Transfering warranties on an N80

[nickjohnson]

I'm selling a Nikon N80 kit for my friend and got an email from a

possible bidder asking about the warranty. Its about a year old.

First of all, are the warranties transferable? The bad news is that

he already filled out the cards for the lens and body. Is there any

hope of giving the buyer any warranty or is it as good as gray market?

[robert_ardinger]

It is my understanding that the warranty is not directly transferable but if it was a Nikon USA imported camera then Nikon USA will not have any problem fixing it so it is not quite like grey market. Your friend should probably just leave the cards as they are with the camera and lens and just include when the items are sold. Nikon "appears" gets information about sales from dealers, according to at least one camera store I spoke with (see below). If there is an issue, your friend could offerto act as a "go between" to send in any warranty repair for the buyer(i.e. Item sent to Nikon by/via the original buyer on behalf of the second owner). This involves some trust on all parts and is a bit of a hassel if it occurs.

 

There must be some "fudge factor" in all this, i.e. a camera bought by a friend , given as a gift should be warrantied to the "giftee" as teh original owner. The "cards" being filled out in the "giftee"s" name might help but if, as I was told, the purchaser's name, camera serial number and store ID is sent to Nikon USA, then there would be a conflict.

 

My own example, when D100's were hard to find last year, a friend found 2 in a store local to him, bought them both after ascertaining that I wanted one, charged them with the receipts essentially not mention me, it was like he bought 2 personal cameras. I paid him for mine and sent my warranty cards with my name on them to Nikon and had no problem getting a firmware update from Nikon USA using my name and address and not even referring to my friend. After my friends camera had a problem and he did get warranty repair I wondered if I should get better sales documentation. I called the store (out of state for me) and it was through them I was told that Nikon USA would, via information from them, know who originally bought the camera. This transfer of detailed information may all be hogwash (and I would be interested in other's experiences). I would think that Nikon or any other canera importer would know what serial numbers of what cameras and lenses were sent to what dealers.

 

I have not offered to do help with a warranty very often with equipment I have sold. Usually the buyer will want the lowest price possible and I think it is fair that one of the sacrifices a buyer makes to get a low price is that there is no longer a factory warranty (I am not talking about a personal, seller offered, "satisfaction" period to allow a buyer to return an item) I know if I were to buy a similar "like new" item from a private party for a healthy discount from a store price, I would not expect continuation of the factory warrenty. If the buyer really wants a warranty then a new Nikon USA camera can be purchased.

 

I would look to see if the lenses has "US" marked before the serial number (newer lenses) or if the factory stamped paperwork demonstrated that the camera and lens were Nikon USA imports as I have heard that Nikon USA may not even fix, at any time, a grey market camera (have also heard conflicting information about this also).

 

Hope this helps and I would be interested in others experiences as I have read a variety of sometime conflicting stories over the years. My personal concern about my D100 warranty repair ended recently as it is over a year old and totally out of warranty.

 

Robert

[Carl Stone]

Nikon warranties are not transferable.