Re: [Leica] M6 J and a new M camera!

[Paul and Paula Butzi <butzi@halcyon.com>]

At 12:59 PM 3/9/98 , you wrote:
>Marc wrote:
>
>>And this jives with my own experience:  every M4 I've owned was a nightmare
>>requiring a lot of service, as SOMETHING was always a-gley, while my M6 has
>>been absolutely trouble-free.
>
>Marc,
>
>Just for the record, how new is your M6? According to my Leica repairman 
>it is the M6 from the new production line that really keeps him busy 
>nowadays.

Not a good comparison.  To compare rates, you need to adjust to a
uniform cohort size.  (confession:  I do actually hold a degree in statistics.
No, I didn't find statistics boring).

In other words, you need to adjust for how many of each camera are
actually in use, and how much use they see.

That is, you're not really interested in how many m-6 repairs are
made compared to (say) m-3 or m-4 repairs over the past year.  What you want
to know is how many repairs are made on m-6 cameras for a given amount
of use, compared to the same statistic for m-3 or m-4.  Or, to turn it around,
you want to know how many hours of use you will get from each camera
before needing a repair.  Leica might have mtbf (mean time before/between 
failure) statistics for the various camera  models but I rather doubt they
will 
share them with you.

I'm just guessing, but it's probably the case that the vast majority of
M camera hours of use in 1997 were M-6.  So it's probably not surprising
that repair technicians see mostly m-6's in for repair.  And it's probably
not surprising that it's mostly the newest M-6's either, since they probably
see the heaviest use.

- -Paul