Well, it's half-n-half. There are safety recalls for motorcycles, but there are plenty of "defects" that the manufacturer won't honor free fix. Same can be said for pretty much everything. by definition, warranties mostly warrant the quality and craftsmanship within whatever given years. If there was a defect on my mechanical watch 2 years after warranty period, I need to be prepared to pay up to fix it. Sometimes the company will do goodwill service free of charge, and Leica (at least NJ) is quite well known for that. That said, I'm prepared to pay when the time comes. And compared to european cars and motorcycles, Leica's repair charge is quite generous. 😛
I always thought I'd at some point own an M9, to the point of keeping a couple of lenses that don't work on my x-pro but would on the M9, but now I think it's unlikely I'd spend any serious money on a camera with such a track record, and it's this I see as being the big problem for a lot of owners, even if your camera hasn't developed a problem, it has to have an effect on it's resale value, which up until now has been pretty good for a digital camera.
I'd like to ask anyone who so far has taken the view that this is being blown out of proportion, if they had a friend unaware of the issue, who was about to shell out over £6000 on a monochrome M, would they feel compelled to give the friend a heads up about the possible issue, and this is the thing, it undermines the reputation of the product.
I think with other manufacturers it largely depends on how big the problem is, and perhaps if it can be proved to be a design fault or not. I once had a VW Passat that I bought secondhand and beyond the milage that would have given some warranty, nor was it bought from VW. After a few months of ownership I discovered there was a lot of water swilling around under the cabins floor, submerging the loom of electrical wires that run the length of the car. This was caused by a design fault with the AC unit leaking condensed water into, instead of out of the car. VW replaced the loom which required gutting the cars cabin and re-running and connecting the hundreds of wires that make up the loom, an enormous undertaking, it was away for about three weeks and I was provided a courtesy car, all free of charge.
The point being that VW must have taken the view that the cost was worth the longer term confidence of the consumer, but importantly they have the resources to ride these things out.
I doubt Leica could afford to keep replacing all M9 cameras with new sensors as they fail, even if by rights they ought to. This isn't wear and tear, or an ongoing service issue, it's a car engine failing after 20,000 miles. I feel sorry for Leica, they haven't had the best of luck with their digital M's. they must be very frustrated with their suppliers.
