chronographs problems from a complete and definitive manner like Rolex did with the 4130 in the very early dayto models in 2001.

I said early on in the life of these movements that Omega needed to do more, especially for owners who had the pre-retrofit parts, to bring these models closer to the level of reliability that Omega is known for. But aside from the fixes that Shaun Thornton detailed a couple of years back, Omega hasn't done much of anything. Including not replacing all of the pre-retro parts in watches sent in for repair. In other words, if a watch has one of the identified maladies, Omega only fixes what's wrong, it does nothing about the other known problems and problematic parts.

An appalling policy for a firm of Omega's stature and previous reputation.

The problem is the management who is very much into marketing rather more than taking care of its customer and providing them a perfect flawless product.

I've called this an "An [¿over?] emphasis on Omega's next customer at the expense of Omega's existing customers. It seems to me that Omega is paying a disproportionate amount of time, effort and attention to wooing new customers or purchasers of their new models at the expense of keeping their existing customers satisfied enough to remain and repeat as customers."

Management at Omega thinks about new models with a movement that is not tested and made for use in rough conditions. Hayek decided to marry Omega with Piguet which was known for making high end movements but certainly not the most robust movements.

The entire arrangement smacks of shotgun-wedding:

[from left: Hayek/Swatch Group, Omega customers (in white dress), and Piguet (in white hat)... Omega customers must be in the white dress as they are the one's most likely to get, well, sç®ëwéd as a result of this arrangement...]

Omega/Piguet is like breaking up a 75 year happy marriage between Lemania and Omega. I don't know if Swatch group forced Omega to work with Piguet or they were willing accompliaces. But as Bas Van Dorp so elegantly put it, only those responible for the demise of the Lemania 5100 will beat those responsible for the c.33xx's being lined up "against the wall when the revolution comes"...

The lack of qualified personnel at the assembly plant or at piguet when it comes to manufacture is more than certainly responsible of this embarassing situation.

I can't conclude anything of the sort... I feel that the identified issues with the c.33xx movement itself could just as easily have a design, engineering or materials ( or combination ) root cause that is only exasberated by assembly/quality control/quality assurance issues.

In fact, that Omega has retrofit parts at all suggests a design, engineering and/or material element to cause the situation that can't at this time be ruled out.

Add also the Omega Watches Organization whose quality of service went down.

Well, we certainly hear more reports of dust specks on dials in new watches on dealer's shelves, Omega blaming small shavings getting into watches just prior to the caseback being affixed, etc. than we did previously.

regards

georges

Likewise, Georges...

-- Chuck