Iron Sight wrote:
After reading this I insured/extended the warranty of my very recent $$$ new camera purchase.
Sometimes the piece of mind is worth a little extra $$. I rarely buy them myself (extended warranties), but if I was buying a brand new "electronic anything" that cost greater than $1,000.00, I would certainly consider it (my wife would say YES, buy it). I have seen them offered for some used gear as well, but have taken my chances...so far so good.
Concerning camera body failures - my experience so far with digital:
I have some Sony bodies, everyone was bought used; A300, A37, A58, Nex-6/Nex-5n, A6000......and am happy to report no failures ever with any of them (hopefully I'm not jinxing my little world), nor with any of the native lenses - and I have a lot of older Minolta lenses and one body that all still work.
Nikon D80 shutter mechanism failure, long after warranty exp. - display/shelf queen now. D90 bought with other gear lot - viewfinder LED readout was dead when I got it, but otherwise the camera still works like and looks new (and since you can still tell when focus is captured, it is actually less distracting for composition with that data line missing!!). D7100 that lost 1st card slot before I got it (somewhere around 25K clicks), but I think someone/something got in there and bent a pin...second slot has performed as it should for another 15-20K clicks, I still use it very often. No issues with another D90, and D7200 has performed with excellence since bought as refurb with 60 clicks. Several superzooms L830/L840 and one other (model number slips my mind, no longer have it) all worked well.
3 Fuji superzooms, all still work like new. 3 canons, 2 DSLRs and a pocket P&S, P&S can't keep it's date correct, but still shoots just fine, SL-1 and XSi still look/work like new.
I share this only to show that any brand can have issues, some big, some small.