My Leica MP3: Sharing My Recent Experience with Leica Customer Care

[rev2333]

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Good morning/afternnoon/evening everyone,

I would like to share my recent experience with Leica Customer Care in Wetzlar and ask whether anyone here has had similar issues.

Back in April this year, I submitted my Leica MP3 in person for a maintenance service on the desk of offical customer care. The camera had not been used for quite a long time, and the film advance and shutter speed dial had become very stiff. In addition, once the frame counter reached around 20–25 frames, advancing the film became extremely difficult. I explained these issues clearly when handing the camera over.

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At the end of October, I received the notification that the service was completed, and I paid a maintenance fee of around €1000. I originally thought this would be a fairly straightforward service, nevertheless, I trusted Leica and was willing to pay the cost. However, when I got the camera back, nothing had changed. I tested two different rolls of film (Ilford HP5+ and Kodak Portra 400, to make sure that the problem is not from the film), and the problems were still exactly the same, very hard film advance and a shutter speed dial that was still difficult to turn.

Customer Care suggested that perhaps my description of the problem had not been clear enough the first time, even though I had explained it in detail (you see the problems were described in german, to general check the camera). So I sent the camera back to Wetzlar again.

After about a month, I received it yesterday (this Friday). This time, the main issues were finally resolved, the film advance is now smooth, and the shutter speed dial works properly. I'm happy with this, but, however, a new problem has appeared: the internal lightmeter no longer displays readings between 1s and 1/8s. This issue did not exist before the service. I tried to change the batteries and even used the brand new batteries but it still failed.

At this point, I feel I am starting to lose confidence in Leica Customer Care. It is frustrating to send a camera in twice, pay a significant amount of money, and still end up with a new fault that was not present before.

Has anyone here experienced something similar, like, needing to send equipment back multiple times? If so, how did you communicate with Leica to get the issue properly resolved in the end?

Thank you for your reading and sharing the experience.

 

Edited 1 hour ago by rev2333

[jaapv]

I always communicate by telephone, backed up by email. I never had such a bad experience, though.