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Experience with Leica USA service?


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Curious if anyone has sent their T/TL/TL2 to Leica USA in New Jersey for service. They have had my TL2 in their possession for 3 weeks now and all I've had is an acknowledgement that they received it. No estimate for the repair has yet been sent. I'm not used to this kind of delay when dealing with other photography-related brands, who usually turn around repairs in a week or less.

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Curious if anyone has sent their T/TL/TL2 to Leica USA in New Jersey for service. They have had my TL2 in their possession for 3 weeks now and all I've had is an acknowledgement that they received it. No estimate for the repair has yet been sent. I'm not used to this kind of delay when dealing with other photography-related brands, who usually turn around repairs in a week or less.

 

Leica in NJ was the best customer service and repair experience I ever had with any company!

 

But these last 2 years, they have changed a lot!... They don't seem  to care about people; they almost never respond to your messages; and, the new people they have to take care of don't  know anything about cameras and problems; or simply their job!...

 

My T was there for  a month or so; and I had to call and email them every day to finally have it back!...

 

But their repair is top notch; contrary to their PR and CS!

Edited by Louis
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My T was there for a month or so; and I had to call and email them every day to finally have it back!...

 

But their repair is top notch; contrary to their PR and CS!

Thanks for posting about your experience Louis! I guess I will have to start bugging them regularly...

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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No experience with the TL, only for the S system.

 

I had the AF motor of one of my lenses replaced and that took 2 months, so slow and communication with Leica USA was difficult...

 

If you go to the S forum you will find lots of threads about this topic.

 

The way Leica communicates with its customers (or perhaps better does not communicate) is a problem in general, not only for support. 

 

As mentioned by Louis, I would call and email them every freaking day till they start replying...

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They have had my 11-23 for about a week now. I called them and and spoke to a human right away. They told me it was going to be 8 weeks worst case depending on the problem found with the lens. I didn’t find this really unusual since my A7-screen replacement took Sony 12 weeks.

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Thanks MDCT.

 

I also spoke to them today, they said my TL2 and the accompanying lens have been sent to the factory for repair, and that it should take around a month (!). I had an issue where the left side of the image was always soft at infinity focus, likely due to a misaligned lens mount or sensor. This was verified by testing with a second copy of the same lens (11-23) which produced identical symptoms.

 

I kind of wish they would just replace the body rather than trying to repair it. I have a trip coming up and can't wait a month for the repair, so I guess now I will have two TL2s and 11-23s!

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They told me it was going to be 8 weeks worst case depending on the problem found with the lens. I didn’t find this really unusual since my A7-screen replacement took Sony 12 weeks.

 

2-3 months is really a bit too long I find...

 

I dealt with Hasselblad 3 times: replacement shutter, faulty lens and replacement IR filter digital back.  For the first two repairs I had the gear back within the week.  The digital back made a trip to Denmark and it took 2 weeks...

 

As an early adopter of the Fuji X-T1 I sent it in for the light leak problem.  I don't recall exactly how long it took but it was not very long either...

Edited by JorisV
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Yeah its really frustrating. I have bought a couple of Voigtländer m mount lenses to hold me over. I have the T and an A7. I was thinking about a TL2 but I might just wait a bit till the pricing and availability becomes a little more sane. BTW the issues with the 11-23 seem to be a thing. I have seen a few issues with them on the forums.

Edited by MDCT
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  • 4 weeks later...

Three weeks isn't bad for them. My M240 was there for RF adjustment over a month. I was told recently that they had a records dump when they changed their software

which required a lot of man-hours to retrieve all their records. If so, turnaround  time should now begin to improve.

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Three weeks isn't bad for them. My M240 was there for RF adjustment over a month. I was told recently that they had a records dump when they changed their software

which required a lot of man-hours to retrieve all their records. If so, turnaround  time should now begin to improve.

 

 

Maybe if the repair doesn't require a trip to Germany :( Which was the the case for mine - I still don't have it back and they are saying most likely it will be the end of November before I have it back.

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I had my T sent to New Jersey through Leica San Francisco. It was diagnosed to be the circuit board burnt down. It took several months to come back, and no clear communication when it would be done till about two weeks before I finally received it. Completely free of charge.

 

The service quality in terms of fixing the problem cannot be better. But it just took some patience.

 

I have no complaint at all. Considering the reality of the size if the service team due to the much smaller market share, it is completely understandable.

 

I also had my Sony A7RII for service. Try to ask anyone about Sony"s setvice.

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I had my T sent to New Jersey through Leica San Francisco. It was diagnosed to be the circuit board burnt down. It took several months to come back, and no clear communication when it would be done till about two weeks before I finally received it. Completely free of charge.

 

The service quality in terms of fixing the problem cannot be better. But it just took some patience.

 

I have no complaint at all. Considering the reality of the size if the service team due to the much smaller market share, it is completely understandable.

 

I also had my Sony A7RII for service. Try to ask anyone about Sony"s setvice.

 

I had the screen replaced on my A7. It took 3 months... no charge.

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  • 3 weeks later...

This repair turned into quite the experience. Having sent my camera and lens back to Germany, Leica decided that both should be replaced. Great, except there are NO TL2 bodies available to replace mine with. I will have to wait at least another two weeks to mid December.

 

Fortunately I purchased another TL2 body in the mean time. After quite some amount of insistence on my part, they are sending just the replacement for the 11-23 lens for now.

 

My suspicion is that Leica stopped production of the TL2 to build inventory of the CL prior to the launch. Now that it is launched, they are back to producing some TL2 bodies again.

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This repair turned into quite the experience. Having sent my camera and lens back to Germany, Leica decided that both should be replaced. Great, except there are NO TL2 bodies available to replace mine with. I will have to wait at least another two weeks to mid December.

 

Fortunately I purchased another TL2 body in the mean time. After quite some amount of insistence on my part, they are sending just the replacement for the 11-23 lens for now.

 

My suspicion is that Leica stopped production of the TL2 to build inventory of the CL prior to the launch. Now that it is launched, they are back to producing some TL2 bodies again.

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Oops sorry for the blank post. They have had my 11-23 for over 6 weeks. I am beginning to believe there was an issue with that lens. I sent mine back because sent a lens error message and didn’t allow the camera start up. It wound up needing a main board replacement that cost me 280.00. What was the issue with your 11-23?

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Oops sorry for the blank post. They have had my 11-23 for over 6 weeks. I am beginning to believe there was an issue with that lens. I sent mine back because sent a lens error message and didn’t allow the camera start up. It wound up needing a main board replacement that cost me 280.00. What was the issue with your 11-23?

The issue was severe astigmatism on the left third of the frame at 11mm infinity focus. Most likely this is due to an assembly error with one or more elements slightly out of line.

 

I was really hoping Leica had the ability to dismantle the lens and fine tune it to perfection. Apparently they prefer to just swap them out. I have received my replacement 11-23, which I should note is now my third copy of this lens. This one shows some astigmatism on the left side of the frame at 23mm infinity focus. All 3 copies had this issue to varying degrees. The latest one is manageable and doesn’t really impact any shooting scenarios I use the lens for.

 

If I had to speculate, I’d say that Leica over-designed this lens to achieve perfect performance, but assembly tolerances just aren’t tight enough to make this happen.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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