Watch repair

Jamie2409

Looking for a little advice. I have an omega seamaster Aqua terra. The battery recently died so I took it to goldsmiths (where it was purchased). Quoted 25 for a battery or 95 for battery and re-seal. When I collected the watch after the battery had been fitted, I was told the date was not working and would need a full service to fix this. (£300+) I didn't take them up on the service and thought I'd get a second opinion at a local jeweller. Before he even touched the watch he guessed that the wrong battery may have been installed. He the confirmed this when he checked, he then fitted the correct battery and everything started working fine again. I then took it back to goldsmiths, who then said the battery had nothing to do with the date? (Couldn't tell you as I don't know anything about watches) but regardless of this how come the date is now mysteriously working again?



Some me help would be great.

pendragon_arther

Out Goldbergs on your blacklist.

oldoakey

Take the watch back to the original jewelers with both the new battery and the old one and ask them to swap it over to see if one works and the other doesn't.

Joe_Horner

Jamie2409 wrote: »

Looking for a little advice. I have an omega seamaster Aqua terra. The battery recently died so I took it to goldsmiths (where it was purchased). Quoted 25 for a battery or 95 for battery and re-seal. When I collected the watch after the battery had been fitted, I was told the date was not working and would need a full service to fix this. (£300+) I didn't take them up on the service and thought I'd get a second opinion at a local jeweller. Before he even touched the watch he guessed that the wrong battery may have been installed. He the confirmed this when he checked, he then fitted the correct battery and everything started working fine again. I then took it back to goldsmiths, who then said the battery had nothing to do with the date? (Couldn't tell you as I don't know anything about watches) but regardless of this how come the date is now mysteriously working again?



Some me help would be great.

Your local watchmaker is absolutely right, Goldsmiths are talking out of their less than competent rear ends.

The date is displayed by a thin disk sitting under the dial, with just enough clearance to allow it to move. The "wrong battery" will have been to thick.

te Omega 4564 movement that your watch has should use a 373 / SR916SW cell which is 9.5mm diameter and 1.6mm high. But it's a relatively uncommon cell that not everywhere stocks.

The 371 / SR921SW (9.5 x 2.1mm) is a very popular size and goldsmiths will have fitted one of those instead, probably because they had it to hand and thought it was "near enough".

The problem is that, because it's higher by 0.5mm, when the watch back is fitted the battery is forced against the front plate of the movement and distorts it. That removes the clearance for the date disk and prevents it turning.

You're quite lucky that they didn't damage the date function by trying to set it with the wrong cell fitted. You'd also usually find that the watch stopped intermittently between about 8:30pm and midnight as it tried to force the jammed date disk to turn.

If it's now working correctly again (check it through all days of the month in case one tooth has been damaged) then no harm done, but remember for next time!

Sadly, that's the level of (in)competence that you can expect from a large number of authorised dealers. No matter how shiny their shops are, they're only glorified resellers, after all, and Swatch Group (the owners of Omega etc) have no incentive to improve things because they get to charge for the resultant repairs.

Things will only get worse over time as Swatch Group are withdrawing parts supply from all independents from the end of this year in an effort to force owners to use their AD network.

Fair play to your local repairer, btw, for (a) spotting the problem and (b) sorting it honestly without offering to "repair" it cheaper than Omega for a non-existent fault



ps: in case you're wondering, I'm a self-employed watchmaker with 20-odd years experience so I'm posting with reasonable authority on this

DandelionPatrol

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Things will only get worse over time as Swatch Group are withdrawing parts supply from all independents from the end of this year in an effort to force owners to use their AD network.

That's the end of me buying Swatch, then.

Joe_Horner

DandelionPatrol wrote: »

That's the end of me buying Swatch, then.

That's the way to go. Europe in their wisdom have decided that it's not anti-competetive and will somehow actually benefit the consumer to have no choice but dealer repairs.

Curious that, seeing as it's apparently beneficial, the brands involved (Omega, Tissot, Longines, Breitling etc) are keeping very quiet indeed about it at the point of sale.

The only real chance of it changing is for potential customers to vote with their feet / wallets. Sadly, independents are (by their nature) independent so getting word out there to consumers is a struggle to say the least!