A successful R-D1 out of warranty repair

[jfbell20]

On bonfire night (5th November), the shutter button of my R-D1 came off and was lost in a muddy field. That night I checked this forum and worked out which parts were nissing from the exploded diagram on the German site. The following day I phoned Robert White and he gave me the number of the support. He also warned me that they could be a bit bureaucratic.

After a considerable wait, I managed to speck to customer support person. He informed me that they had a fixed price for out of warranty repairs but I had to described what was wrong. This I did. He then put me on hold while he talked to his manager.

After more music, he returned to the phone. The support person said that the manager had said the camera was unrepairable and would not consider it for a fixed price repair. I obviously was quite angry and demanded to speak to manager. The support person asked for my number and said that the manager would call me back in a guaranteed two hours. I told him that this was not the case and if he did not speak to me now I would tell every Internet forum that Epson did not repair the R_D1 and that the manager might have to explain the bad publicity. After a short delay the manager came to the phone. He repeated that he was not willing to accept the camera for a fixed price. I asked him how did he know that camera was not repairable. I said that I thought that it. After some argument he admitted he not seen the exploded chart because he was a support manager. I said I had not asked for a fixed price repair and said that I was willing to pay to have the camera sent to them and inspected so that they could quote a price for the repair. He agreed to this but said it would have to go to France.

I also explained to him that I was very unsatisfied with the level of support (in the hope that the call was going to be recorded). He said the R_D1 was given commercial levels of support for professionals and not just consumer report!!

He then transferred me back to the support person. I apologised for getting angry with him (after all it was not his decision) I arranged for the camera to be collected from work address (although I am an amateur I work for a large and prestigious institution. I also paid the 70 pounds for the collection, inspection and return.

Today the camera was returned repaired (I deliberately had not contacted EPSON because I did not want to provoke them into return the camera without trying to return it and to strengthen my bargaining position if they could not repair it.) It is the same camera I sent. It seem to be working perfectly. It did go to France because all the menus were in French.

So it is possible to get repairs but you have to be persistent.

John

PS I also have a classic camera blog at classiccam.blogspot.com

 

[iml]

Good news. Glad it all worked out.

Ian

 

[tmessenger]

On this note I've heard of another Rd1 user having his shutter button come off. I think it's good practice to check the collar nut that is around the shutter botton to make sure it is tight. It keeps everything in place. (turn clockwise to tighten)

Tim

 

[jlw]

At least your result was better than mine. I decided I wanted to have the rangefinder on my R-D 1 checked for accuracy before I get into my busy season, so today I tried calling Epson USA customer support.

On my first try I waited on hold 30 minutes and then hung up. On my second try I waited on hold 20 minutes and then hung up. On my third try I was connected to someone after about 10 minutes.

"Dalton," the support person, told me that I couldn't send my camera to Epson directly. He said I'd have to take it to a local agency that would first "check it out" before sending it to Epson. He gave me the name of the local agency; it's a computer-service place to which I've been referred before for Epson printer repairs. When I had tried to contact them in the past, they hadn't answered their phone or returned calls, and their location was closed when I drove past.

I told Dalton this and he said he would call to make sure they were still there, and would have to get back to me. He did (I do have to say he was very good on follow-up) and told me he had confirmed that they are still in business. He said they weren't familiar with the procedure for evaluating cameras because "usually the repairs cost so much that they aren't worth fixing." (Apparently they haven't caught on to the fact that they're dealing with a $3,000-list camera.)

Anyway, he said he had identified someone at Excel who at least would accept the camera for me and send it off to Epson for repair. He said there is a fixed price for repairs: $548 plus shipping.

I asked if $548 was the price regardless of how much or how little repair the camera required, and he said it was. (Which, if they stick to it, might be good news if your R-D 1 just got crushed by an avalanche or something: "Here's what's left of it. $548 to fix it, right?")

I thanked him for the info and hung up, but I suspect I'll be getting in touch with DAG again for my next rangefinder checkup...

 

[Robert]

The more I hear about problems with these digital rangefinders the more I am reluctant to buy one

 

[jlw]

The more I hear about problems with these digital rangefinders the more I am reluctant to buy one

Misadjustments, or parts falling off, can happen to any kind of camera.

What these stories illustrate is simply that Epson doesn't have a smooth setup for after-sale service requests. Some posts in other threads had made me hope that they've gotten things worked out a bit better, but that seems to be more true in Europe than in the U.S.