a900 failure out of warranty

[Brian Mosley]

I've only had occasion to call on Sony warranty once, for an mp3 player... it was not a pleasant experience - this is the kind of thing that ruins a company's reputation.

Good luck Mike, please report back when you get a response from them - hope they will do the right thing.

Cheers

Brian

 

[mwalker]

Mike, I suggest you send the link to this thread to Sony.
Hopefully they'll reconsider the way they have treated you and the money they have charged you just for resetting an aperture lever - even being told not to.
It would be of important value for Sony's reputation if this story found a happy ending.

Hi Steen, where would you send it? If anyone knows or wants to try to pass this thread on to a sony rep please and thank you.
The guy at the service center when I called gave me these comments:
1. you signed our repair policy flat rate agreement (this was prior to me reading fully the other thread. even though I called right after I sent it to them and they said they would send it back)
2.its not our policy to let you talk to a technician. (even though they said I could before they started to fix the camera)
3. once the item is in the system they can not stop the train. (again even though they said they could initially).

I would be happy for a Sony rep to come on this forum and give their side of the story but I don't see that happening. If the camera malfunctions again separate from this issue I will sell the lenses and go back to Nikon. I will keep you informed on any further developments if any.

 

[GrahamB]

Mike,

I'm sure you're a nice guy, but I have little sympathy for you.

$508 sounds expensive, and it is expensive, and just to "reset a lever". Well , that may or not be the repair. It really doesn't matter. You know if your camera is out of warranty, and you send it to Sony for repair, it's going to cost $508 no matter what they do.

If you go to the emergency room, you know one thing is certain... they'll rape you with the charges. The ER is going to charge a minimal fixed fee no matter what the diagnosis. So what do you do to protect yourself? You buy health insurance.

Why didn't you purchase the extended warranty? I purchased a 3 yr. extended on both my a700 and a850 for under $200. I just checked SonyStyle, and the a900 3 year extended sells for $179 or $230 for the 4 year. I think that's pretty cheap for peace of mind.

I hope your repaired camera gives you many more months of good service. If you decide to "go back to Nikon", or any other brand, I hope you remember to purchase an extended warranty. I suspect Nikon's out of warranty repairs aren't cheap either.

Graham

 

[ecsh]

+1. Not to sound cruel, buts its a roll of the dice, and i have seen this post on Nikons and Canons as well. It is not just Sony.

 

[danielmoore]

A flat rate of 508.00 is rape. You bet I have sympathy for those that pay it.
The very reasonable rate I paid Nikon to replace my out of warranty LCD screen was a sigh of relief and in fact was very close to the cost of 1 years extended warranty. Most importantly, no work was done until the -estimate- was approved.

 

[dbogdan]

Most importantly, no work was done until the -estimate- was approved.

Great point and something I had forgotten. If Sony would have had such a step in the work order repair flow, we wouldn't be talking about this now.:toocool:

 

[mwalker]

Mike,

I'm sure you're a nice guy, but I have little sympathy for you.

$508 sounds expensive, and it is expensive, and just to "reset a lever". Well , that may or not be the repair. It really doesn't matter. You know if your camera is out of warranty, and you send it to Sony for repair, it's going to cost $508 no matter what they do.

If you go to the emergency room, you know one thing is certain... they'll rape you with the charges. The ER is going to charge a minimal fixed fee no matter what the diagnosis. So what do you do to protect yourself? You buy health insurance.

Why didn't you purchase the extended warranty? I purchased a 3 yr. extended on both my a700 and a850 for under $200. I just checked SonyStyle, and the a900 3 year extended sells for $179 or $230 for the 4 year. I think that's pretty cheap for peace of mind.

I hope your repaired camera gives you many more months of good service. If you decide to "go back to Nikon", or any other brand, I hope you remember to purchase an extended warranty. I suspect Nikon's out of warranty repairs aren't cheap either.

Graham

Don't need / want sympathy. If the camera fails again I will mash it on the ground.
I'm more pissed that they didn't send the camera back after I asked them too and THEY said they would and didn't. As far as the $508 you're right I rolled the dice and didn't take the extended warranty. I will say however a flat rate policy is a bad policy IMO. I have to give estimates in my business.
A estimate policy would be nice if you would have the time to go through that process and a flat rate if you where in a hurry.

 

[Steen]

Hi Steen, where would you send it? If anyone knows or wants to try to pass this thread on to a sony rep please and thank you.
~snip~

Ouch, you are right, Mike, it's not at all that easy.
On their website the Sony USA folks are hiding themselves so that you don't get any address of their company and not even an email address for customer inquiries.
Scary

I suggest you call them at this phone number and ask for an email address so that you can send them the link to this thread and ask them for a fair solution.
Make your email to the top management of the company, and please keep us informed about how everything turns out.

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/contact-relation.pl?

 

[mwalker]

steen thanks for looking this up but I'm done with it. As people have pointed out the whole ordeal is my fault for not buying the extended warranty. (Aside from them saying they would send it back so I could fix it myself). Maybe other people will read this and find out how to reset the apiture lever and not send their cameras to service. Sonys are expensive without a warranty.

 

[gsking]

It seems this flat rate pricing, being about double the cost of a single repair, should make us rethink our approach to extended service plans.

They used to be an expensive insurance policy. You'd spend more than the cost of a single repair, or get rid of the camera before you'd ever need it.

These days, having a body for 4 years is commonplace, and the chances of SOMETHING coming up in that time is pretty high. Minor problems might not make the camera unusable, so paying $500 to repair it would be silly. But if you've got the plan...no worries.

I got the 4 year plan on my A700 for $170 or something. After two years, I had...

...a dirty sensor that wouldn't blow clean
...a dirty VF, made worse by my haphazard attempt to change a screen
...the notorious skipping thumbwheel
...a very sticky SSS switch (from who knows what)
...a broken flash shoe from using the camera in the cold and having the flash break off the brittle plastic.

Add in the general wear and tear that probably resulted in AF degradation, and the camera really needed a tune up.

The camera came back with AF that seems to work better, and a flash shoe that was less "sloppy" with my 58 flash than my original. The camera is like new.

If I do that twice, it's $90 a pop. More than fair.

I'll get a similar plan with my next camera. This one was from Best Buy, which was a rare coincidence of their A700 blowout sale. Having a dropoff point was great. I'll have to see if I can get one through them even if I buy my camera elsewhere. Since it may be used, I'll go with Squaretrade. I've used them before and been satisfied too.

 

[mwalker]

I was never offered or prompted for an extended warranty though I probably could have found one on line. In the past my attitude toward an extended warranty was if it didn't break during the normal manufacturing warranty it probably wouldn’t break....I'm rethinking that for the future. If I was using this camera professionally it would be a no brainer.

 

[gsking]

Mike,

I fully agree. And the doubling of the warranty with your credit card helps there as well.

The flipside is that the BB warranty (not sure about Squaretrade or other options) is that it covered user damage. My broken flash shoe would fall into that category (and would have entailed the standard expensive repair). That made me take the plunge.

If it's got a bunch of caveats and exemptions for those sorts of things, the decision is more difficult to make.

 

[Bill Caulfeild-Browne]

I've just read this thread for the first time and am quite surprised - Sony warrants the a900 and all their lenses for two years in Canada. (Which is then doubled by my Mastercard.)

Might that be ammunition to get service in other countries?

Bill

 

[mwalker]

I've just read this thread for the first time and am quite surprised - Sony warrants the a900 and all their lenses for two years in Canada. (Which is then doubled by my Mastercard.)

Might that be ammunition to get service in other countries?

Bill

I don't understand why it would be different....oh well I'm taking it to Southern Russia Saturday for a month that will put it through its paces. Like I said if it fails again I'm mashing it on the ground, sell the lenses. I'm taking a M9 and M7 for backup / primary.

 

[Endos]

In Spain Sony gives five-year warranty with pro support for the A900/A850.
They seem to have different policies depending on the country.

Juan

 

[roweraay]

I personally would call Sony customer service and talk to them. Based on past experience, I find that as long as you have a reference for the conversation you had with Sony repair, where you specifically asked them to return back the product without the "repair", Sony customer service will work on refunding the money.

I personally got my A900 on Oct.2008 (nearly 1 year and 8 months back) and have not had even a whisper of a problem till date. I do have a 3-year ADH extended warranty from Sony for it, however.

 

[ken_vs_ryu]

My A900 had a intermittent failure only called "camera failure" in the LCD. It would reset with a battery removal but return a few shots later. Purchased 12/08 so out of factory warranty. Sony's policy; flat fee to fix no matter what the problem $508.00. I guess flat fees are routine with the big guys?

if you purchased it with a credit card, there might be an extended warrany feature. check with them.

 

[debuggerus]

I've checked the rate for my A700,A900 which have the skipping wheel problem. My A900's joystick also is dead.
Flat rates are $458, $508.
To my surprise, the flat rate for A850 is $228. What the heck?

precisioncamera has a flat rate quote of $370.95 for A900. I'm not sure if that flat rate program covers the same things as the Sony flat rate program.

 

[Lonnie Utah]

I have an insurance policy on my A900 (and a bunch of lenses) thru my home owners insurance. It's roughly $6 per month ($74/year). It insures me for theft and breakage and even has an "idiot" clause in it. If I ever need a repair, I might have to let my tripod fall over. Fortunately I have a great local shop here that can do repairs in house.

I too had the ap level problem but was able to find and fix it before I had to send it in...