R: [Leica] Leica initial quality story

["Pier Paolo Miniussi" <p.paolo@hitech.it>]

I agree with Austin, even if I'm afraid writing to Leica isn't very useful.

As a matter of fact, I bought my first Leica last XMAS (a brand new official
R8, for which Leica's Italian distributor Polyphoto, supplied 5 years
guarantee), I immediately rushed home but to my great disappointment the
camera didn't even turn on: every thing was completely dead.

I returned to the shop (Turin's largest photo Store) and there was no way to
get any signal from the camera, (obviously we tried quite a few new
batteries).

The shop asked Polyphoto a new camera, but after three weeks there was no
camera in sight, so I wrote a fax to Leica in Solms and to Polyphoto asking
how much longer I would have had to wait (by the way, Polyphoto is less than
2 hours drive from my City): nobody even bothered to answer me.

Two days later I got the new camera (taht works perfectly): so for what I
saw: no Quality Control and no Customer Care.

Cheers.

Pier Paolo Miniussi
p.paolo@hitech.it


- -----Messaggio originale-----
Da: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]Per conto di Austin
Franklin
Inviato: venerd́ 7 luglio 2000 18.04
A: 'leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us'
Oggetto: RE: [Leica] Leica initial quality story


> Given Jim's story, this may be a good moment to revisit the arguments for
> buying Leica equipment from your friendly local dealer rather than from
the
> mail-order places.

If this is the 'quality' I am to expect from Leica, I assure you, I will
not be buying Leica from now on.  Fortunately, all my 6 major pieces of
Leica gear I have does not have any problem I have noticed.  Your proposal
is 'solving' the symptom, not the problem, and I rarely like solutions like
that.

Either way, it is a waste of my time to drive back and forth to a dealer
almost one hour away to return defective merchandise that should not be
defective in the first place if they had real Quality Control.  It actually
is less time for me to put the item in a box and go to the post office.
 This really isn't the point, anyway.  The point is, for the kind of money
we pay for this gear, it should arrive flawless, period.

Also, if the camera can't take the shipping, it ain't gonna take the use I
give it...

I would suggest people write to the factory and Leica US when ANY quality
problems like this arise.  If they (Leica) don't know about the problem,
they (Leica) can't fix the problem.  I don't know what the dealer is going
to do with the other two cameras, perhaps just put them back on the shelf,
or (I would hope) return them to Leica for new ones.