[Leica] Leica upgrade/repair service

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

You may recall that about 2 months ago I was enquiring about the best 
way to send expensive things to Solms for service.

After reading the replies (thanks, all!) I bit the bullet and shipped 
it via Canada Post Express, with less than full insurance. Insurance 
agents here told me that they would sell me insurance, but to expect 
problems in collecting on it. Soo... with trepidation I sent off an 
M8, Noctilux, 28 Summicron, 21 Elmarit ASPH and 28-50 Tri Elmar.

After the parcel had fallen off the Canadian tracking radar a few 
days, I contacted Leica. They had not seen the parcel, but Herr Jakob 
followed that up a day or two later stating that the parcel had been 
sent to a neighbouring village and had taken a bit of a vacation 
there.

He sent me an estimate, including work for 'fixing' the Noctilux; 
apparently the guides had worn and needed replacing/adjusting. I was 
hesitant, but agreed. Less than 3 weeks later it was sent off back to 
me. After 2 weeks enroute I was starting to get worried again, but 
then got a call from Fedex saying they had a parcel that needed 
Customs clearing, and did I want them to do it or did I have my own 
broker. I enquired as to the stated value for Customs, and was told 
that it was over 3500 Euros. As the work itself, and the amount I 
paid was about a sixth of that, I told them I would clear it myself 
and armed myself with as much paper as I could. I finally convinced 
the Customs people that there had been a mistake in the labelling of 
the value for Customs, and paid the 'proper' amount.

Then I got my package. It was large, about 60cm x 60cm x 40cm. Lots 
of bubbles. You could probably have dropped it from the plane 
directly onto my driveway and the contents would have been fine. 
Inside were the five items, each additionally wrapped and presented 
in black velveteen bags.

Two of the lenses had had new rear caps put on (the old ones were 
included) and everything looked spotlessly clean. The Noctilux is now 
slightly stiff, but that's to be expected with the new focussing 
guides and lubrication.

The M8 had had its viewfinder adjusted, and now worked perfectly with 
the Noctilux. The Noctilux still works perfectly with the other M8. 
Great! All lenses are properly coded an register as such with the 
cameras.

The M8 that had been sent in had had a gouge out of the rear plate 
near the 'set' button, and the glass had been chipped near there and 
had had a number of scratches. Both the rear cover glass and the rear 
plastic plate, along with buttons, wheel etc. have been replaced at 
no charge.

All in all, an outstanding service job. Yes, it cost some money but 
the quality of the work, communication and presentation were truly 
first class. I've never had service work as good from Canon or Nikon 
before that (nor Leica in the 60's or 70's).

The only bad parts were the shipping in both directions. The strange 
value for the return trip was apparently entered on the papers by the 
third party shipping company Leica uses, as Leica's papers quite 
clearly showed the true value. Herr Jakob told me that the 3500 Euros 
might have been entered for the total value of the shipment, not the 
customs value but clearly the total value of the 5 items was much 
higher than that.

In any case, Leica's service was excellent. I haven't sent anything 
to them for years (probably about 25) and only used third party, so 
was very nervous after hearing various bad reports. I just thought 
that I should balance that with a good report (which doesn't ususally 
get written).


-- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
   /|\      Wulff Photography & Design
  /###\   mailto:henningw@archiphoto.com
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