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What happens to “bad” lenses? What is happening with Nikon?

Seems like so many Nikon items are unavailable or hard to find these days. What is going on over at Nikon I wonder. Is Nikon in trouble? Food for thought.

Reader James M writes:

My east coast dealer just met with Nikon at their big dealer show in Cleveland. Nikon USA's response to dealer complaints was simple: no refunds for defective items, repairs at Nikon's sole discretion. A decentered lens like my recent 24 f1.4 would simply be returned marked "Within Tolerance".

Canon, in sharp contrast, is really pushing dealer/customer satisfaction. Defective items are replaced no questions asked. For whatever reason, Nikon is taking what could prove to be a very risky approach. Thom Hogan and several others are hammering on this issue, but to date, to no avail.

I am not sure whether B&H has a special volume deal with Nikon, or if they are handling defects internally, but they take things back from me immediately - full refund.

The bottom line is that Nikon will fix most body defects, but you can forget it for decentered lenses. In the future it looks like B&H and Adorama will be getting all my lens business.

When they work, Nikon cameras and lenses are fantastic. It is really sad, but a few bad leadership decisions can drive a great, old company straight into the ground.

It seems to me that companies under stress are likely to cut where they think they can, no matter how foolish it might be for long term business. Could product availability, quality control issues, and things like the above all be related?

Reader Scott M follows with his own experience:

I was interested (in a schadenfreude-y sort of way) to read James M.'s comments about his 24/1.4 would be returned as "within tolerance". Where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah, from Nikon USA... with my woefully decentered 12-24/f4 that could not take a sharp picture of anything until stopped down past f/8, with my otherwise spectacular 16-85 VR (also decentered at 85mm & long distances - f/8 and beyond is
of no help with this, though it's surprisingly good focused very close as a "pseudo-macro"), and worst of all, with my 35/2 D. Something was really, *really* wrong with that lens, it was returned to Nikon by a local dealer (out of warranty) for repair/adjustment that I was willing to pay for, including a CD of sample images. What followed was a long and ridiculous saga where Nikon claimed *in writing* (I hope I still have that letter somewhere) that the new DSLR's (in this case, a D300) were "too good" for these old lenses, but they wanted to charge me over $140 for "cleaning" (it was perfectly spotless and would have passed as a demo or even new). Eventually the dealer got my lens back without a charge but I got the impression from the sales staff that it was not a smooth process. I guess I got lucky with my 50/1.4G - it's truly excellent and I'm *never* letting go of it!

DIGLLOYD: a few years ago back in D2x days, I went through four (4) copies of the 12-24. None were really quite right, though the last one was tolerable, so I gave up. Sounds pretty familiar to me. See Brand-new Blur.

Reader Alfred Corrodi in Switzerland says:

Nothing like that behavior from Nikon in Switzerland. Very good, prompt, forthcoming service, directly from Nikon (you can call the engineers there!) and through all dealerships including the more discounted consumer channels (we have highly segmented distribution here with Pro products like the D3X and some of the lenses unavailable through retailers that offer discounts. Grey market or "parallel imports" work either via Nikon Netherlands where maintenance service is done by Nikon Switzerland, or via Asia/USA where service then is more difficult to get).

As with lenses, I had only minor issues (old 17-35/2.8) where I received immediate replacements. I do test all my new lenses, hardly any real issue, mostly spotless, even when bought via "discount" channels from Netherlands. I own just about anything Pro from Nikon going back more than 20 years of me buying, or 40+ years including my father, never really any issues. Same holds true for my Hasselblads. All HC lenses are pretty much perfect - or at least within the tolerance I would notice which I tend to believe is rather narrow (LensAlign tests, Siemens Star test, Brickwalls etc. ... the full Monty). Not quite the same is generally true for Leica, btw. Seems like the ultra-vanity segment is either less demanding ("it is so expensive this must be good") or more ready to suffer.

Sneaky suspicion (as I have lived in the US and UK for many years) - "nations" generally have different perception or expectation of quality and suppliers cater for that and you get what you pay for as a consumer, throughout the whole value chain. If the whole region/market (i.e. the US) is largely driven by price then guess what, as a supplier you deliver by price. Naturally, something else has to give. Still doesn't mean that more expensive is necessarily better, of course.

DIGLLOYD: sounds plausible, but doesn’t Nikon build all the lenses in the same place? If so, one could expect the same quality.

Anonymous reader says:

The first time I heard about this, which was a couple of months ago independently of your reports, I didn't believe it at first. It sounded too insane, as if Nikon were trying to set up battles between resellers and end users, and ultimately hang the resellers out to dry due to consumer protections as simple as using a credit card. A sales rep at San Jose Camera told me the exact same thing that James M said, and I verified it with another sales rep I know at a different reseller. I find this policy creates a shocking amount of tension between customers and resellers at the retail level, so I'm glad to see you putting a spotlight on it, and I'm glad that readers are reporting it to you. I just sent a private email to Nikon myself, expressing my disapproval with this growing policy problem.


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