The Breitling Watch Source Forums

I was just admiring some pics of an older-gen Aqua Terra chronograph, but noticed it had the Piguet 1285-based Calibre 3303. Doing a bit of googling reveals this movement had some problems, although it's difficult to say what those problems were, except that they were serious enough to involve movement failure and warranty repairs. Does anybody know what the problems were with this movement, and if they ever got resolved in production? Is it advisable to avoid models with this movement? At this point, the older AT would be an aftermarket purchase, so no Omega warranty.

Just to supplement your internet research, apparently the 3303's that are affected are the early ones... visiting Chuck Maddox's site, he's got some good stuff debating this caliber...

http://www.chronocentric.com/forums/ome ... d;id=36255

Read the part about the rotor falling off... very interesting...

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"I don't got the bright watch I got the right watch" -Jay Z

Dang, beat me to it. Chuck Maddox who passed on a while back was a fairly prolific writer in general and on issues with the 33XX movement. Supposedly the issues were rosolved by the late 2000s. I had a couple Speedy's with 33XX movments and never had any problems. (I didn't have them that long though. )

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SHARKMAN

Thanks for the info. I had seen one of Chuck Maddox's posts before making my post, but not the one linked to here. That goes into a lot more detail about the problems with the movement, as does this TZ post he linked to. Those are definitely some serious issues - major headaches for those who have factory warranties, and potentially bank-breaking for those who would have to cover the repairs out of pocket. Although the later movements appeared to be in better shape, evidently not all of them were; moreover, I don't really know how old the aftermarket watches are. Some are listed with a purchase date and some aren't. Even with those that are, I have no way of knowing the production date. It sounds like a crap shoot at best. Too bad, since the 42mm ATC has a lot going for it, at least per my own preferences.

I stand corrected: one of the watches I was looking at actually has a 3301. Does that indicate it's an earlier production than the 3303? More subject to problems?

The 33** movement (the 3313 in fact) in the larger 44.25mm Speedy was the only reason I passed on that watch. I did a huge amount of reading around the issues with the 33** series of movements at the time, and while the are/were definitely issues out there, there are equally a huge number of people who never experience any problems. However there seems no doubt that as a design it's quite a fragile movement : deadly accurate by all accounts, but potentially fragile. The issues are also (apparently) fundamentally design-based, which makes it pretty hard to fix. Omega have by all accounts beefed up a few components over the years, so later models are better, but I think the really telling thing is that the 33** movements appear to be being phased out in favour of the 93** in-house movements. Omega invested a lot in the 33** and it's certainly not an old movement by any stretch, so to see it on the way out speaks volumes IMO.

Just one other thing, the 33** family of movements are not actually based on the Piguet 1185/1285. The 33**'s share a lot of design principles with the 1185/1285 (by virtue of both being made by Frederic Piguet), but they are actually different sizes, have different beat rates, and don't share components. The 33** are Omega "Brand Exclusives" made for them, and only for them, by Frederic Piguet..... who are also a Swatch Group subsidiary.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Thanks, Driver - that's very helpful input. FYI, this is the model I'm talking about.