Hi There. New member. Here.

When I did my re-search and purchased the Planet Ocean 8500. Most of the reviews suggested that the watch won’t need servicing for 7 to 10 years. Mine stopped dead after 3, should I be concerned? Here is the work order completed from Omega I would appreciate anyone else’s thoughts and experiences.

 

Full factory service under the warranty. If it seems to be running fine now I would be pretty happy about that.

 

Would you be concerned if your radio broke in a 3 year old car still under warranty and the car is not known for it to happen? And it was fixed at no cost to you?

 

Yay! I get to say this again!

Shit happens, and this time shit happened to you. Nothing is perfect and there's a small percentage of error to anything done by humans. If perfection in manufacturing existed, warranties wouldn't.

 

Sounds like a dog toy to me.

 

Wow, that's a long finger.

 

Im not absolutely sure its an issue, you get the wear a watch for 3 years then get a full service free of charge. I would take that, essentially a brand new watch after 3 years...good going.

 

I am simply out here to find out if anyone else owning the same watch had similar experience. I expect to pay for maintanace as it is a mechanical watch and that’s why I purchased it. It simply happened a lot sooner than expected.

 

The expectation that the watch would go 10 years before service is probably a bit much. I don't believe Omega makes that claim, so I would take what others write with a grain of salt.

The 8500 series has a few known problems that have come up over the years, and those problems lead to upgraded/revised parts for the movement. Depending on when exactly the watch was made, it could be that your watch had one of the problem parts inside and was made before the upgraded parts were used.

Did they send you the old parts back? If so, we may be able to determine some thing from those parts - specifically the mainspring barrels.

Cheers, Al

 

Thanx. Al.
They did not give me the old parts except for a helium valve and the seal. The only info I received was the invoice that itemized what was fixed and replaced. The image that I attached. I was hoping someone out there could glean more info out of the invoice than me.

Cheers,

Jan

 

That’s strange that the Omega SC didn’t ship you all of the old parts that were replaced. I’ve got my SMP serviced back in 2015 or 2016 and received every part that was replaced. I thought sending old parts back was SOP for Omega unlike Rolex who doesn’t let anything back into circulation.

 

If you pay for the service they will ship the parts back - if it's a warranty repair they don't always do so.

As you can see here, in this case Omega sent the parts back, and the watch owner sent them to me for review:

https://omegaforums.net/threads/a-look-at-some-defective-parts.62631/#post-784069

But that doesn't always happen. I thought in this case it might be the DLC barrel problem, but without the old barrels to see I can't say for sure.

 

I looked up the DLC barrel issues. Could I assume that Omega would replace all the questionable parts in the service they just did to my 8500 ?

Jan

 

Keeping it simple.

1- no, it’s not normal for the watch to stop working after 3 years. That’s why they fixed it under warranty
2- this has nothing to do with shorter service cycle or normal wear. A watch in need of service underperforms, it doesn’t stop working. A broken watch stops working.
3- I get the curiosity about what happened. I for one don’t know enough about a watch movement to really understand what went wrong, so I just have them fixed and move on.
4- you did not get a NEW watch after 3 years. It’s the same watch with the broken parts replaced. That’s like thinking you have a new car after service.

Lastly, nice watch!

 

Regarding movement upgrades in general, most people (even some watchmakers) don't realize this is an ongoing process. It happens across brands, so this is not specific just to Omega.

Omega creates lists and procedures for specific parts that need to be replaced - these are mandatory replacements if they appear to need it or not. Any Omega service center or Omega watchmaker would have access to these documents if they have access to the Omega extranet. If a watchmaker doesn't have that access, they may not know that specific parts are supposed to be replaced at service, and they may not be doing the full job.

Note that these replacements are not just on new movements - for example there are mandatory replacements on the vintage 55X, 56X, and 75X calibers even, with the last updates being made in 2016. So upgrades are still being made for a series of movements that were first released back in the late 50's. Keeping up to date on technical information is a never ending process...

So to answer your question specifically, all the questionable parts identified to date would have been changed.

Cheers, Al

 

thx. Al.

Ongoing pursuit of perfection is something that every company should strive for. I love my timepiece, really missed it while it was out for servicing. It’s a beautiful watch that’s why I bought it. Thank you for everyone’s help.

Jan

 

That makes sense. I sent in my watch after warranty ended and paid for the service. My SMP starting running about 10-15 seconds fast a few months after warranty ended.

 

Now you have a 24 month warranty. All good..