billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

What you are stating is SECOND HAND INFO. I personally do not believe it. Why do you bring your FRIEND'S dirty laundry here?

traderjohn Loc: New York City

Yes...Yes. Not only is it second hand it is hearsay. Non-admissible. Uncorroborated. You are dismissed.

muphoto

I will give Nikon service a good word. I have been an NPS member for 40+ years and have used the repair and equipment loan service many, many times. The repairs are done quickly and right, I have never had to send a piece of equipment to them a second time for the same problem. When I do request a loan, for temporary use while mine is being repaired or for a special event, the piece is sent quickly and if I need to extend the loan they are very accommodating.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

ME TOO!

twillsol Loc: St. Louis, MO

Wow, I wonder what is really going on? He is meeting with the owner of the camera shop he sent it through this week-end and hopefully we will find out what is going on. The Nikon rep is supposed to be there too.

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

The biggest part of this "puzzle" is why he (she) entrusted that camera to ANY third party at all rather than dealing directly with Nikon USA Service Center in the first place? Way too many intermediaries involved in this issue any way you slice it. Almost sounds as if we are talking about trying to get repairs for a grey market camera?

Geezer Bill Loc: San Diego County, CA

My experience with Nikon service has left me with no complaints. I had a focus problem with my 200-500 and they asked me for a sample image. After they checked the image they told me to send the lens to them. It was returned in a reasonable time and has worked well since. When I had the misfortune of allowing my D810 to drop (with body cap on) face first on a concrete floor, cracking the case, I chose to use the Nikon authorized repair service here in San Diego. I was given a repair estimate and told that because of the particular time of year the parts delivery would be delayed, and it was. When I picked the camera up it was accompanied by a plastic bag with broken parts and a list of test results on the cameras shutter. It works fine! The only unfortunate thing was that because of the repair delay time I had to go to Nelson Photo in San Diego and get on their list for a D850. I had the D850 before the D810 was done and at a time when a lot of people were complaining about the long wait on mail order lists for the D850. BUY LOCAL!!

twillsol Loc: St. Louis, MO

He took it to the camera store that he purchased it. And it is not a grey marked camera either. But I do agree either and I have told him this three or four times. He should have gone straight to Nikon. But he is hard headed and felt like it was the camera store's problem. I told him he has had it two years and it was not the camera store's problem, but his.

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

After 2 years you are exactly right! Credit to the camera store for assisting though.

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

Sorry but it sounds as though you are making a very strong decision based on very little information. You read a couple of sentences from someone who does not even own the camera and make a decision. Not good in my opinion. Many thousands of consumers have sent their Nikon products to the service department with absolutely no problems at all.

Dennis

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

Then your friend should go to the camera store who did send it in and have them call Nikon with him standing there to find out what is really going on. Something isn't right about this whole story, with you telling us this second hand information. It is hard for me to believe that Nikon would not support the D5 camera to begin with.

Dennis

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

Airing someone elses "dirty laundry" is never beneficial, here or anywhere.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

FYI:

Actually, in the U.S. (maybe elsewhere, I dunno) Canon Professional Services basic "Silver" program is free... you just need to have certain equipment to qualify and have limited benefits.

Their "Gold" plan costs $100 a year requires a bit more gear to qualify and significantly expands benefits.

Their "Platinum" plan is $300/year, requires even more gear to qualify and has top-of-the-line benefits.

All three programs have different levels of expedited repair work, event support, a loaner program and hotline support. The paid programs add some level of cleaning and maintenance services, greater access to loaners and demos, faster repair turn around, significant discounts on the work, priority shipping and more.

There's also a more specialized "Cinema" plan which costs $1000/year.... but by the time you're buying $20,000 lenses to use on $10,000 cameras, that probably seems like a bargain.

Regarding the original question...

If I were the original poster's friend, if the store and Nikon repair can't give a date when the camera would be repaired and returned, at this point I might ask the store to get it back unrepaired and put it in the hands of an independent repairer instead. There could well be someone out there who can fix it without all the grief.

Factory repair services replace rather than repair. For example, certain of Canon's DSLR models had a common problem where over time finger oils and dust gradually accumulated in the shutter release button mechanism, eventually leading to slow release or in the worst cases preventing release of the shutter at all. There's a rather half-assed DIY fix (details online), or a better solution is to put it in the hands of an independent repairer who would do a the job with a little disassembly. In either case, all that's really needed is a proper cleaning and re-lubrication to make things work like new.

However if you sent the camera in to the Canon factory service department with the same problem they'd instead replace the shutter release switch module with a brand new one.... which certainly solves the problem, but adds the cost of replacement parts. And if those parts are unavailable for any reason - either waiting on a new batch to be manufactured or no longer even being made because the camera is a discontinued model - the work would come to a standstill and you'd have to wait for parts or night even see your camera returned as "unrepairable".

This is common with all brands and one of the major differences between factory service departments and independent repairers.

A possible problem sending a Nikon camera to an independent shop is that the company will no longer sell parts to them, if anything is needed to effect the repair. Several years ago Nikon USA announced a policy of only providing parts within their own network of "authorized" repairers (about 20 such in the U.S.) Purportedly they did this to insure the quality of repairs is up to their standards (...certainly not to have monopolistic control over service repair and it's pricing ) Independent repairers have had to find other sources for parts and work-arounds to repair, rather than replace.

Hope they get it fixed soon! 3 months is a long time for any camera to be in for repair work!

kb6kgx Loc: Simi Valley, CA

I consider myself very fortunate to 1) not have had any need for major repairs and 2) when I did need something done, that I live and work about 15-20 minutes from a Nikon Authorized Service Center.

Moondoggie Loc: Southern California

I took my Nikon D5300 in for service at their Los Angeles facility. I had it back in less than a week, which was reasonable for me. They did a good job.