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Faulty Ultravids?


Peter Leica man

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Hi there. I've recently acquired a paor of Leica Ultravid  8x42s. They seem to have a cloud down one side of the optical assembly. Now is this just me or is there a fault? If they are faulty do Leica repair under warranty or is it an expensive job? Thanks very much in anticipation. 

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On 8/19/2020 at 6:04 PM, jdlaing said:

Ditto. Even after the warranty ends.

The warranty never ends - Leica provides three-year no-fault Passport warranty which includes any damage and a lifelong limited warranty which includes normal wear and tear.

https://www.reddotforum.com/content/2018/10/leica-binoculars-the-ultimate-buying-guide/


@ the OP: Send them to Leica; they will almost certainly be repaired free of charge.

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Surely ebay have grievance procedure! - depending on what you paid, the estimate might be the best way to go.. If you keep them for 10years the overall cost is neglidgeable.. My 8x24's are over 30years old and still perfect..  L

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2 minutes ago, lykaman said:

Surely ebay have grievance procedure! - depending on what you paid, the estimate might be the best way to go.. If you keep them for 10years the overall cost is neglidgeable.. My 8x24's are over 30years old and still perfect..  L

That's one way of looking at it. And yes eBay do have grievance policies. But even if I return to the seller l've lost about €65 in estimate charge and postage. I might as well bite the bullet and have them fixed. Just goes to show you cannot be 100% sure on eBay. The seller has over 3000 positives as well. 

B

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1 minute ago, Peter Leica man said:

That's one way of looking at it. And yes eBay do have grievance policies. But even if I return to the seller l've lost about €65 in estimate charge and postage. I might as well bite the bullet and have them fixed. Just goes to show you cannot be 100% sure on eBay. The seller has over 3000 positives as well. 

B

Maybe he has a large family! - I've never bought on eBay and never will, many will disagree with me & that's fine.. Good Luck....  l

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2 hours ago, Peter Leica man said:

Unfortunately Leica have replied to me and want €181.65 for repairs and postage. The eBay seller told me to go away. He has over 3000 positives as well. I did present  him with an opportunity to offer a solution. He didn't so got a deserved negative. 

That’s actually not too bad.

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2 hours ago, Peter Leica man said:

Unfortunately Leica have replied to me and want €181.65 for repairs and postage. The eBay seller told me to go away. He has over 3000 positives as well. I did present  him with an opportunity to offer a solution. He didn't so got a deserved negative. 

Leica probably determined that this is not normal wear or a manufacturing defect. Pity.

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We obviously don’t know how much you paid for the binoculars, but €181, plus postage, to have them Leica serviced sounds good to me.

As has been said before, they will last you several lifetimes, so startling out with a factory refurbished pair is going to be the way to go.

I don’t use eBay either as there are too many charlatans out there, regardless of how many cousins give him positive feedback.

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Certainly in the UK (possibly different in other regions) Leica no longer offer a lifetime guarantee on binoculars; I think it's more like 10 years. So if you can't demonstrate date of purchase or place of purchase, I'm not surprised that Leica want to charge for sorting the problem out. I agree with Andy, €181 seems OK to me (and certainly so by Leica standards!).

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19 minutes ago, andybarton said:

We obviously don’t know how much you paid for the binoculars, but €181, plus postage, to have them Leica serviced sounds good to me.

As has been said before, they will last you several lifetimes, so startling out with a factory refurbished pair is going to be the way to go.

I don’t use eBay either as there are too many charlatans out there, regardless of how many cousins give him positive feedback.

Well to be honest Andy I'm also of the opinion that the estimate isn't too bad. I think had I owned them from new and got the use out of them then I'd have been  saying I'm very happy with Leica. 

It's the sellers bare faced lie describing them as MINT that's infuriated me and then him refusing to help in anyway. 

I paid a total of £659.95 for them. 

And of course when I looked into his feedback in  a bit more detail it consisted, almost entirely of sales for old carpentry tools and items entirely unrelated to this 

Lesson learnt. 

 

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4 minutes ago, masjah said:

Certainly in the UK (possibly different in other regions) Leica no longer offer a lifetime guarantee on binoculars; I think it's more like 10 years. So if you can't demonstrate date of purchase or place of purchase, I'm not surprised that Leica want to charge for sorting the problem out. I agree with Andy, €181 seems OK to me (and certainly so by Leica standards!).

I used to work for Jessops years ago and ran a branch service department. We'd occasionally have Leica equipment in for repair back in the Luton days. It was a little bit of a hassle to put it mildly, turnaround was months. The service Leica are now providing has improved considerably and I'm not really annoyed with them as I was half expecting a charge in any case . I'll probably be taking the hit on these and keeping them. 

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23 minutes ago, Peter Leica man said:

I paid a total of £659.95 for them

Ouch!

Excellent / Mint- Ultravids seem to sell for about £1,000 from a good retailer in the UK, so, once yours come back from Leica, you will be in roughly where you were if you’d avoided Chippy Minton and his son-in-law. But, yours will be properly and professionally serviced.

Good luck!

Edit: I have a pair of very old Trinovid 8x42s that I bought from London Camera Exchange about 20 years ago. Having had a lot of enjoyment from them, I’d have to pay a couple of hundred quid more for them now than I did back then. So, your £1,000 all-in purchase price is pretty safe, I’d say.

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34 minutes ago, andybarton said:

Ouch!

Excellent / Mint- Ultravids seem to sell for about £1,000 from a good retailer in the UK, so, once yours come back from Leica, you will be in roughly where you were if you’d avoided Chippy Minton and his son-in-law. But, yours will be properly and professionally serviced.

Good luck!

Edit: I have a pair of very old Trinovid 8x42s that I bought from London Camera Exchange about 20 years ago. Having had a lot of enjoyment from them, I’d have to pay a couple of hundred quid more for them now than I did back then. So, your £1,000 all-in purchase price is pretty safe, I’d say.

Thank you for that Andy

I'm pleased that we're on a more positive path and I'm seeing it more from that view than I was earlier. 

That estimate also includes replacement of the rubber armour. 

I think my mind is made up. 

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