My D40 Lemon - the final chapter? - advice to new purchasers re: Nikon

[photobiscuits]

Things may have come to a close with my <a

href=?http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00MjuL?>D40

situation</a>. Two days ago I received a brand-spanking-new D40 camera body to

replace the one that malfunctioned on me. I took about 50 pictures with it so

far, seems to be working just fine - I am happy and hopefully my problem is

solved. I also purchased a new 1 GB memory card just in case the old one may

somehow have been contributing to the problem. <br>

Now I will sum up my service experiences for anyone like me, who is new to the

expensive camera scene, who is considering purchasing a dslr, and asks the

question as I did so long ago "What brand of camera should I buy?"<br>

Brand is important because it is an initial investment into something that as

you purchase more and more accessories (lenses and such) could become very very

expensive. You could spend your whole photographic life with the brand you

purchase now, as a beginner. As you accumulate lenses and lights and brand

specific accessories it will become very expensive to switch brands down the

road so think it through and hear my story.<br>

I chose Nikon because they have a great reputation, have been around for many

many years, and are well respected. It captures great quality in the photos I

take. It is capable of doing what I want to be able to do - even in low light.

It fits in my hand nicely (a tad on the small side), has a nice light weight,

and with it's manual settings is everything I wanted in a DSLR for a beginner

like me.<br>

I also understood that I could rely on Nikon's fast, freindly service should

anything go wrong.<br>

My camera started to malfunction after 3 months or so of use. I put up with it

until it became a constant problem that annoyed the hell out of me. That's when

I decided to bring it back to the shop and have it sent to Nikon and began

experiencing Nikon's "great service" firsthand.<br>

Those interested in purchasing a Nikon should read back through the links in

each of my posts to get the full story, but as a final word Nikon was seemingly

too proud a manufacturer of renowned cameras to accept that their product could

possibly be faulty, and they kept sending it back to me, unrepaired. It seemed

that this rich company would rather put a customer through the inconvenience of

shipping their faulty product back to them three times (the MAGIC number) before

they finally and grudgingly replaced it. I had been in discussions with Nikon

several times and was told things like "we don't have a lot of time to spend on

each camera that comes in". So basically rather than spend Nikon's time to

visually diagnose and repair the specific problem, they took the stand that it's

OK to waste my time, the customer's time, in in having to ship a faulty camera

back and forth across the province! I missed photographing a lot of great

moments because of Nikon's stubbornness and "we don't have much time to inspect

a camera" crap.<br>

In summary - Thinking of buying a camera? Thinking Nikon because of their great

service and quality reputation? Read my experience and think again.<br>

best of luck, new camera purchaser, and thanks to all those who offered advice

and sympathetic (or not) responses to my posts on this subject. I really

appreciated it and appreciated the push you guys gave to pester them and ship it

myself (though I did continue to use Black's free snail mail).<br>

Shun you were especially helpful, thank you and again everybody else in the

photonet community.

[photobiscuits]

for some reason the hyperlink above is not working, so here is the code to the past thread re: this problem.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00MjuL

[ronald_moravec1]

Glad you are resolved. Almost anything you buy today can have problems no matter the reputation of the brand.

 

The question now is what will they do with the camera? It will get get sold as a refurbished one in the same condition as you gave it to them. If they can`t find or repair the problem for you, they won`t fix it for the next person either and for that reason, I will not buy refurb items.

[berg_na]

<tt>"Read my experience and think again."

</tt>Does one bad incident reflect the overall integrity of a company? I don't think so. I do find it hard to understand that you're still so bitter after the issue has been fully resolved.

[vivek iyer]

If you buy one camera and have to go through all this hassle for a true lemon, yes, I would be bitter too.

 

I still can not forget the my D70 and the BGLOD and how it cost me to get it fixed before Nikon admitted to the problem.

 

I am very careful and will not buy anything that is the latest and greatest from Nikon. My experience and my opinion, of course.

[ShunCheung]

Vivek, in your case, I think you have a valid reason to request a refund for that repair cost. Hope you still have all the documents.

[jonb]

Of course, you are assuming that some other company would be better as regards customer service. I can't remember the last time I got anything resembling decent customer service from a consumer products company of any sort. I'm not sure Nikon is any worse (or any better) in this regard than the industry as a whole. That's not a defense of Nikon; it's an indictment of the consumer electronics industry.

[erik_loza]

Cliff's Notes, OP?

[mjt]

hey Mike ...

 

sorry to hear about your plight and that, finally, Nikon came through. This happens in all industries. Customer service can fluctuate from location to location. i can tell you the story where Chevy replaced the engine in my Z28 which was one year (and 12k+ miles) out of warranty. on the contrary, i can tell you many stories from other people that shed the opposite light.

 

i've been shooting Nikon since the 70's and have, fortunately, never had as dramatic an incident as yours, other than a dragging shutter on an F2 and a focus issue with a lens (fairly recently) - both were promptly fixed. i've heard folks compare repair facilities and discuss how one provides better service than the other. who knows, maybe it's a regional/cultural thing.

 

be that as it may, i've discovered over the years, that for every bad incident, there are five "thumbs-up" customer services dealings. i know that doesnt balance out what you had to deal with, but we all seem to hear more about negative issues than positive dealings.

 

thanks for the time to provide the feedback!

[liljuddakalilknyttphotogra]

Mike,

 

I'm happy your situation is rectified. I've owned Nikons since 1980 with no problem. I even bought an old used N90s which I'm going to teach my daughter off eBay. It works perfectly & will be fun for her to bring along on her cruise in January to celebrate her 21st birthday. I have yet to have a problem with Nikon. Any of these highly advanced cameras are going to have a problem now & then. It's inevitable. Good luck with the new camera & don't judge a company, that's been in business for 90 years, based upon one camera. Just imagine what car companies would still be in business based upon lemons.....

 

Enjoy your new camera & look forward. The past is in the past & can't be changed & you will be no happier if you linger there. You'll just be miserable. So look forward to the next Sunrise & a new day & you'll live a longer, happier & fuller life.

 

JMHO

 

Lil

[Jim_Tardio]

Glad it was resolved but you made yourself a mountain out of a molehill...so to speak.

<p>

That's the way customer service is these days. You have to go through several layers to get satisfaction.

<p>

It's not quite the big deal you're making it out to be.

[charles_miller]

I am a digital test engineer by profession. I can tell you that nearly every system has a "Can Not Duplicate" (CND) rate, where user problems in the field don't show up when the product is re-tested. There is even a CND rate for aircraft avionic packages, so CND doesn't just affect consumer electronics.

 

When any consumer item is received from repair showing the same electronic problem, I would immediately expect a CND situation which the manufacturer cannot afford to diagnose. In this case I would just keep sending the item back, while persistently and forcefully requesting a repair or replacement. But keep in mind that the repair depot would really rather find and fix a problem than deal with a CND situation. And it stands to reason that if they are to replace an entire camera without actually seeing a problem, they need to experience a certain amount of "convincing".

 

If a particular camera model is returned for repair above a certain rate, then that model is indeed a lemon. But return-rate information usually isn't published, and one bad experience doesn't really mean very much.

 

I too wonder if CND items are offered as refurbrished, and whether they often cause problems for subsequent owners. Since refurbrished items normally have very short warranties, I would thoroughly try out a refurb item as soon as I got it. I would make sure every function works in hot, cold, and normal temperatures, first with fully charged batteies, and then with nearly run down batteries. And if there is a problem, I would return the item for repair ASAP, just in case the problem turns out to be of the time-consuming CND sort.

[carbon_dragon]

Some companies (Sony for instance) has a reputation for building great devices, but offering poor service if something DOES go wrong. So you get a schizo distribution of answers if you ask Sony customers if they're satisfied. The ones that haven't had any problem (because basically it's a good product) are very satisfied. The ones that have had a problem tend to be very unsatisfied. This is not, in my opinion, something to be proud of. Frankly, I'm not sure anyone has the reputation for good service these days -- it tends to be outsourced to the lowest bidder, so it's not just Sony.

 

I had an appalling experience with the Canon rebates (they outsourced them to a rebate company -- gee I wonder whether the outsourcer get's paid a bounty for a lower amount of rebates paid?).

 

If you create a situation where the company who (presumably) cares about their reputation is separated from the company who actually does the service, what you often get is a service provider who doesn't care, or who even benefits financially from giving you poor service. And who else are you going to buy from when they're all doing it? I bought my Sony laptop from Best Buy on the theory that THEY would give me better service and they did when I had a problem -- not perfect service, but adequate.

[theodore_papageorgiou]

Yes, I know about Sony.

I had a discman,(the best of their line), and failed after one week.

I sent it to service and they changed the whole reading (laser) mechanism, after three MONTHS. Yes months.

And of course, I had not the machine all this time.

Theodore.

[lex_jenkins]

I heard a funny story from a gal at a local camera shop. We were laughing about the crazy problems that can pop up with electronics equipment and how difficult it can be to reproduce it to prove to the manufacturer that a problem exists.

 

She said that folks sometimes brought in a particular "C" brand camera model complaining of some glitch or another. Supposedly the manufacturer's response to complaints that when a certain combination of buttons was pressed the glitch would appear, "C" said: "Don't do that."

 

Kinda like that old joke about the doctor's reply to a patient who complained, "Gee, doc, it hurts when I do this."

[vivek iyer]

Shun, Thanks for your thoughts. It was a write off for me and I did not think about making a claim at that time (2 years ago) and don't think I will.

 

As for the other posters' claim about electronics and "C" brands etc. They do not concern Nikon users.

 

There are amusing possibilities with any brand. I stayed away from the 10mp D200 for a long time and bought a few of the D40x cameras when they came out. Not only the D40x is cheap but also is without any banding issues and outputs very high quality, low noise, high ISO files.

 

If the D3 is without "major" issues, I am very keen to get one.

 

Or.. may be there will be a better quality 'low end' full frame camera from Nikon in a few months!

[ShunCheung]

The D200's banding issue is the direct result of having a 4-channel readout on the 10MP Sony sensor so that the camera can move 5 images from the sensor per second. There is no other DSLR (from any brand) that uses that exact same sensor and therefore this issue is unique to the D200.

 

The D80 and D40x, along with the Sony A100 and Pentax K10D, etc., use the 2-channel version of that sensor. Those DSLRs max out at 3 frames/sec. Since they don't have those 4 channels to interfere with one another, they don't have that banding problem.

[scott_warn]

I know that this will sound racist, but I don't think that your problem is Nikon specific. Many Japanese companies share this condescending attitude towards their customers. It's a facet of the Japanese culture. They strive at all times to be as perfect as humanly possible and, as a consequence, are very slow to admit fault. For the Japanese, admitting fault is far more humiliating than it is for an American or European. Canon currently has a problem with the 1DS mk III that they are handling poorly and Toyota is now having enough quality issues that Consumer Guide has dropped them from their recomendation list for some models. Of course there are exceptions. However it's been my experience that the Japanese manufacturers with the best customer releations are the ones that give their distributors the power to over rule the corporation in regards to local issues. Nikon has not yet learned that lesson but I expect that someday they will.

 

BTW, I can remember when a cheap SLR (say Minolta SRT-101) cost about 5% of the purchase price of a new mid range car. With a mid range car now running close to 30,000 USD that means the D200 is cheap, the D40, heck that's not just cheap it's almost disposable.

[berg_na]

Give me a break. The customer complains. Nikon replaced his camera with a brand new unit and he still complains. Some people just like to complain. Please don't try to explain this with a concocted theory on the Japanese culture.

[phototransformations]

"Some people just like to complain" seems unfair in this instance. I had a similar experience with Nikon, and there is an emotional side to this sort of exchange. I bought a Nikon expecting high quality due to past experience and reputation and ended up with both a defective lens (which was slightly improved by Nikon Service) and a defective camera that was not. Although they eventually replaced the camera with a good one after two failed repair attemtps and I'm happy with the replacement, I did lose 3 months use of the camera.

 

In my case, moving to Nikon represented, to me, moving from p&s quality back to the kind of quality I got from film cameras in my first 12 years of photography, and it was discouraging to have to delay it. I don't know that the process could have gone any more quickly, given that "three strikes and you're out" seems to be typical for consumer products, but I know that in my case some kind of conversation with Nikon Service, or even a form letter, that acknowledged they were apologetic would have helped, and that in the end, when I Nikon service manager got involved it did help. Apologies for poor results go a long way toward soothing ruffled feelings and improving perceived sensitivity to customer needs.

[diane_madura]

Mike, I understand your frustration, I would probably not be happy with Nikon either. I had the opposite experience with them. I got the BGLOD on my D70, but it was already after Nikon announced it would be repaired for cameras out of warranty so I wasn't too concerned except for the turn time. The turnaround time was amazingly fast. Four days, and that included a weekend. There were parts of the camera that were beginning to show wear, like where my fingertips rest around the grip, and the top of the camera was showing some wear where my fingers touch it a lot. My camera was one of those out of warranty. I only paid for shipping in one direction, the front and the top of the camera were replaced. Did I buy another Nikon after that? Of course I did.

[lex_jenkins]

"Please don't try to explain this with a concocted theory on the Japanese culture."

 

It isn't a concocted theory. It's a fact. Just read Japanese news media sources and academic studies. A couple of decades ago a Japanese cargo ship captain committed suicide because he felt responsible for damage to a load of Mazda automobiles. More recently a JAL maintenance tech committed suicide, apparently in reaction to an accident that, by all accounts, he wasn't even directly responsible for.

 

Frankly, I'd rather see people learn from their mistakes and rise from the ashes. So, hopefully, nobody at Nikon will take this stuff too seriously.

 

But I'm not convinced that particular aspect of Japanese culture necessarily translates to how Nikon USA does business. These days, unfortunately, it's more typical of American business to deny a problem exists and delay resolution.

[photobiscuits]

thanks for your comments, folks. found this comment in today's news:<br>

Bill Emery (wrote)<br>

"...I use Nikon Canada as an example because thatnks to their greed I have NOT purchased a single camera body or lense from them in over 15 years. They are so greedy that they don't even honour the international warranty that CLEARLY lists their repair depot locations in Canada. No worries there either since their Canadian Nikon techs are so poorly skilled that the one time they did fix my friend's Canadian bought lense, they left finger prints on the inside of the lense..."<br>

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071101/loonie_high_071101/20071101"