Hi all

I purchased a used PO8500 last week with all documentation and such. After I received it I went to the Omega boutique to have them to do the complimentary timekeeping and pressure tests. Results are below. In short they said the watch is functioning very well in terms of accuracy, beats per second, and passing the pressure test.

The following night I figured I would light up the watch to see the lume. Much to my surprise I noticed two flaws. First, there seems to be a flaw in the middle of the minute hand where there isn't any lume. Second, if you see closely, the 11 o'clock marker is slightly distorted. It has lume but there are some spots where it's lacking. The pictures may not show this too well, but it's there and it's evident.

I'm worried that there was previous water damage. Being that the boutique did the basic tests and they said it was running great, what should I make of that? If there was water damage would it have still done well in these tests?

Is it possible that there is no water damage and this is a factory flaw? If it's a factory flaw I'd be ok to accept it and move on.

Really seeking your input here. I wish I raised this issue with the Boutique buy it just didn't know about it until after

 

I really doubt that's water damage. If there's anything amiss, I'd guess the former owner spent some time in the sun and the lume is *just* starting to age a bit. Nothing to be concerned about in my opinion.

 

I understand your concern, as it's a new watch to you, but I wouldn't be too concerned about it. Nice watch btw, congrats.

 

What makes you believe it's not water damage?

 

I think a more pertinent question would be, what makes you think it is water damage.
I don't see anything wrong. Water intrusion would show on the dial lume before the hands.

 

I did state that the 10 and 11oclock markers have some imperfections as well as the minutes hand. When I googled "omega water damage" a few results popped up referring to the lume being affected, so that's why I think it could be water damage.

In any case, I went back to the Omega boutique this morning and expressed my concerns. They don't have a watchmaker on site so they agreed to send it to the service center for an evaluation. But they said in their opinion it's not a case of water damage. I guess I'll know for sure what the deal is

 

Worst case scenario it is water damage, would it be something that the Omega Service Center could fix and bring back to new, cost aside? What I'm asking is basically is there anything that cannot be fixed/replaced when there's water damage?

@Archer have you dealt with any water damaged watches before? Any insight in this one?

 

Not quite catching the 2nd part of your statement, although I agree with the first. I'm fine with imperfections as long as they don't compromise anything. The watch isn't really new...it's from May 2014

 

Ok, understood. I'm not saying that the water protection failed. Rather I'm concerned the previous owner or one of the previous owners mistakenly took a swim with the crown or HE valve opened or slightly opened.

 

Looks fine to me. I'd assume it's just natural variation from the factory.

 

Well... the people over at the boutique were adamant that it didn't come like that from the factory and that it's just wear. But these were the people over at customer service using a loupe, not a watchmaker. Should hear something back from the service center by the end of the week hopefully

 

Probably just wear them.

You seem to have convinced yourself that's it's water damage though. It's a new watch so every part will almost certainly be available to restore it if there is any damage.

I do you your getting concerned about nothing though.