What happens when you send a camera to Nikon for Repair

Symphotic

Bad news: I'm sending my new Df in for service today. The battery cover is falling off. Cheap design and build for a $3K camera...
On the other hand, I love the Df. I am using my old, MF lenses again. I set it in manual exposure mode and crank the aperture ring and the shutter speed dial just the way I did with my F2.

Symphotic

News back from Nikon on the SB-700 shipped Monday: No charge for repair of thermal cutout indicator.

Now let's see about my Df.

spraynpray

My 17-55 f2.8 lens arrived back today, cost £178 ($290). It took from the 18th January to the 5th February for a strip/clean/lube and adjust plus I asked them to change the zoom and focus rubber rings. Came back looked good except I noticed they forgot to change the zoom ring rubber - focus ring changed OK, but zoom overlooked... They said they will send me one to change myself. I hope the rest of the work is up to snuff.

Slowest/dearest/least competent job I've ever had from them.

WestEndBoy

Bad news: I'm sending my new Df in for service today. The battery cover is falling off. Cheap design and build for a $3K camera...
On the other hand, I love the Df. I am using my old, MF lenses again. I set it in manual exposure mode and crank the aperture ring and the shutter speed dial just the way I did with my F2.

Try not to buy anything in its first year.

Golf007sd

I disagree. Most new products how far better performance and features than the ones they replace.

WestEndBoy

True, but wait a year while they work out bugs like left side focus issues and oil spots.

Ironheart

There are two schools of thought on that, either wait for most of the kinks worked out by others or be an early adopter and work the kinks out yourself. That's why cars, cameras, and computers (amongst others) have warranties. Just because you are willing to wait, doesn't mean everyone should.

Some of us like "new hottness", if you want "old busted hottness" good for you :P

spraynpray

@Ironheart: I prefer to think of it as 'sorted and discounted hotness'!!

WestEndBoy

I want reliability. I still use a Blackberry. My IPhone celleagues often miss meetings and one meeting is worth much more than a stack of IPhones.

Symphotic

Maybe we should start a thread called "Critique my purchase decision." ;-)

WestEndBoy

I am sure you made a good decision.

randopolo

I sent in my Coolpix L320 to fix an image issue last Thursday (Jan 30)
I told them I was leaving for a trip on Feb 9th so they put a rush order on it
It was ready for pick up this past Wednesday (Feb 5). Since it was my dad who picked it up, I wasn't able to test the camera until he came home. They fixed the original problem but gave me a new one! (see pics)

Before: notice the blue horizontal line


After: i dont even..


The Nikon repair centre I used was the Mississauga location in Ontario, Canada

Symphotic

The Df shipped to Nikon on Tuesday, arrived Wednesday according to UPS. I received a no charge confirmation dated yesterday "Service Repair Rank B1". The problem, to reiterate, is a bad hinge on the battery door causing the door to fall off.
No word as to when the SB700 will come back.

Symphotic

Update on the Df: "PARTS HOLD". that doesn't surprise me...

Symphotic

UPDATE

The SB-700 strobe spend two days on "PARTS HOLD" and is now listed as SHOP. Maybe I'll get it back in time for a shoot I have scheduled for Sunday.

The Df is still on PARTS HOLD.

Reese

Well, I guess I will share my first Nikon Support experience. I per-ordered a Nikon D7100 the minute it was announced and got it 2 days after being released. All was well with it for about 6 months, then I noticed all of my lenses past about 70mm or so was having a really hard time getting focus. It started back focusing badly and focus hunting.

A few weeks ago I sent it to Nikon at the CA facility. They clean my sensor (which had a few oil spots, yup oil spots...) and they fixed my CCD auto focus sensor which was broken. It was all covered under the warranty and I didn't have to pay for anything except to ship it to Nikon. All in all it was only about 9 day since sending my camera off that I got it back working perfectly again. They did 2 day shipping to get it back to me! I have to say I was impressed as I expected it to be a bit harder than it was.

Photobug

Reese, this is really excellent customer service. With all the negative issues of "some" of the D600's it's nice to see positive comments from their service center.

Reese

Ya thanks PhotoBug, I agree. Since one of my jobs is wedding photography I long ago got used to wet cleaning my own sensors so getting a little oil or dust once in a while doesn't bother me much. I kinda of half expected it since it was released during the whole D600 oil disaster. I have hardly seen anyone else complain about oil spots and the D7100 so I can't really say why I might have gotten some oil spots except that I got one of the first D7100s to ship.

Either way, I don't expect companies like Nikon which makes very complicated electronics to always get it right the first time. It satisfies me if they just help me correct the issue as quick as possible when it happens which I felt Nikon did do, so I am pretty happy! Obviously Nikon tries to release stuff that works.

To date I have had only good support from Sigma and Nikon.

Symphotic

My SB-700 is back and in working order. 14 days from arrival at Nikon L.A. to return.
The Df is still waiting for parts.

Symphotic

My Df is missing in action at the LA repair center. I sent an inquiry to a contact I have in Nikon, Inc. and it seems to have started people looking at what the problem is. (It needs a new battery door.) I hope to hear an update later today.

PB_PM

My guess is that spare parts, like battery doors, are scarce.

Symphotic

The camera is supposed to be on its way back today. The customer service agent states that there was a glitch in the system causing the delay. It is true that spare parts, like battery doors, are probably scarce, but they found one. I don't know if my contact at Nikon helped or not but at least someone responded and I'm getting the camera back.

So to date my experience is: if parts are in stock, 7 working days turnaround, including shipping.
If parts are not in stock: 14 and 17 working days. My business is about the same, as we import parts from the U.K. so we are generally able to turn things around in 7 days without special order parts, and 12 days when I have to get parts from overseas.

goedric

I also just sent in my Nikon D800 for repair. I bought the camera used and so it was not under warranty. I knew at the time of purchase that the SD slot was buggered (got a great deal because of that off ebay). Anyway, the CF slot worked fine so I was prepared to live with the buggered slot but my photos were just soft, even on my better lenses. I tried the AF fine tune and like Symphotic.... all of the lenses needed a -20 and that wasn't even good enough.

I contacted precisioncamera nikon repair and got an online quote of $160. I was not comfortable because when I tried to talk to someone I came up empty and the quote was only based on the camera make and model not the problems. So i went to the Nikon online repair and asked for a quote to do the following (1) fix the SD slot, (2) fix the AF fine-tune wackiness and (3) check the camera for the left-focus issue since I had no idea if it was a problem or not.

Nikon quoted $304... the extra money was work having nikon do the work. They then corrected the quote... also saying it was a B2 issue and reduced the quote to $224. Wow what a surprise. The website never said the camera was done or shipped bit it appeared at my door less than a week later...

It seems to be in great shape. The card slot works and the AF is much sharper. I will have to test it further but I think Nikon did the trick.

Here is what they did:

B2 Service Repair Rank

Replaced Memory Compression (some sort of circuit board I was told)
Adjusted Mirror Angle
Adjusted Auto-Focus Operation
Checked Communications
Checked Memory Card Holder
Firmware Upgrade
Cleaned CCD
General Check & Clean

So I am quite happy with Nikon and very glad I sent in the camera.

leaheat

I have had good luck with the Nikon repair center in El Segundo, CA. I have sent in cameras and lenses for both warranty and non-warranty repair. Incidentally, my equipment is extremely reliable and service is infrequent except for damage that I have caused. The first time I had major warranty repair was when my D70 died just after the warranty expired. Fortunately the failure was a common problem with the D70 and Nikon fixed it free of charge even though the warranty was up. And every time I have received an item back from Nikon it looks almost factory fresh and in addition to the repair it is obvious that the item has been thoroughly checked, cleaned and set to factory specs. Nikon sends e-mails detailing the progress on the repair and any charge for service with an approval request. Turnaround time has been no longer than 10 to 14 days. I have used private repair services twice, and on both occasions the repair and return took 3 months and was no less expensive than Nikon. I am careful to follow Nikon's web site instructions for warranty service and packaging. I believe that customers get poor service when they buck the system or behave like they are the only people on earth who invested big bucks in their equipment. The service is very business like, impersonal and structured. But that's fine with me because the quality of repair has always been excellent. Perhaps Nikon could make more friends or improve perceptions if they personalized the service more or printed the joke of the day on their invoices, but as for me , I am very satisfied.

DaveyJ

I have ONLY had to send two Nikons in for repair out of 25. They were repaired so fast and so well an at a price I could only wonder if they were making ANY money! I couldn't be more impressed than with Nikon repair services!