Equipment Arse! 14-24 broke!

My Nikkor 14-24 f2.8 just stopped working! 4 weeks out of warranty! Typical.

Just thought I'd rant.

s**t, bu***r and arse!

 

Nightmare.

My Sigma 120-400 is currently with Sigma as the autofocus packed in last week. They're charging me £98 for repair. I think I will sell it when fixed, as I wan't to replace it with the 120-300 f2.8.

 

Send it in Pook, I'm pretty sure they will do a courtesy fix for it even though the warranty is over. Although I must say that I'm not sure how precisely the retailers/manufacturers go by the warranty period in UK. If they are strict, I would consider contacting Nikon UK and asking them about the courtesy fix.

There are actually a lot of funny ways how things work around the world. For example in the EU a warranty period (usually 1 year) is nothing but a voluntary "perk" offered by the retailer. Pretty much everything needs to be covered for two years and more expensive stuff for even longer than that. There's probably an English word it, but I have no idea what it could be. The idea is that the retailer is responsible for the goods and the time is calculated on the grounds that how long "should" a bought thing last. Of course more expensive things are supposed to last longer, so the "warranty period" could last up to 5 years or so greatly depending on the item. As far as I know, this kind of "extended warranty" doesn't exist anywhere else, so keeping this in mind, I'm really not sure how Nikon will handle your case.

Then again I see a lot of thread replies like "I bought a 5D MkIII and after a week I decided it wasn't a good fit for me, so I sent it back.". This really baffles me since at least in Finland this kind of thing is not possible. We have a 14 day period during which the item can be returned, but if you go and even open the box, it's pretty much yours. Of course the retailer will take it back if the item is broken in some way, but for example sending a perfectly working camera body back doesn't work.

I'd actually want to know how this works wherever this kind of return policy is in use. What happens to the mentioned 5D MkIII after it has been shipped back to the retailer? Do they just clean the fingerprints, repackage it and sell it on? Because I sure as heck wouldn't like to have a camera that someone has used for a week before. Or do the retailers ship them back to the manufacturer (which will essentially do the same thing, but maybe with a brand new packaging and peripherals)? Or does the manufacturer sell them on as "refurbished" even though there isn't anything wrong with the camera other than it has been used before?

This has boggled my mind for a while now, so answers to these questions would be appreciated.

And Pook, hopefully you'll get the lens sorted.

Darkened

 

Bet you they say it's related to fall damage if you try to ask for a courtesy repair. I know of LOTS of people who have had lenses fail within warranty and hear that bs from Nikon. Hope you get it sorted soon.

 

They sell it as 'open box' with a discount.
Many stores in US like Microcenter or BestBuy will have a huge selection of products with large discounts due to 'open box' or 'refurbished' items. Micro Center have huge tables filled with all kinds of taped up packaging where you can find useful stuff for 10-30% off the retail price based on how presentable the item is.

Some more shady retailers will sell an open item 'Like New' but I've never had that happen to me. But know a friend who had fingerprints on his 'New' mp3 player.

Depending on a retailer, some actually charge 10% or similar price for returning a working but opened item. Others have categories where laptops & dSLR's have x amount of days to return plus 10% open box charge, but point and shoots and other electronics 30days & no charge on returning.

Mostly it's very very relaxed here in US.

 

That's always a possibility, but worth a shot though if the alternative is that you need to pay for the repair anyway.

Thanks for the clarification on this, since I've been wondering about this procedure for a while now. This also explains why Finnish retailers can't offer the same kind of return policy. The businesses here are simply so small that they can not afford to take a hit like that on retail prices or keep opened equipment "in stock".

If the prices were more reasonable here in Finland, I'd say on the whole I'd rather keep the extended warranty than have a similar to US return policy. The best thing for a consumer would be to have both though, but I suspect that it's not going to happen

Darkened

P.S. Also added rep for Cheap Mod Wannabe for the answer

 

They're not playing ball. Warranty expired... pi$$ off!

 

That's not good news, hopefully the repair isn't costly.

Darkened

 

What's actually wrong with it?......Just stopped working altogether?

 

Yeah.. AF just dead. Camera's fine of course.. first thing I checked. I may just get a quote from Fixation for repair. It may not be that bad.

 

How long did you have it for Pook? If it's just the AF then that should be really easy to fix... maybe water got into the electronics etc.

 

it's about 4 years old.

 

Did you have some kind of an extended warranty period with the lens or does Nikon actually offer four years of warranty in UK?

I just checked that here in Finland the warranty for this lens is only for 1 year.

I'd say it would be a battle to get a 4 year old lens repaired without cost here even though the EU directive could say that the lens "should" work for longer than that.

Hopefully it won't break the bank though.

Darkened

 

Either way, I find it to be a bit of a joke how in the US, Nikon offer a 5 year warranty on their lenses, whereas everywhere else in the world, the same lens, that is ideally built to the same standards, gets a warranty of only 1 year.

 

Nope. Nikon stuff comes with a 1 year warranty, which is extended to 2 years when you register it. I'm sure it's repairable, and Fixation are superb, I've used them before many times. The lens has never been wet, knocked, bumped.. nothing. It's obviously the AF motor failed or something, which I'm fairly certain will be a module that can be swapped out. It's a £1300 lens, so it's worth it no matter the cost really.

 

it's an ultra wide angle, if repair is too much, just use it in manual mode?

also, isn't it a weather resistant lens?

 

IMHO the lenses af motor probably died. Nothing to do with external moisture etc. Also if you wanted a manual focus wide angle you may as well buy a cheap samyang or whatever, a £1200 lens? No, not so much.

 

Standard Nikon warranty in Canada is 5 years, extendable to 7 for lenses...

Given the exchange rates as they are, it might not be *too* impractical (in a relative sense) to buy equipment abroad.

 

I could, but I still want it repaired Weather was not an issue. It's never been so much as rained upon.

 

sale of goods act =6 years.