The Nikon repair saga concludes
Well, that ended up being pretty easy, initial delay aside. I dropped off my Nikon 17-55/2.8 lens for repair at Penn Camera at the beginning of November. I was told it would take a couple weeks for an estimate to come down the pike. It ended up taking almost a month for reasons unknown to me. After I approved the estimate - 10 days after it came in from Nikon to Penn Camera, because somehow I wasn’t notified and had to call to find out - it was only 10 more days before the repair was complete and the lens was back at Penn Camera for me to pick up. All told, exactly seven weeks’ wait, although if you subtract the 10-day delay that was Penn Camera’s fault instead of Nikon’s, the total wait was well within the 4-6 week range that I was told. Not bad.
The timeline looked like this:
- October 31 - I drop the lens about 4 feet. The impact embeds the AF contacts into the bayonet mount of the lens. Glass is fine but AF does not work.
- November 4 - I drop the lens off at Penn Camera for repair, am told it will take up to 2 weeks to get an estimate and up to 4-6 weeks total before I get the lens back, barring unforeseen delays involving parts shortages or whatnot.
- December 2 - Nikon finally gets an estimate in to Penn Camera. Penn Camera fails to notify me.
- December 12 - I call Penn Camera, they look up my ticket and find the estimate, and I approve it.
- December 23 - Penn Camera calls me to tell me the lens is back in their hands. I pick it up; it looks good. End of story.
The lens itself looks great - the above AF contacts were what had gotten bashed into the body of the lens by the impact when I dropped it on the sidewalk on Halloween night. Things that were done at the Nikon repair shop, according to my receipt, include “Replace bayonet mount unit,” “Repair Helicoid Assembly,” “Repair Aperture Ring Assembly,” and “General CLA to Specs.” Total cost? US $225 - far less than I had feared; I was braced for anything up to and above $500. Sweet!