Hi,

First-time post here, and unsure where to put this as the watch is not necessarily vintage (circa 2003), but I am in need of help and it seems as though many/all of the questions regarding servicing are put in this sub.

I have an Omega Speedmaster Broad Arrow (3551.20.00; https://www.omegawatches.com/watch-omega-speedmaster-broad-arrow-35512000) that is in need of servicing. It is a bit banged up - a few scratches on the crystal and it is missing one of the chrono pushers - but is still keeping fairly accurate time.

I took it into the Omega boutique on Fifth Ave in NYC to get an initial estimate, and they came back wanting $2,000 from me (50 percent of how much it would cost to get a new Broad Arrow on Chrono24). They quoted me $750 for the servicing, $606 to replace the crystal, and another $228 and $388 for two additional parts for the movement that they say is not included in the $750 servicing.

I read through the other threads here on servicing vintage watches in NYC, and am considering Grand Central Watch and Manhattan Time Services. I was also thinking about driving out to Manfredi in Greenwich and Hamilton in Princeton. Does anyone have any advice on who could do a good job servicing this piece? Is it worth taking to the folks at Analog/Shift?

This watch isn't worth a lot of money, but it has sentimental value to me, so I'd love to get it back up and running at full speed and would appreciate any advice or help! Thanks in advance.

 

Save yourself a lot of money and headaches and just send it to Official Time Watch in Utah for a free estimate. I posted their all-inclusive bill (roughly $700) to overhaul my FM 911 and restore the starburst case finish. I posted pictures of the watch and the paperwork in the FM thread.

 

For a modern watch, I would definitely use Omega. As you noted, the costs are driven up by the need to get replacement parts, not necessarily by the costs of the service itself, and I am assuming that even an independent watchmaker would need to source these OEM parts at roughly the same cost.

Otherwise, I would encourage you to get in touch with the watchmakers of Hamilton Jewelers located in Princeton NJ. Highly recommend J. C. Figlar there.

Good luck.

 

The movement in the 3551 was upgraded with new parts at first service by Omega due to issues with the chrono function I believe.
If this will be your watch's first service then I would expect Omega to do the upgrade at no extra cost.

 

Thanks for the info. This will actually be the watch's second service (I took it in around 2010 to get fully serviced). One odd thing is on my Omega estimate they noted "foreign objects detected in the movement" but nobody has ever opened the watch other than Omega. When I asked them for more details on this note, they didn't have anything more for me, but confirmed that they had the first service logged in their computers. I'm thinking this could be related to what you mentioned regarding the 3551 movement? Or is there no linkage there?

Would it make sense to take the watch to Omega but not get the Crystal replaced by them to save $600, and hope I can get the crystal replaced on its own down the road by a jeweler who has access to the Omega crystals? Or can the crystal only be replaced during a full service (as Omega told me when I went to their boutique)?

 

Well if the service in 2010 included the movement upgrade then I can't understand why Omega want to charge you over and above the $750 complete service price quoted on their website which includes replacement of any worn movement parts.
Can you show us a pic of the written quote you received from the OB?

 

Here it is. I would need to dig up my service papers from the prior service, but here is what Omega proposed to me at the Boutique in NYC:

 

Well I think I will wait for Al or another Omega qualified watchmaker to comment on why those these parts might need replacing, and why they aren't included in the Omega complete service price quoted on their website.
That doesn't look like any official Omega service quote that I've seen before BTW.

 

The last set of updates made to the 3303 that have been referred to in this thread were done in 2008, so if the watch was serviced in 2010 by Omega, those parts would have been replaced at that time. The OP should have had the replaced parts retuned, so if you still have those parts in a small plastic bag and can photograph them, I can confirm if that has been done.

As for the other two parts mentioned, those are somewhat puzzling, and are not related to the upgrades mentioned previously.

Off the top of my head, the only reason I can see that the chronograph bridge may need replacing is because it has been damaged by a screw that has come loose and been caught between the rotor and bridge, causing damage. This is listed as a specific reason for replacing parts like bridges in Omega work instruction 14 for quality service criteria. Unless there is a component on that bridge that is damaged and is not available as a replacement part (fairly common actually) that may be another reason - I have had to replace entire bridges because one small part on the bridge is worn, and is not available as a separate part that you can buy an exchange.

I do wonder if they have called out the wrong part when they talk about the automatic device framework. I can't thing of any reason to replace that part, so my guess is that they mean the part that mates to this part - the automatic device bridge. This movement uses a bearing for the rotor, but instead of being in the rotor, it's pressed into the automatic device bridge as you can see here:



The bearing itself is not available as a separate part, so when the bearing wears out, the entire bridge must be repalced.

Regarding why these parts are charged on top of a regular service, it's for the simple reason that not all parts are included in a factory service, contrary to popular belief.

If the OP goes through with this, it would be interesting to see photos of the parts Omega has replaced...

As for finding a cheaper alternative, I think it's difficult to say if that would work out or not. First off, based on discussions I've had with the trainers at Omega, many watchmakers shy away from this movement for some reason. I don't find it a difficult movement to service, but there are a few things that are maybe not as easy as they are on other movements. For example many of the screws can be installed in multiple locations, but they will cause problems if you mix them up - in training I had kept them all with the parts they went with, but the trainer asked us to put out all the screws sorted by function and leave them on our bench. He then came along and mixed them all up, so we had to g through the process to verify that we were putting the right screw in the right place.

So finding someone who works on these regularly is the key, and if they don't service them regularly (or have a parts account) I would consider using Omega. For sure an independent could use the crystal over again if the scratches aren't bad, so you would save there but it's unclear if the other parts could be assumed to be okay or not.

Cheers, Al

 

Thanks Al, this is incredibly useful - thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed response. It looks as though I am leaning to taking this back to Omega and having them service it (but keeping the original crystal to save the $600). Only annoying thing is I will now be in the back of the queue and have to wait another month just to get this watch re-opened in New Jersey and a new estimate put together (that's how long it took for them to send the watch from Fifth Ave to NJ and send me the follow up email with the quote including these new parts).

Just out of curiosity, does Omega still produce any watches with the 3303 movement? Seems like a pretty bad look for them to put a movement in a line of Speedmasters and then basically swap out parts without telling the customer when servicing the watch because parts of the movement are faulty. Do you have any more info on this movement and why it was built this way / what went wrong? Just want to make sure I avoid it when buying Omegas in the future.

I'll be sure to send pics of the returned parts once this is completed.

 

The 3303 is not used anymore in new models. If any variation of this movement were still in use, it would be the 3313 that has the co-axial escapement. I think once Omega brought on the 9300 series movements, the 3303/3313 were likely going to be discontinued.

The fact that Omega has been changing movement parts inside these to resolve issues is not unique to this movement, and doing this is not unique to Omega. In fact I liken this to a hidden recall on your car - it's not something that is a big enough deal to send you a letter saying that you have to bring your car in, but when the dealer has your car they may replace items here and there that the manufacturer has deemed are at risk of failure. The problems with this movement have been blown out of proportion primarily by one guy on the forums who has made it his crusade to tell people how bad this movement is.

I've serviced a lot of these - can't say how many exactly that I've serviced from this family of Frederick Piguet based movements, but I can tell you how many have actually had a fault due to one of these parts actually failing - just one. So again most of the replacements have been preventative in nature, and show that Omega is taking the potential for failure away, even though the chances of it are relatively small. I see that as a positive, rather than a negative.

I can assure you that every brand does this to some extent or another...

 

Understood, thanks again for the additional context!