henry link
Well-known member
I just had an experience with the Zeiss repair service in the US which I think is worth passing along.
At my urging a friend recently returned his defective 85mm Diascope to Zeiss ( I’ve posted several messages about the problems with this scope seen in resolution and star testing ). Yesterday he phoned to say Zeiss had contacted him and told him they had found no problem with the scope. It was “doing what it should do “. I phoned Zeiss and left a message detailing the defects I had seen in the scope. An hour later the repair technician who works on rifle scopes returned my call. He told me Zeiss-USA have no faciilities for repairing or even evaluating the Diascopes. My friend’s scope had been given only a cursory look, no resolution chart, no reference scope available for comparison. I have better “facilities” for evaluating scopes in my backyard than what is available at Zeiss-USA, and anybody else can too.
To Zeiss credit they offered to send my friend a new replacement scope, and I beleive would have done so without my intervention, based simply on his strongly expressed dissatisfaction. I wonder, however, what would have happened if he had been willing to go along their pronouncement that the scope was fine. How many people are prepared to argue with Zeiss when they say everything is as it should be? They were out of stock, so the replacement will require a two week wait for a new shipment from Germany.
Once again I would urge birders to learn how to test and evaluate your own scope, get a resolution chart, learn how to star test. Don’t assume a high status brand name guarantees a defect free scope, and don’t expect a defective scope you return to the manufacturer to receive some sort of high tech, sophisticated optical evaluation. It may just get a quick look from somebody who knows less about it's problems than you do.
At my urging a friend recently returned his defective 85mm Diascope to Zeiss ( I’ve posted several messages about the problems with this scope seen in resolution and star testing ). Yesterday he phoned to say Zeiss had contacted him and told him they had found no problem with the scope. It was “doing what it should do “. I phoned Zeiss and left a message detailing the defects I had seen in the scope. An hour later the repair technician who works on rifle scopes returned my call. He told me Zeiss-USA have no faciilities for repairing or even evaluating the Diascopes. My friend’s scope had been given only a cursory look, no resolution chart, no reference scope available for comparison. I have better “facilities” for evaluating scopes in my backyard than what is available at Zeiss-USA, and anybody else can too.
To Zeiss credit they offered to send my friend a new replacement scope, and I beleive would have done so without my intervention, based simply on his strongly expressed dissatisfaction. I wonder, however, what would have happened if he had been willing to go along their pronouncement that the scope was fine. How many people are prepared to argue with Zeiss when they say everything is as it should be? They were out of stock, so the replacement will require a two week wait for a new shipment from Germany.
Once again I would urge birders to learn how to test and evaluate your own scope, get a resolution chart, learn how to star test. Don’t assume a high status brand name guarantees a defect free scope, and don’t expect a defective scope you return to the manufacturer to receive some sort of high tech, sophisticated optical evaluation. It may just get a quick look from somebody who knows less about it's problems than you do.
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