Worrying situation over camera repair

[Bryan]

In September I sent off my faulty Sony camera to what I thought was an accredited Sony repair shop in London. I duly received an e-mail receipt for the camera, and put it to the back of my mind.

 

Hearing nothing further from the company I eventually mailed them asking what was happening. They responded rapidly to say that they had sent me an estimate for the repair in September and were waiting for my response.  I duly checked my e-mail, spam and bin, but found nothing, so on the 3rd of this month I replied explaining the situation and asking them to send a copy of their estimate.

 

I've heard nothing since.

 

Is this typical of Sony service or have I been unlucky? 

 

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Bryan

[John Mitchell]

Have you tried calling the shop to see if there is a real person answering the telephone?

[Steve F]

Bryan, good luck.... 🤞😬

 

I took my Sony in person to Fixation in London, they did a great job. Not sure if they take deliveries, you'd have to check.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Steve F

[Bryan]

11 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

Have you tried calling the shop to see if there is a real person answering the telephone?

 

I've not John, but I've since read reviews which say that it's next to impossible to get through. I'll try on Monday.

[Allan Bell]

3 hours ago, Bryan said:

 

I've not John, but I've since read reviews which say that it's next to impossible to get through. I'll try on Monday.

 

Care to name them on here?

 

It might help others to avoid if it turns out to be a serious situation. Not that is not for you already.

 

Allan

 

[Bryan]

8 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

 

Care to name them on here?

 

It might help others to avoid if it turns out to be a serious situation. Not that is not for you already.

 

Allan

 

 

I'll wait to see how it pans our Allan, and If I get no joy I'll name and shame.

 

[Joe Gaul]

I'm always loathe to send my gear away Bryan. Have used A P M in Old Eldon Square, Newcastle, and would consider Fixation at WEX Newcastle. Good luck.

Joe

[Bryan]

5 hours ago, Joe Gaul said:

I'm always loathe to send my gear away Bryan. Have used A P M in Old Eldon Square, Newcastle, and would consider Fixation at WEX Newcastle. Good luck.

Joe

Thanks Joe. I first tried APM, which I have used in the past and been very happy with, and he did take a look, for bad connections etc, but he reckons he can't get the parts for Sony cameras. Had I known about Fixation I would have gone to them.

[Bryan]

Finally received a quote for the repair, a tad short of £300, mainly parts. The camera cost £500 used, so a tad rich, but I have decided to have it fixed. 

[Ed Rooney]

 

£300! Maybe they're charging extra for their attentive rapid service?

[Steve Hyde]

20 hours ago, Bryan said:

Finally received a quote for the repair, a tad short of £300, mainly parts. The camera cost £500 used, so a tad rich, but I have decided to have it fixed. 

 

Hi Bryan,

 

that doesn't sound too bad as far as the price of these things go. I've had my RX100 mk6 repaired twice this year by Camera Repair Direct who are based in Surrey. Both repairs, one for a new lens and assembly, the second for a new pop up EVF, were £324. I'd have to say the service I received was very good and they kept me updated throughout as there was a delay in getting parts from Sony in relation to the lens. Turn around re the new EVF was just over a week.

[Graham]

Not exactly on topic, but here goes.  I was recently in Brazil, photographing wildlife, using Canon cameras.  Both are high end models, the 5DIV and R5, supposedly weather sealed.  Ok, Canon have never said they are waterproof, but they are supposed to be rain resistant.  We were caught in a tropical storm in an open boat for a couple of hours.  The cameras got pretty wet, but they were in a camera bag and a rucksack (neither of which was waterproof): they did get wet, but were out of the rain and not exposed to direct rainwater over the 2 hour period.  It was humid and not particularly warm, making subsequent drying problematic, beyond towelling them off.  The 5DIV died and did not recover - repair bill on return (via Fixation) £1,000.  The R5 spluttered to life after a couple of days, but only without the battery grip.  A couple of days later, the battery grip sort of worked, although sometimes it thought it only had one battery.  The R5, although working, gave spurious start-up messages and I thought it prudent to have it checked over.  Fixation could not do the repair because Canon will not give them R5 parts (it is out of warranty, which is why I sent it to Fixation).  Canon will not even look at repairing the battery grip, they just want to sell you a new one.  Canon's quote for the R5 check and repair is nearly £600, which with the cost of a new grip takes the total up to nearly £1,000.

 

Thankfully the trip leader very kindly loaned me some of his Nikon gear until I could get the R5 working again, alleviating the worst of what would have been a disaster for the rest of the trip.  I still had a M6ii as a backup, brought on the trip only to snap landscapes, which looked pretty ridiculous on the end of my large telephotos; it is no wildlife camera, but at least it survived unscathed in its own little case.

 

Pretty expensive for a pair of supposedly weather sealed cameras getting a bit wet in a rainstorm.  Do not take Canon's claims of weather sealing too seriously.

[IanDavidson]

On 11/11/2022 at 20:16, Steve F said:

Bryan, good luck.... 🤞😬

 

I took my Sony in person to Fixation in London, they did a great job. Not sure if they take deliveries, you'd have to check.

Yes, Fixation do take deliveries.  My Nikon z9 is with them for a repair currently, and I posted it.  The issue I found was the post office would only insure the package for £2,500.  Good job it got there….  However, Fixation are busy so repairs could take a little while.

[MDM]

1 hour ago, IanDavidson said:

Yes, Fixation do take deliveries.  My Nikon z9 is with them for a repair currently, and I posted it.  The issue I found was the post office would only insure the package for £2,500.  Good job it got there….  However, Fixation are busy so repairs could take a little while.

 

Was that a fault or an accident that led to the Z9 needing repair?

 

At least Fixation can repair Z series cameras now. They weren't able to repair Z kit at all a couple of years ago - it all had to go direct to Nikon. That's changed since Nikon pulled their repair centre out of the UK last year. Need a direct Nikon repair or service and it has to go to Poland. I sent a Z6II off for the paid firmware update to shoot raw video and it took over three weeks to and from Poland - madness - but Nikon don't outsource this service.  I guess it would not be too much of a leap of logic to surmise that the demise of the UK repair centre is Brexit-related. At least Nikon handle all paperwork related to sending cameras out of and in to the UK. It's transparent to the end user. Fixation must have been delighted to find that there is at least one benefit to Brexit. 

 

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by MDM

[IanDavidson]

15 hours ago, MDM said:

Was that a fault or an accident that led to the Z9 needing repair?

It was a fault.  The memory cards would not sit in the slot properly, I think the spring at the bottom had broken, taking 2 XQD cards with them.... Disappointing for a six-month-old cameral 

[MDM]

2 hours ago, IanDavidson said:

It was a fault.  The memory cards would not sit in the slot properly, I think the spring at the bottom had broken, taking 2 XQD cards with them.... Disappointing for a six-month-old cameral 

 

Yes not good at all for Nikon's new flagship camera which is getting rave reviews everywhere. I hope you get it fixed quickly. 

[Bryan]

Further grim tidings on my Sony camera repair.

 

Having paid a chunk of cash against their original estimate, I've now received a further invoice for work that they have discovered needs doing in addition to that. Total bill now £498.24. The camera cost circa £550 used. Had I known that it would cost this much to fix I would probably have written it off.  What's more, this is not necessarily the final bill, if further defects are found there will be more to pay.  

 

Thinking positive, I guess that I won't be paying quite as much tax next year 🙃

[spacecadet]

1 hour ago, Bryan said:

Further grim tidings on my Sony camera repair.

 

Having paid a chunk of cash against their original estimate, I've now received a further invoice for work that they have discovered needs doing in addition to that. Total bill now £498.24. The camera cost circa £550 used. Had I known that it would cost this much to fix I would probably have written it off.  What's more, this is not necessarily the final bill, if further defects are found there will be more to pay.  

 

Thinking positive, I guess that I won't be paying quite as much tax next year 🙃

I paid less than that for my first DSLR, new.

Surely you should have been given the option to pull the plug. If not, surely you can stop further work now.

 

Edited November 28, 2022 by spacecadet

[Bryan]

4 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

I paid less than that for my first DSLR, new.

Surely you should have been given the option to pull the plug. If not, surely you can stop further work now.

 

I could pull the plug on the additional cost, not sure how that would affect the original deposit as I presume they have ordered parts, but too late now, cash committed. 

[John Mitchell]

1 hour ago, Bryan said:

I could pull the plug on the additional cost, not sure how that would affect the original deposit as I presume they have ordered parts, but too late now, cash committed. 

 

Hope the repair folks offer a good warranty on their work. I bought a used Nikon Coolscan film scanner years ago from a camera store for $500 CAN. It worked fine for a couple of years and then required $500 in repairs. It has now more-or-less given up the ghost it seems. I might try to fix it myself at some point or sell it for parts. This said, I usually have excellent luck with used equipment. One of the reasons (other than parsimony) that I haven't bought an RX100 is that I find them really hard to hold onto even though I don't have large paws. They must be really easy to drop.

[Jill Morgan]

1 minute ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Hope the repair folks offer a good warranty on their work. I bought a used Nikon Coolscan film scanner years ago from a camera store for $500 CAN. It worked fine for a couple of years and then required $500 in repairs. It has now more-or-less given up the ghost it seems. I might try to fix it myself at some point or sell it for parts. This said, I usually have excellent luck with used equipment. One of the reasons (other than parsimony) that I haven't bought an RX100 is that I find them really hard to hold onto even though I don't have large paws. They must be really easy to drop.

 

I always use the writs strap.

 

Jill

[John Mitchell]

Just now, Jill Morgan said:

 

I always use the writs strap.

 

Jill

 

Good suggestion. I have a couple of wrist straps lying around. Problem is I don't have any extra cash lying around.🙃

[Sharon]

4 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Good suggestion. I have a couple of wrist straps lying around. Problem is I don't have any extra cash lying around.🙃

I always, always use the wrist strap... when I first got my RX100, I was concerned by the small size, and how slippery it felt.  I got used to tightening the strap and now it's second nature and goes wherever I go now.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Sharon

[Mr Standfast]

Where's the "crickey that's steep" emoji when you need it!

[Bryan]

I too always use the wrist strap, but that didn't prevent the camera from falling from my bicycle pannier that I had failed to close properly. 

 

I've also dropped my Sony a6500, but that seems to be made of sterner stuff, as it appears to have survived unscathed.

 

Careless or what !