24-70 Manual Focus kaputt? AF fine (so far). Advice?

<p>I dropped my 24-70 the day we were leaving on vacation in May. Sent it in, there was some impact damage , got it repaired ny Nikon and everything was working fine - or so I thought.<br>

Yesterday I did a shoot and remember it worked well. I usually do not correct the autofocus manually a lot, so I am not entirely sure it was 100% OK yesterday. I took the lens off the camera, reversed the lens hood, put the lens in the bag (Kata Bumblebee), did a few more photos with the 105 Micro went home. This AM I took the lens out, put the lens hood on, attached it to the camera and wanted to take some pics of stuff to see on fleebay... autofocus was difficult (low contrast) and I tried to correct it manually - and drat- the focus ring is just spinning!!! No effect on focus at all. Autofocus still seems to work fine. M M/A switch had no effect on it. Switched camera on and off, detached and reattached lens, no difference.</p>

<p>WT* happened? I may have put the bag down a little harder than I should have (30 lbs of gear - by no means did I drop it) and the lens was sitting in the lower corner..... or maybe the "repair" was not as complete as I thought?<br>

Before you say "Send it back to Nikon", which I eventually will, I have some occasions coming up within 2 weeks that I need this lens for.</p>

<p>Has this happened to anyone? As AF works, would you risk using hoping that this is not the first sign of the lens totally failing?</p>

<p>when it fell the first time...wat kind of repair it had.. see if AF or Manual the way the lens works is the same. The lens is adjusting the internal lens assembly by a motor in AF. In manual mode you do it by turning the focus ring.<br />If AF works means the lens is ok. Just check when it is in AF whether the mt/ft indicator is turning or not when the lens is trying to focus and check the same for the manual mode. It could be that the focus ring is detached from the lens assembly. there will be some small screw which needs to tighened a bit. it should not be a problem.... you can live with that problem atleast for a while.</p>

<p>Thanks, that is helpful and pretty much what I think might be wrong. It is still under warranty from Nikon, so I guess I'll find out eventually.</p>