Do you get the CLA you pay for?

[p.giannakis]

Hi guys,


I just wanted to know your views on CLA. I am not a big fun of CLA'ing my cameras but there have been a few cameras in my collection that I felt that they did deserve the extra cash in order to be serviced and provide me with their service for the years to come. I have to confess my sin though: Money is a decisive factor and I'm always persuaded by competitive prices.

So far i have sent three cameras for service. In the first one there were easily recognisable signs that someone has been working on that camera. The wind level was so smooth and the viewfinder was bright and clean. The second one that i send to another company for service came back but it was really difficult to say whether it had been serviced or not, everything seemed to be working fine but everything worked fine before i sent it anyway.

The third one was sent to a repairman that is quite well known because of a fault in the shutter. The camera came back 15 days later with the same problem. I contacted the repairman and he requested to send it back to him to have another look. I googled around and i found out that this fault is quite common for this camera model and is usually repairable with a CLA. I sent the camera back for CLA in February and since then, whenever we speak on the phone, they are waiting for a spare part...

Which made me thinking.... do we usually get the CLA that we pay for? Am i a victim of my decisions to go for the cheaper quote and how can we check whether someone has repaired our cameras or not?

 

[LazyHammock]

I got a great deal locally on a Contax IIa, the rangefinder was a little dim so I took it to a local Madison camera repair center for a CLA. The rangefinder came back even dimmer and the camera worked fine as before. I'm embarrassed to say I paid $400 or so for this service - I had indicated the issue with the rangefinder as the priority. I complained and was told - there is nothing we can do. Obviously they have lost my business.
I sat on Henry Scherer's waiting list for a year but then found out about Mark Hansen. I sent Mark the camera and 50/1.5 Sonnar. I got it back in fantastic order about two months later with a very detailed description of the problem, the solution (replacement prism), the problems the last "CLA" created (apparently cleaned by flooding everything with a solvent - leaving a residue), shutter speed measurements and even resolving power of the Sonnar at f1.5 and f8. I can't say enough good things about Mark. All at a VERY good price.
I also had my Leica M3 repaired (viewfinder window) and CLA'd by DAG, not cheap but worth every penny to me.
I've learned my lesson that i will only trust a renowned professional with my camera/lens repairs and CLAs.