[Leica] Are Leica listening?

["Doug Richardson" <doug@meditor.demon.co.uk>]

There has been some discussion on whether Leica reads the postings on
this list. Well, I hope they do, because here's something they should
know:

In early October, I returned my M6 to the dealer for despatch to Leica
for what that company described as a  minor adjustment to the metering
system. A month later, I asked the dealer if it had returned yet. No,
he replied - they'd taken three weeks just to look at it and send him
an estimate. He'd given the go-ahead, but at this pace he didn't want
to guess when the job would be done. No problem, I assured him - I'd
carry on using my trusty M2, (still going strong 25 years after I
bought it, and forty years after being built.)

He commented that given the time Leica are taking to do work, and the
prices they are charging, he was thinking about sending repair work to
an independent repair shop. When a Leica dealer starts making this
sort of statement, Leica should be worried.

One problem is that servicing has always been s-l-o-w here in the UK.
I can remember visting the old Leitz premises in London around 1960
(back in the days when there was a London facility!) and hearing a
customer getting very angry when told a repair to his M3 would take
six to eight weeks. "Don't you mean six to eight DAYS?" he asked. "I'm
not asking you to walk all the way from from London to Wetzlar with
it, just to repair it."

Regards,

Doug Richardson