zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

: That's one of the reasons I'm hesitent on
: buying a SMP again. Omega keeps changing
: models out, so down the road, vintage parts
: get more difficult to come by.

That is just personal conjecture -- a form of misinformation that is a common result of people with insufficient information GUESSING at possible problems based on shallow analyses of superficial knowledge. I spend a lot of my time fighting just this kind of misinformation. People 'deduce' possible problems, then state them as fact, others read it and take it as fact. But such information is often misleading if not downright incorrect.

Fact is, OMEGA keeps an excellent supply of replacement parts. This is particularly easy as they share cases, movements and bracelets across multipe models, so the range of parts needed to fix current models 20 years in the future will be far better than the inventory available now to fix watches from 20 years ago.

: Rolex puts new movements into watches without
: drastically changing models, why can't

That's a further misconception. Even Rolex makes subtle changes to cases, crystals, bracelets and other pieces that prevent parts from being interchangable across many model years. So it is false thinking that not 'drastically changing' the overall appearance for several decades means greater availability of replacement parts.

I don't expect any problems with getting parts in the future for watches bought today of either brand to be an issue. Certainly there is no evidence that either OMEGA or ROLEX are better or worse prepared to meet parts needs in decades to come.

: it may be boring to some, but that's part of
: why Rolex has a following.

It is also why Rolex has some damn good competition from brands like OMEGA that are not so heavily stuck relying on design successes from decades ago as the best they have to offer today.

Just like they said in the old car rental ads: "We're #2, so we try harder!"