So I got a call from a rather unhelpful woman at Precision Camera.
PC - What's wrong with the head ?
Me - It flexes at the joint between the ball head and the base plate.
PC - No it doesn't.
Me - Come again ? I'm pretty sure it does, I could see some movement when I exerted pressure on the base plate.
PC - I'm not seeing any movement, there's movement in the panorama head, but not in the base.
Me - Well, I don't know what to tell you. I held the head at the ball and when I pushed up on the plate with my thumbs it clearly moved.
PC - As I said, it doesn't.
Me - Would you mind checking again ?
PC - i have it in front of me with a 100lb weight and it doesn't budge. I'm going to tell the technician to check the panorama plate.
Me - Can you ask him to check the base plate as well ?
PC - There's no movement in the base plate, I'll tell them to check the panorama head. We'll let you know if it's covered under warranty.
Me - Thank you, have a nice day.
So I got the head back today, the invoice said things were checked for tightness, and obviously it's NOT fixed. And actually worst than when I sent it in. So I took it apart and tried to figure out on my own.
From what I can tell from holding the two parts together without the screw, one of the surfaces isn't perfectly flat/level (Surface A seems slightly convex so that the top plate (surface B) 'rocks' on top of the stem) so no matter how tightly you screw them together there will always be some play.
Not only but the stem diameter is far too narrow to support a claimed weight of 130lbs. The interface between should be MUCH larger, and at the very least it should be machined/faced properly so that both parts sit flush. The medium sized screw that holds the parts together is another joke - there's simply no way to properly tighten a 3mm hex bolt !
Add to that poor customer service and I really feel like I pissed away $549.
Now any idea where I can get this thing properly fixed ?!