zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

: Hello,

: In the near future I'm hoping to purchase a
: DeVille Prestige automatic with the Omega
: 1120 movement. Recently in the forums there
: were a few people who had problems with
: their Omegas containing 1120
: movements--namely, the watches either
: suddenly stopped, or after winding the watch
: it was difficult to get it started up again.
: At least a couple watches were sent in for
: service because of the problem(s).

: I'm wondering if there have been continued
: problems with the 1120 or if these were
: perhaps isolated incidents?. I know it's
: been in production for about ten years. Is
: the 1120 cal. a reliable movement? I'd
: appreciate any feedback.

Hi Randy,

The answer to your question is that the sudden stop and failure to wind problems were real, but we have no idea whether anything has been done to correct the problems. I have owned 15 current Omega models over the years, and two of them went back to Omega for warranty repair because they failed to start after winding. One was an 1120 Seamaster, and the other was a DeVille co-axial Power Reserve model. Both are based on the ETA 2892-A2 movement.

In retrospect, it wasn't a very good statistic that one out of every 7.5 Omegas I owned had to be sent back for warranty repair. You would think that these several thousand dollar watches would be better than this. However, in both cases the service center in New Jersey simply did a complete servicing on the watch rather than investigate the cause of the problem. So, to this day I have no idea what caused the problems to either of my two watches.

By contrast, I have a Bond SMP with an 1120 movement that has run superbly for me, and it is now nearly four years old. Also, given that there are a lot of other very happy 1120 owners out there, I'm sure that this is not a problem with the majority of 1120 movements. It is possible that you could end up with a lemon, but we have no data from Omega on this issue to tell us whether the problems have been fixed once and for all. The good news is that, in both cases, a full servicing did correct my watches' problems, so if you do end up with a lemon you can have it repaired under warranty. Both of my problems were noted very early on (within the first couple of months after purchase).

I wish I could give you a more definitive answer, but since we have no information on this issue from Omega, I can only speak from personal experience.

Best of luck in your decision,
John