Sony Service

Had my EX1 serviced by the Los Angeles Service Center... Did an excellent job at a very fair price. Hey, they're engineers, not Customer Service people. Yes, I had to prod them daily with emails letting them know I make my living with this camera and so everyday I don't have it back is a day I don't make any money. Steve Gil, the manager, helped push thing through. Wish they had replaced the back (fading printing) like they do for customers at the San Jose facility. Oh well.
But I have to say... You want real Hell... Go ahead and buy a Panasonic. They may be nice people, but the products are generally crap. Go ask any independent repair guy... they will all say the same thing.
 
FrankC said:
Had my EX1 serviced by the Los Angeles Service Center... Did an excellent job at a very fair price. Hey, they're engineers, not Customer Service people. Yes, I had to prod them daily with emails letting them know I make my living with this camera and so everyday I don't have it back is a day I don't make any money. Steve Gil, the manager, helped push thing through. Wish they had replaced the back (fading printing) like they do for customers at the San Jose facility. Oh well.
But I have to say... You want real Hell... Go ahead and buy a Panasonic. They may be nice people, but the products are generally crap. Go ask any independent repair guy... they will all say the same thing.
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Consider yourself a lucky guy!
 
badlaa said:
I've always treated my ex1's like they were my babies, transported them in solid Kata backpacks, never had rain on them, never put any physical stress on them. But for now, I've got three ex1's, all of them damaged the exact same way (handle cracked under the viewfinder), and don't know what to do next. I feel very depressed when reading your posts about the poor response from Sony repair. Why don't they just take the responsibility of a very obvious design flaw!? The plastic they use is so bad that it could crack by its own time, it's like a ticking time bomb :(

ex1vauriot.jpg
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Kenny_G said:
This is crazy! 1/3 of the cost price. It makes me mad to be so powerless.
One should take action to break this policy down. This is feeling like a criminal act that is legalized.

It is hanging over the head of all the owners of this camera.
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buhce said:
I'm not going to pay it. I'll probably buy a Panasonic instead and sell the Sony for parts. Unless I can get this sorted. I don't quite know what to do next.
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[/QUOTE]

Same problem in France ...
i'm fed up of SONY policy !!!

a pro camera? Let me laugh!
 
i sent mine in for warranty repairs for the usual stuff, focus, battery drain, paint. it was gone 3 weeks. I will my service was excellent. the tech actually called me to discuss the issues and when I told him, he said he would go over it and order all the replacement parts it needed. I had it back in my hands 10 days later. all is good. I still feel like selling it and getting another panasoinc though.
 
They should reduce the price of the camera or take it out of production, because imo it has a lot of design faults. Sure you cannot call it a professional camera because you cannot depend on it. It will fail you when you least expect it to.
And then this Service policy of Sony. They think they are the all mighty God no? Well Empires fall and Sony will certainly fall too if they keep up this service policy.
Let them be humble and repair all the dxxxxd cameras without any problem whatsoever. In the end honesty pays off.
Can they imagine what kind efforts it takes to send the camera in for repair?
 
it costs a fortune to send it in for repair given how much insurance you have pay for with
ups. which brings up an interesting point, do those of you who have an inland marine policy for your gear pay for insurance when you ship stuff off for repair, or not worry about it?
 
Well, Sony got back to me again. They didn't detail the problem to me. Here is what was said:

My apologies for the extreme delay on the feedback from the repair centre. They can’t add much more to what has been found with the camera. There isn’t an explanation for the prism to have been broken off. They say that what’s reported on the estimate and what is seen on the pictures are their only findings and the only thing they can do at the moment is provide a repair. No further action regarding this case will be taken until you contact the repair centre authorising the repair or to tell them to send the camera back.
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So the only thing I can ascertain is that the prism, broke off - whatever that means. They're as vague as ever.
 
The plot thickens. I told them to send my camera back today and guess what? The crack like feature that they said was a broken prism is no longer there?!

I'm quite happy - I can replace the LCD myself.

Which is proof they were trying to rip me off.
 
Unbelievable. A shady local service center - sure, I'll believe it. Sony Service? Wow. They reached new lows.
 
We should never forget that we are more important than the whole mighty Sony bunch;
we are the customer. The camera is made for us and if we are not pleased, who's gonna buy the daxxxx thing? My advise is to never accept any crap from Sony.
On the other hand, if they do a good job, it should also be mentioned.

The only thing we the buyers and users want is to enjoy our investment and if it fails us,
we like it to be fixed properly at a reasonable price within a reasonble time.
 
Voytech said:
Unbelievable. A shady local service center - sure, I'll believe it. Sony Service? Wow. They reached new lows.
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Yeah perhaps. This is meant to be Sony Prime Support. Luckily I got this free with the camera, but some people actually have to pay nearly £1000 for this warranty! It's shocking.

If they fixed the problem knowingly, they sure didn't tell me about it. It still leaves me with an LCD that doesn't work and a bit of a vignette problem.
 
buhce said:
This is my story exactly!![apart from it being in Florida, unfortunately] I currently have a fault with my EX1. Infact there is another thread detailing this on the forum(but also that the LCD no longer works). I got an email from Sony Prime Support informing me that they had found ' water contamination' within the unit and they constitute this as physical damage, so my warranty doesn't cover the repair. I quzzed them on it and asked them to detail how the water caused the problem. They have yet to give me this information and have ignored it twice in two previous emails. I even asked them to tell me where the water is on the unit in relation to the picture they sent me of the 'damage' - ignored that too. They have however kindly offered me a free repair quote(how good of them).Now I can say without a doubt that I have never been reckless with my camera. I have never dropped or submerged it in water. If it has ever been in rain,( I can't remember an instance) or any chance of rain it's covered with a £200 [give or take] cover. The only way I can think that it may have possibly have got 'water contamination' is via condensation through humidity and apparently the well documented vignette issue that you get with EX1, in my unit, was caused by this too. So basically if you buy an Ex1 don't get Prime Support, it's usless, just make sure you get insurance instead. Either that, or only use it in a dry environment, but you factor in that all air has some form of moisture in it then that's not possible either. The only option if you choose to buy Prime support seems to be, don't use your camera to its full potential, use it indoors and only inside a vacuum whilst wearing an oxygen mask - one trace of water of any kind and they'll claim your warranty void.

Fault 1 of 3 http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=178465
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I have had just the opposite experience with my EX-1 and now my EX-3. I live and shoot in Mississippi where the humidity is 100% all the time. Last year I put over 100 hours on the Ex-1 shooting dirt racing video in the most extreme conditions. We shoot outdoors at night and the humidity, heat and dust and dirt are terrible. Neither of the Sony EX cameras have ever missed a beat. We often get caught momentarily in the rain also. We keep a plastic garbage bag close at hand to cover the camera while we are scrambling for cover.

We are very meticulous on cleaning our cameras after each race. During our shoot we keep a swifter dust cloth handy and every time we get a break we wipe the camera body down.

Often the humidity is so bad that our eye piece will fog up just from our breath. When we get home from an event we first vacuum the camera body with a small vacuum cleaner brush tool and then wipe the camera down with the swifter. After that we use a dampened cloth to wipe the sweat from the areas where we were holding the camera.

So far like I said before our cameras have held up in an outstanding manner. As far as service from Sony in NJ our experience there has been super also. The turn around time and with any service we have required over the past 20 years has been timely and every issue we have had has been addressed with expediency and professionalism.

When the warranty was near expiring on the Ex-1 we called Sony service in NJ and asked if we could send the Ex-1 back for firmware update and the paint near the off switch was wearing away. I needed the Ex for one more event and was afraid that the warranty would expire before I could get it to them. Sony service sent me a warranty repair form that dated my complaint and I kept the camera until my racing season was over and they honored the warranty.

One more thing when it comes to service with any camera is the relationship you have with the dealer. I have bought and traded cameras with one company in NY Armatoes and developed a relationship (actually become good friends) with my sales person over the years. Dennis Hopkins also has a good working relationship with Sony Service being close to them physically. If there are any problems I always call him first. Over the last 20 years or so my production company has owned many different brands of cameras and the Sony brand has been the most reliable of them all.

Be nice the folks at Sony Service treat them with respect and they will be nice to you.

Good luck

Ronnie Martin
Kato Video Productions
www.dirtracingvideo.com
 
Anyone have any experience with the service at the Teaneck, NJ Center? Just about to send my EX1 in for service for a lens issue and firmware update.
 
I think Ronnie makes some good points. Don't forget, these people are engineers, not customer service people. They're not real good at the people business. Sony Los Angeles has been extremely honest with me when they could have easily ripped me off. Sounds like most the problems others are having are Sony European servicers.
Ronnie... interesting about that EX1 pluggin' away in the humidity. I just got back from shooting a fly fishing video in South Padre Island, Texas... 97% humidity WITH 97 degree heat. That combo did the EX1 in. The camera would shut down every day about 1pm or 2pm in the afternoon and wouldn't reboot until about midnight or the next morning. Sony Service Center also acknowledged the camera runs hot first of all... then the high temps combined with the high humidity don't allow for any cool down...so the camera will shut down. Not sure how to prevent that in the future...if at all possible.
 
My EX3 came back to day. 6 weeks ago the lens starts vibrating and the picture was also vibrating. Replacing the lens with a Nikon lens solved the problem. I send the camera in with Fedex, they kept it 3 weeks at SonyTeaneck, NJ Center. I had to send an Email with my problem because for some reasons they couldn't read what the problem was; the text was washed out. Anyway, after the email everything went smooth. They obviously replaced the lens at no cost at all and also upgraded the firmware to 1.04_0089 also at no cost at all. I can oly say that my previous accesment about the service is wrong.
They seems to have done a good job and they were friendly too.
IMO the lens of the camera is a weak point and Iam crossing my fingers........lets hope for the best.
 
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