So how can we find out if they are
The same or different movements?
Ken @Chazingtime told me it does not have the time bomb movement as the other recent releases?! He said it is a reliable movement.
Is the Portuguese Chrono movement from ZF really considered a time bomb?!
NO!
My Portuguese V1 broke down after just 10 days.
Got a brand new movement V2 installed, and it was DOA!
But if it's a different movement in this Big Pilot, then everything may be fine.
Is it possible you were just unlucky? I don't know much about the situation, but here is a full tear down of the movement:
https://rwg.cc/topic/181911-part-12-and-final-thought-full-tear-down-iwc-a5001#entry1449696
His conclusion about the movement on the 5001 (assuming they are using the same movement here): "So what do I think about this movement? I love it. It is really well finished. The way the plates are machined and plated and also the way the decoration is done, all very good. The movement was perfectly clean and well oiled overall. It is designed and manufactured from the ground up and my guess is that a big movement factory like Seagull or Huangzou is behind it.
So how does it perform? Well as mentioned earlier the auto wind module is designed like the ETA28xx series. Which has proven itself over the years. So no worries in that department. The keyless design is from the ETA 77xx series. Also no complaints there. The rest of the movement is pretty basic like a hand wind UNITAS 64xx series. It's also as big as one. The only part I was curious about was the PR design. But they designed it flawlessly. Now that I write this I can truly say that they have combined the best of 3 worlds (movements) and put a cherry on top! I don't think we will see a lot of these movements breaking down in the near future. After service it is now running and performing exactly the same as before the tear-down: perfectly"
Were there any significant cosmetic changes to the dial to make more gen like (in comparison with the best faux PR version we all have)? Wondering if it's worth the hefty price tag (since it's new) compared to the previous version, which also got me into reps (especially since the original decorated 25J movement has been bullet proof and considering it's a closed case back).
Very possible... This is one of the most popular new releases and we aren't hearing a huge amount of similar reports. Sucks for that guy, though.
Yes, mayby your right, - this could just be bad luck. I sure hope so (for all the other Portuguese owners out there
Well, Ken is taking good care of me, so I'm allright. And with all the rep's I have bought over the last few years, I can live with one or two braking down. I would have liked if it was my very old ugly bad rep Omega that exploded instead of my brand new nice Portuguese, though!
Man, I do feel for you... I've gone through 2 noob 111 v3s. Both crapped out and everyone else seems to be having no issues. Such is the game we're playing!