Day/Date change Why does the 24 hour day/date change at 3am, rather than 12am? When I wind the time around, the day dial and date dials change at 3am rather than 12am.Is this wrong??

The date on mechanical and automatic watches change normally between 2-4am because this is normally when people sleep. It is not broken or in need of overhaul. It has to change sometime and that is what they have tradionally used as a time for the date to change. Also remember it is normal for an automatic or mechanical watch to loose or gain time friction is the culprit here since the gears do mesh with each other.

Fine watches like Rolex and Omega are beautiful watches but expensive to have cleaned. It should be cleaned about every 10 years or if it starts to loose a lot of time.

Incidently most agree that the Omega speedmaster manual wind (The watch that went to the Moon) is the most accurate of the bunch and is very sought after by collectors!

Since watches are machines, it is possible to assemble them slightly differently and it would appear that the part of the mechanism that steps the date change has been set differently to the normal position.

If it really bugs you, then it might be that the manufacturer could dismantle the watch and rebuild it so that the date change is correct but it would cost you.

I suppose that most of us are asleep by change over time and it would not bother us (me) but if you are a night owl, then it could be more of an irritation.

(All of the above is based on the assumption that the watch has always been like this. If it has changed since you bought it, then it could be a sign that something is loose and might eventually cause problems, i.e.if the looseness results in a screw falling out or something similar.)