Greetings all -
I've been an independent repair tech for about twenty five years, as well as a stint at Hasselblad's repair facility in Santa Monica, and have witnessed some disturbing trends that pretty much started with the advent of the digital age.
The manufacturer's have steadily eroded their support for the independents by restricting access to manuals and software, and sky high parts prices. I recently paid $100 for a 3" LCD panel. While some are worse than others, Canon has been the most reasonable so far.
Nikon has just upped the ante in the UK, with the rest of the EU soon to follow as required by law. As of now, Nikon will not sell any internal parts for any current product to a non authorized shop. That means they will only be able to change out outer covers and such. If they get away with this, the others are sure to follow.
This has ramifications on several levels. First, repair costs. With a virtual monopoly on repairs, they have no incentive to keep prices at their already inflated rates. Second, turn around times. With the loss of alternatives, their service centers will bear the full brunt of customer demand at a time when the number of skilled technicians is dropping, primarily due to techs retiring or getting fed up with this sort of BS. And if you think that when you send your gear to Nikon for repair that an army of guys in lab coats in a gleaming state-of-the-art compound is waiting to work on it, think again. The manufacturers farm out most of their repairs to contract shops, most of whom serve more than one company. They do employ a few techs at their walk-in centers, but that's about it. Most independents are not authorized as it takes a very large economic and resource commitment to do so. You are also required to accept a certain amount of warranty work, which pays next to nothing. By the time it gets to the bench of the poor slob doing the actual work, it pays so little that the incentive is to just get in and out of it as quickly as possible.
While all the manu's will not do warranty work on grey market products, Nikon will not perform any service on equipment purchased outside of that area's distribution parameter, warranty or not. So all you folks buying stuff in Asia and the US will be TSOL if something breaks. Wouldn't be surprised if Nikon will soon start refusing to repair product shipped from outside the distribution area, if they don't already.
Slowly the thumb screws are tightening, and if I were a Nikon user in the EU I'd start howling my head off. It's already too late for New Zealand. Nikon will not sell parts of any kind to independent techs.
Nikon's PR spin on this is that they are just protecting the consumer from bad techs. What's funny is that I spend two days a week at my account processing their repairs and my redo rate is about 5% of the manu's. Most of the hacked on cameras they get are actually from their own authorized shops who just slap the thing back together after realizing the cost of the parts will be higher than the charge for the repair.
Arrogant? When I asked the store's Nikon rep why the manu's were making life so hard for the independents, he literally told me to go to hell.
I really don't have much of an ax to grind in this. Between the cost of parts and the fact it takes two to three times longer to perform the same repair as on a Canon, I don't do many Nikons. My main concern is that if they aren't forced to back off on this the rest of the industry will follow. If that happens, everyone will be left at the tender mercies of The Company.
