GH4 Panasonic GH4 warranty/customer service?

npm

npm

Well-known member
Hi all,

I'm on the brink of purchasing a GH4 as my primary video camera as a freelance filmmaker.

My only concern is the quality of Panasonic's warranty and customer service. What happens if the camera malfunctions a few days past the 1 year warranty? How are they about replacing/repairing the camera 4-5 years down the line?

Would love to hear any experiences people have had with them in the US concerning the GH2, 3 and 4 or any other cameras in terms of warranty/customer care.

Thanks in advance for any information!

-N
 
npm said:
Hi all,

I'm on the brink of purchasing a GH4 as my primary video camera as a freelance filmmaker.

My only concern is the quality of Panasonic's warranty and customer service. What happens if the camera malfunctions a few days past the 1 year warranty? How are they about replacing/repairing the camera 4-5 years down the line?

Would love to hear any experiences people have had with them in the US concerning the GH2, 3 and 4 or any other cameras in terms of warranty/customer care.

Thanks in advance for any information!

-N
Click to expand...

My GH3 went out of warranty a few weeks past the 1-year and they covered it. They mentioned that there was a 30-day grace.
 
npm said:
Hi all,

I'm on the brink of purchasing a GH4 as my primary video camera as a freelance filmmaker.

My only concern is the quality of Panasonic's warranty and customer service. What happens if the camera malfunctions a few days past the 1 year warranty? How are they about replacing/repairing the camera 4-5 years down the line?

Would love to hear any experiences people have had with them in the US concerning the GH2, 3 and 4 or any other cameras in terms of warranty/customer care.

Thanks in advance for any information!

-N
Click to expand...

(In the interest of full disclosure, Hot Rod Cameras is Panasonic Premiere Professional Dealer who participates in the Panasonic expedited service program)

If you are really concerned about warranty and service you would do well to purchase a GH4 from a Panasonic Premiere Professional Dealer. I believe there are maybe a dozen in the USA, I do not know how many participate in the expedited service program.

If you have a problem with your camera while under warranty only Panasonic Premiere Professional Dealer can send in your camera for service on your behalf and have your warranty service "expedited." Under this program Panasonic will turn around ALL expedited GH4 repairs (or replacements!) within 2-weeks. Also, Panasonic will make a FREE loaner GH4 available during that time period directly to the end user. I don't know of any included/free warranty service from any camera manufacturer better than this. My understanding is that this is exclusively for brick and mortar retailers and no on-line only reseller (i.e. Amazon) qualifies as a Premiere Professional Dealer.

You also may want to consider an extended warranty to take you beyond year 1. Although you'll want to be cautious as to the warranty offered, as they are not all created equally. Read the fine print particularly the section labelled "Exclusions". In the interest of full disclosure, my company (Hot Rod Cameras) negotiated an extended warranty with a major insurance company (exclusive for our customers) to pay the lowest rates in the industry on a 3-year "no fault" policy that protects a GH4 (or any other camera/lens we sell) against any form accidental damage, without any damage exclusions (water, drop..etc)

My final suggestion is to do business with a knowledgeable dealer who truly understands this stuff and has the best interests of the customer in mind, rather than a shop the shop that doesn't care about you and is only concerned with making a quick buck. Those places can be tough to find, but you'll always get better service and better information- rather than the commissioned hard sell typically found in the shops that don't care about anything but separating you from your money.

Hope this helps,
 
Thanks for the replies. Illya, googled "Panasonic Premiere Professional Dealer" and didn't find anything at all. But thank you for your suggestion.
 
npm said:
Thanks for the replies. Illya, googled "Panasonic Premiere Professional Dealer" and didn't find anything at all. But thank you for your suggestion.
Click to expand...

It's possible I have the name wrong, but as I recall from the dealer meeting a few months ago that the program wasn't going to be under LPD any longer, as with the release of the GH4 my understanding was it was becoming much more selective. Here's a link to an article writen about it by Bradley Thornber. Dealers who are "PPPD" already know, but I don't know if there's an official bulletin yet.
 
Regardless of how the GH4 maybe classified, the GH4 service is PROFESSIONAL service. Easily on par with other brands paid services.

It was not like that during the era of the GH3, there has been major improvements made in less than a year.

Be sure to purchase and expidite warranty from an authorized professional Lumix dealer, and you'll be covered.

Purchase grey market, or from an ebay seller, and you are on your own without a net.
 
Illya Friedman said:
Regardless of how the GH4 maybe classified, the GH4 service is PROFESSIONAL service. Easily on par with other brands paid services.

It was not like that during the era of the GH3, there has been major improvements made in less than a year.

Be sure to purchase and expidite warranty from an authorized professional Lumix dealer, and you'll be covered.

Purchase grey market, or from an ebay seller, and you are on your own without a net.
Click to expand...

Could you clarify something for me though? When sending in a GH4 for warranty repair, does it still go to their consumer facility in McAllen, TX (for shipment over the border to Mexico for the actual repair), or does it go to a service center that handles their professional gear? Because their consumer repair center is (or at least was) about as far from professional as can be imagined.
 
Interesting input, thanks keylight. I am planning on purchasing from B&H. I assume I will be covered?
 
Honestly, when it comes down to it, the GH4 is a consumer camera. It's made by the consumer division, sold by the consumer division, serviced by the consumer division. That you can buy it from sources (like B&H or Hot Rod Cameras for that matter) that also sells pro equipment, doesn't make it a pro product. Even pros using it doesn't make it a pro product. The only thing that will make it a pro product, is if the Professional division takes it over and handles the warranty and support.

Now Illya mentioned that if you buy from a Panasonic Pro dealer like Hot Rod camera they'll expedite service so it'll be back in your hands in 2 weeks, and they'll give you a loaner while you wait. The loaner is a nice touch, and it may be worth going with them. However if 2 weeks is considered expedited, then what's non-expidited service? Well, it's consumer camera being serviced by the consumer service department. A repair I had done took 3 weeks (I expect it was that short only because I lived in Texas at the time and it didn't have as far to travel - they shipped it back to me ground). Others have taken more than a month.

Okay, so..... With all of that said, if I was buying the camera, I'd get it from Amazon - www.amazon.com/dp/B00I9GYG8O ($1698 body only)...

EDIT: Don't get this warranty. Get the one I mention at the end of this post!

...and I'd add the 3 or 4 year extended warranty for $76 or $84 respectively. It covers pretty much everything, although you won't get a loaner camera. You do however get:
  • 100% Parts and Labor Coverage PLUS Accidental Damage
  • 5 Day Repair Guarantee on Depot Service
  • Repair or Replacement Promise on Every Product
  • Contract shipped via email so there is no waiting
  • Repair Plans are Fully Transferable at No Cost


Click to expand...


Normally I'd never buy a warranty like this, but for $84 I'd definitely do it, especially given my experience in the past dealing with Panasonic.

END EDIT

Again, having a place like Hot Rod Cameras giving you extra support is nice, but do keep in mind that you're buying a consumer product with mostly consumer support.

Hope this helps!

EDIT: If you want an extended warranty, don't get the one Amazon immediately offers you on the camera product page. Get this one (www.amazon.com/dp/B005Y1T0HE) from Squaretrade instead! It's MUCH better. And at $135 for 3 years, it's still a very good deal. Much better than dealing with Panasonic.
 
Last edited:
keylight said:
Honestly, when it comes down to it, the GH4 is a consumer camera. It's made by the consumer division, sold by the consumer division, serviced by the consumer division. That you can buy it from sources (like B&H or Hot Rod Cameras for that matter) that also sells pro equipment, doesn't make it a pro product. Even pros using it doesn't make it a pro product. The only thing that will make it a pro product, is if the Professional division takes it over and handles the warranty and support.

Now Illya mentioned that if you buy from a Panasonic Pro dealer like Hot Rod camera they'll expedite service so it'll be back in your hands in 2 weeks, and they'll give you a loaner while you wait. The loaner is a nice touch, and it may be worth going with them. However if 2 weeks is considered expedited, then what's non-expidited service? Well, it's consumer camera being serviced by the consumer service department. A repair I had done took 3 weeks (I expect it was that short only because I lived in Texas at the time and it didn't have as far to travel - they shipped it back to me ground). Others have taken more than a month.

Okay, so..... With all of that said, if I was buying the camera, I'd get it from Amazon ($1698 body only) and I'd add the 3 or 4 year extended warranty for $76 or $84 respectively. It covers pretty much everything, although you won't get a loaner camera. You do however get:



Normally I'd never buy a warranty like this, but for $84 I'd definitely do it, especially given my experience in the past dealing with Panasonic.

Again, having a place like Hot Rod Cameras giving you extra support is nice, but do keep in mind that you're buying a consumer product with mostly consumer support.

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...
Buy it from another state and save $100 on sales taxes!
 
Looking into the Amazon extended warranty--it appears its a scam or at least, it doesn't cover the majority of things it claims when you read the fine print. -_-
 
Hmmm..... For some reason I was thinking the warranty was this one from Squaretrade (www.amazon.com/dp/B002I05VQI), which is very highly rated. 3 years for $135, 2 years for $109. I'm going to update my post above to include the Squaretrade Warranty. Thanks for pointing out the problem with the original warranty!
 
Last edited:
Got it, thanks! If I bought the camera from Adorama, and the Squaretrade warranty from Amazon would that work? Or do you need to buy it all from Amazon?
 
npm said:
Got it, thanks! If I bought the camera from Adorama, and the Squaretrade warranty from Amazon would that work? Or do you need to buy it all from Amazon?
Click to expand...

I don't think you can do that. The warranties sold on Amazon are - I think - only for products bought on Amazon. Squaretrade sells warranties on their site for things bought other places, but it's much more expensive. But it might be worth a call to them to find out for sure.
 
Of course one of the reasons that Keylight, and others in this forum, is pushing Amazon as a place to buy the GH4 (and extended warranties) is that the links he puts in his posts to buy these high ticket items are Amazon Affiliate links that he'll make money on if you click them and then buy the item. I find it hard to take seriously what anyone says in this forum anymore when they have affiliate links in their posts for the products they are recommending.

Hot Rod Cameras would obviously be a much better choice in this situation than Amazon, if the price was the same.
 
For Panasonic I believe their LUMIX consumer department merged with the professional department a couple of years ago. They are not as separated as one might think, in fact the merge is the reason why there are so much pro features on the GH4 which has the LUMIX brand on it.
 
Cavemandude said:
Of course one of the reasons that Keylight, and others in this forum, is pushing Amazon as a place to buy the GH4 (and extended warranties) is that the links he puts in his posts to buy these high ticket items are Amazon Affiliate links that he'll make money on if you click them and then buy the item. I find it hard to take seriously what anyone says in this forum anymore when they have affiliate links in their posts for the products they are recommending.

Hot Rod Cameras would obviously be a much better choice in this situation than Amazon, if the price was the same.
Click to expand...

You are absolutely correct and there were affiliate links. I use a firefox plugin called Affiliate Fox that automatically adds an affiliate tag to every Amazon URL I see on the web (regardless of any existing affiliate link). So I don't even think about it when I copy and paste links from Amazon.

That said, since you've called my ethics into questions and I seem to have rubbed you the wrong way, I've gone in and edited my earlier posts to remove the links (even notating the reason for the edit). (I'll note that even after removing the links in the posts above, when I use Firefox the links still show up with my affiliate code when I viewed the thread after editing, so I jumped over to Chrome to view the thread to verify that they are in fact removed.) It's actually a pretty cool little plugin and helps a ton when I create links to posts I make on one of the sites I run (which I'd like to point out I don't actively promote on this site). Also, if you go back through my posts on the forum, you'll see that I also have lots of posts to product at B&H (so many of us do!)... without affiliate links. Probably lots of links to Amazon too, but I'm not editing those out.

Finally, my last word on the links issue is this: There are tools the admins can use for this forum that will automatically strip out all affiliate links (and replace them with their own if they want). Perhaps you should write to them to suggest that they do this. In the future, I'm going to keep copying and pasting URLs as I've done in the past. I won't be taking the extra step to remove affiliate links though, because frankly I can't be bothered.

As to where to buy the GH4....

In my opinion, as nice as it is that Hot Rod Cameras will step in and deal with Panasonic on the customer's behalf, I'd choose a 5 day turnaround and NOT having to ever ship my camera to Panasonic's consumer repair department over a two week turn around. So for me, in this particular case, buying the GH4 with the extended warranty from Amazon is the best deal. Period. That's my opinion.

The GH4 is a consumer camera with repair coming from their consumer repair department, which from personal experience has been horrible. The less you have to deal with Panasonic consumer support, the better.
 
Last edited:
themac said:
For Panasonic I believe their LUMIX consumer department merged with the professional department a couple of years ago. They are not as separated as one might think, in fact the merge is the reason why there are so much pro features on the GH4 which has the LUMIX brand on it.
Click to expand...

The service and support departments? There does seem to be some obvious knowledge sharing if not direct interaction between the engineers (and possibly marketing people) from the Pro and consumer groups, but for the service and support department? And we are talking about (or at least I'm assuming we are talking about) the service department here in the US, not other parts of the world. Panny US consumer service/support provided me with the absolute worst service I have ever had, from any company I have ever done business with. (I'm talking worse than customer service from a company like Comcast.)
 
I just sent my GH4 in for the Audio Buzz fix. After receiving, it was repaired and shipped back to me in 2 days (which means practically a 24-hour turnaround, after Panasonic received). I'm in Southern California. I think that's good customer service!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top