M9 used

[palmerfralick]

I think I will be looking at a used M9 as the prices come down. My question for those of you who own or have owned an M9. Have you needed to have the rangefinder aligned or adjusted? Besides being bumped hard or dropped what would cause an adjustment to be needed? The rest of the problems I've seen mentioned here seem to be rather random with the majority of owners not having any significant reliability problems.

 

[Pioneer]

Nope.

Not sure that the M9 is any more or less inclined to need this service than any other rangefinder...or any other camera for that matter.

 

[MVCG]

Hmmm, well, not sure whether it was 100% "needed" but I can definitely say it made a clear and noticeable improvement when I sent the M9 and all 8 lenses off to Solms fr calibration and alignment...

 

[yossarian123]

Since buying an M9 a few months ago, I've sent my M9 to DAG because focusing was off. The vertical RF was also out of whack, but I fixed that myself. After I got it back, I noticed problems (not noticed before on film) with my 50 summicron (back focusing) and 90 summicron (front focusing). All of which is to say that if you're buying Leica, always budget for some kind of shop work. Then enjoy it - after everything is adjusted it's a wonderful tool.

 

[jaapv]

Given that it is not very common for a rangefinder to go out of adjustment and that it is neither very difficult nor expensive to adjust, I do not see this as a deal-breaker. If the camera is not bumped (hard!) there is no reason for the adjustment to change.

 

[umcelinho]

adjusting the rf horizontal alignment is quite easy, i've never adjusted the vertical one but shouldnt be too hard. not a deal breaker at all.

regarding a really expensive service on the M9: to put a new sensor the cost is approximately $1200. i think that should be the most expensive thing to fix... so if an M-E is $5400 an M9 for less than $4200 is already a sort of a better buy, at least to me, unless you really want to have the whole warranty and shutter lifespan of a brand new one.