How good is Leica's warranty? (1 Viewer)

ceasar said:

It's main competition was the Zeiss binocular that used Abbe-Koenig prisms. It was also likely the best non-phase coated roof prism binocular ever built and may not have been suitable for phase coatings.

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If it has a roof (which the Uppendahl prism does have) to revert the image then it can use phase coatings. But was designed before PC became available to Leica.

The Uppendahl was an odd choice -- it makes mounting difficult as the prisms extends a fair way to the bridge) they're rather worse than AK in that respect.

I recently bought a VERY WELL USED 10x42 Trinovid and when I called about service I thought I called the wrong number. I have used Leica service and while I got what I needed it was a bit of a rodeo. This time I told them all what was wrong and asked about a price they said "probably free".

I do think they are getting it. Only downside is they said they are like 3 months behind.

In march I'll post results......

Dave

Hi,

Gave my Ultravids in for service recently at Leica's customer service in Wetzlar, Germany. Filled in the form which is available at their website and sent it along with the binoculars. Got back an invoice immediately after their arrival containing a number by which the development of the servicing can be tracked and a list of points to be serviced. Within a month an email came in telling me how and at what costs the service was completed. A few days later the binoculars arrived at my doorstep.
Now this I think is servicing and customer care at the highest level. I simply wouldn't know how to improve the procedure.
With respect to the quality of the repair, my complaint (focus wheel action, what else) was solved expertly, focussing now being as smooth as one could wish for (and no grease applied...). The job was done under warranty, so no costs were charged. While a pair of objectives covers were added for free as well.

Renze

wimvdam said:

... I'm wondering what your experiences are with Leica's warranty service.

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I don't know. My 10x40B Trinovids have a lifetime warranty and I've only had them for 33 years. Aside from rubber eyecups, no service needed yet.

UPDATE-
THE GOOD-
I had a set of 10x42BA Trinovids which had been WELL USED. Sent them to Leica USA with a note which asked them to fix them up. They had some loose parts inside and the view could be blurry just by moving them. I wish I would have taken a picture as they were the most used/abuse bino's I have seen in person. They mailed a quote they would repair on a good faith warranty. COOOOOLLLL. Leupold esqe...

The BAD-
They recieved them on 12/1/09 with a scheduled repair completion of 3/23/10. Wow, 4 months but for free I'm not kicking. Today get an email that one part won't arrive until end of May........

If Leica REALLY wants to step up they will need to stock more parts. Can't be that many items which typically go bad.

Just the facts as I see it.

Dave

Zeiss had my 6 month old bins for about that long... I hope they come back in great shape, please let us know.

I'll stay on it. Trust me.

I am in the customer service business and it should not take 6 months to repair a bino.

DHB said:

UPDATE-
THE GOOD-
I had a set of 10x42BA Trinovids which had been WELL USED. Sent them to Leica USA with a note which asked them to fix them up. They had some loose parts inside and the view could be blurry just by moving them. I wish I would have taken a picture as they were the most used/abuse bino's I have seen in person. They mailed a quote they would repair on a good faith warranty. COOOOOLLLL. Leupold esqe...

The BAD-
They recieved them on 12/1/09 with a scheduled repair completion of 3/23/10. Wow, 4 months but for free I'm not kicking. Today get an email that one part won't arrive until end of May........

If Leica REALLY wants to step up they will need to stock more parts. Can't be that many items which typically go bad.

Just the facts as I see it.

Dave

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Dave,

As they say, good [faith] comes to those who wait.

It sucks to wait that long, and the more people who take advantage of Leica's "Good Faith" Policy, probably the longer the wait is going to be since they apparently have to track down parts in Germany and perhaps elsewhere.

However, when you consider the alternative is buying a 10x42 Ultravid HD for $2,200, and that Henry attests to the fact that their optical design isn't all that much different from the Trinnie (hope I'm paraphrasing him correctly) and that some Trinnie owners don't find all that much difference btwn the two models, or at least not enough difference to justify the much higher price of the Ultravids, the wait will be well worth it, provided you have other bins as a back up in the meantime.

Plus, given their state of disrepair, it sounds like the Leica techies will have their work cut out for them.

Did you use these for hunting? Hunters can be very rough on their bins, stalking prey on their bellies through the brush and and skulking through the tree branches.

I've seen some really beat Swaros and Leicas on FleaBay for quite cheap, but I wouldn't have touched the Leicas before the "Good Faith" Policy. Now, I might finally have the opportunity to wear the "red dot"!

But first, I will wait to read your report how the repairs went in May. Keep us posted.

Good Luck!

They were my dads and he uses like any other tool. He quit using them a few years ago and I rescued them and about fainted.........

I'll post again when I get them. I am still convinced that Leica should parts on hand to just about replace all the internals for a Trinovid. There just isn't that many......

A comment on Zeiss NA. They do very little if any "repairs" in the US. Just replacement. Not unlike Zen-Ray who has been getting beaten over the policy......

Dave

DHB said:

They were my dads and he uses like any other tool. He quit using them a few years ago and I rescued them and about fainted.........

I'll post again when I get them. I am still convinced that Leica should parts on hand to just about replace all the internals for a Trinovid. There just isn't that many......

A comment on Zeiss NA. They do very little if any "repairs" in the US. Just replacement. Not unlike Zen-Ray who has been getting beaten over the policy......

Dave

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Dave,

Given the heft and robustness of the Trinnies, I can see how they would make a good hammer in a pinch.

I doubt if Leica is still making spare parts for Trinovids anymore than GM is making spare parts for Saturns. The "Good Faith" Policy for Trinnies is going to expire after all the parts are gone.

It could be that Leica received many more Trinnies than they had anticipated, and hence, the delays. With the high price of Ultravid HDs, they should have been expecting a lot of "Good Faith" repairs on older models, particularly with the recession still on, and the trend being for people to fix what they already have rather than buying new.

For example, the remodeling market for houses has been more robust over the past two years compared to new home sales. If not for the "Cash for Clunkers" program, it would have been the same with cars.

While housing and transportation are necessities, alpha bins are not. People tend to cut back on luxuries during a downturn, and Leica's sales slump last year reflects that.

As far as Zeiss, they probably replace only the new models. If someone sent in a 7x42 B/GA or Victory I for repairs, I doubt if they have enough old stock on hand to replace each one. They either have to fix the old ones or offer the customer a good price on an upgrade. I don't know if Zeiss offers upgrades with a trade-in like Swarovski does, but it would be a good sales strategy to retain customers.

Swarovski seems to have the largest stock of discontinued bin parts among the alphas, and that's probably because they went decades without any major changes to most of their bins. The SLCs were mooreorless the same for over 20 years until the new HD model, and the Habicht porros haven't changed since the Crimean Era .

Sticking with a proven design has kept the prices on the SLCs fairly reasonable until the recent HD upgrade.

I really like the idea of designing something that could last for decades, with only minor upgrades. Consistency and reliability help offset what you might be missing with the "latest and greatest" new designs. And when repairs are needed, it's very helpful to have a lifetime warranty.

Plus, when you're paying top dollar, you should be able to expect more "mileage" from the product than a lower ticket item.

Every time a manufacturer comes out with a new design, some "bugs" are bound to show up, such as ZR's first gen 7x26 ED2.

It's the reason why I stay a version behind in Windows. By the time they developed all the fixes for Vista, if I upgrade to Window's 7, I'd be starting all over again.

New designs usually drive up costs. Off-shore manufacturing has off-set that in some brands, but at the alpha bin level, you pay a steep price for incremental improvements.

I'm not a Luddite. Innovation is a good thing, we wouldn't have had the roof bin revolution if not for p-coatings, but at some point, you have to draw the line and say enough is good enough or you're going to end up with $3,000, $4,000, and $5,000 binoculars.

If your salary keeps pace with those prices, then no problem. But if you're "working harder for less" like a lot of people are today in the US, as labor unions go the way of the premium porro, and high paying manufacturing jobs go overseas and are replaced with lower paying service sectors jobs, and laid off workers are forced to take lower paying jobs, many people are going to be priced out of the alpha bins market.

Fortunately, the second tier bin market is growing and will be able to pick up the slack at more affordable prices.

And with Nikon's, Swaro's, and now Leica's excellent used bin repair policies, binofans can also enjoy older alphas.

I should have added that Zeiss uses the German facility for repairs. I had a 8x32 that was missing some sort of coating on one of the ocular lens. It had a distinctive different tone. It was REAL obvious. Zeiss NA had to send the bino to Germany before any action was taken. After about 6 weeks Germany told NA to replace it with a new unit.

I recently purchased a pair of Leica 12X50 Ultravids from a Leica dealer who was selling them on eBay. They were a "demo" pair, but had purportedly been kept in a glass display case and never used in the field. As such, they had the full warranty.

Once they arrived, I was immediatlely impressed with the contrast, color richness, and overall sharp image (at the center), but the longer I used them, the more I realized that they had some issues. The focus wheel was very sticky and tended to move in 'jumps' making a precise focus almost impossible, there was an unusually high degree of distortion in the upper half of the FOV (compared to the lower half), the right diopter adjustment required a 1.5 to 2 diopter shift to match the left (no, it wasn't my eyes), there were some 'spots' in one eyepiece lens and one objective lens that appeared to be imperfections in the coatings of those lenses, and extended use, even while using a tripod or monopod, resulted in eye fatigue.

Turned out this pair had been manufactured in 2005, so it had been a 'demo' pair for 5 years before I came along. After a phone conversation with Leica U.S.A., I composed a lengthy letter outlining in detail all of my concerns regarding the performance of these binoculars and sent it, along with the binoculars, to Leica on March 23rd of this year. About 1 week after they received the binoculars, a letter shows up stating that all repairs would be under warranty, and I was to sign and return my authorization for them to repair. On April 19th, much to my surprise, the UPS delivery truck pulls up wanting me to sign for my binoculars. I couldn't believe they were coming back in less than a month, since two weeks of that time the binos were in transit.

With some skepticism as to how thorough the repair might have been, I unpacked them and found a little card inside that had the name of the technician who performed the work and the final test--IN GERMANY! I immediately took them out for evaluation. I must say I was flabbergasted at the transformation in the performace of these bins. Every single problem was addressed. While I cannot say for certain, the performance is so superior to their original condition that I suspect that the lenses were replaced with the new HD glass. They are now brighter than before and the CA has been reduced to almost nonexistent, and I'm sensitive to CA. There is no CA anywhere near the center of the FOV, and only slight at the edges if you look for it. They exhibit lower CA than any of my 7X or 8X bins, including my Nikon 8X32 SEs.

I simply cannot imagine a more satisfying customer service experience. Thank You, LEICA, for absolutely outstanding service.

Dean

DHB said:

I'll stay on it. Trust me.

I am in the customer service business and it should not take 6 months to repair a bino.

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If you were in customer service at a binocular repair shop that had a 6 month backlog then yes it would take 6 months to work on the latest binocular to come in for repair.

On the other hand if your binocular shop could repair the binoculars the next day, you might find smart customers walking away. There's usually a reason potential customers ignore a shop and it isn't usually a positive one.

Dean L said:

I simply cannot imagine a more satisfying customer service experience. Thank You, LEICA, for absolutely outstanding service.

Dean

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I am so glad to hear this after reading negative things over the years. I love the Leica view and this is certainly reassuring. I liked them enough to take a chance and their attitude seems to have really changed. Bravo! As a codicil to my earlier post, the diopter problem with my FL's was not even completely fixed--they are better than when I sent them in, but they obviously have a design problem. Maybe 3 years later they have a better remedy, I should send them again now that I use them less anyway.

John S. said:

If you were in customer service at a binocular repair shop that had a 6 month backlog then yes it would take 6 months to work on the latest binocular to come in for repair.

On the other hand if your binocular shop could repair the binoculars the next day, you might find smart customers walking away. There's usually a reason potential customers ignore a shop and it isn't usually a positive one.

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John S your missing the point. Leica is not a "binocular repair shop". They are a manufacturer that only has to repair one brand, theirs. Additionally if you compare similar manufacturers such as Leupold or Swaro you will see MUCH quicker turn arounds. When ANY repair facility (whether is cars, bikes, TV or whatever) has a 6 month backlog it's typically one of two reasons. An elite (limited/captured) market and/or the competition is bad or hasn't caught up yet.

I'm not totally ditching Leica as free is free but I think it's obvious there is room for improvement unless my experience is an anomaly.

Dave

FINAL-
Received the bino's yesterday. Completely rebuilt and look like all new parts except for the eyecups with you can see the wear and tear.

Very well done. Slow but hey it isn't like I make my living with them.

KUDO's to Leica.

Now I have two sets and need to sell one..........

Dave

I read this whole thread. I'm wondering if Leica service dept has a set of dice. Each binoc that comes in, they roll the dice and that determines how long the repair will take.

My wife has 8x32 Trinovids, the ones with the pull out eyecups that always jam up over time if you use them much. (We know others with the same problem.) Since she sometimes uses glasses, sometimes contacts, the cups do get some use. Five years ago they were so jammed that she had to send them in. "Sorry, we're particularly busy now, it will take 3-4 months to fix." It took over 4 months.

The problem eventually recurred, of course, and she sent them back in January 2010. "Sorry, we're particularly busy now, it will take 3-4 months to fix." They just told her last week that they're waiting on parts which they hope to have in a couple more weeks.

I have a pair of old 8x20s that went out of collimation. Leica said they could see a tiny bit of oxidation of an exterior screw so I had to pay for the repair.

Contrast Swarovski service. Five years ago I felt my early model 8x30s were getting a little tight in the focus wheel, although still fully usable. They were fixed in three weeks, including a courtesy replacement of all outside lenses with ones with updated coatings. A few months ago I sent them in again for a slightly tight focus. Again it took three weeks. This time I get the entire shell replaced.

I purchased a well used and abused Leica 10x42 Geovid a couple months ago and sent them in to have the collimation checked and the rubber armor re-secured as it was starting to separate. Shortly after receiving them, Leica sent me a letter stating they would repair them under their "Good Will" warranty and to expect them back in approximately six to eight weeks. Two weeks later I received an email with a tracking number and two days after that I had a brand new pair in hand, which had been shipped via UPS 2nd Day Air.

I've always preferred Leica's optics to that of Swarovski, but leaned toward Swarovski products because I knew they'd take care of me should a problem ever arise, but it seems that is no longer a concern. If this trend continues, I see nothing but good things in Leica's future because word of mouth is huge in the age of the Internet. Two thumbs up to the folks at Leica!..

Alexis Powell said:

Leica's warranty in the USA is superb. It is no-fault, so everything is covered as long as you can find the bit with the serial number on it.

--AP

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I just called Leica today to inquire about sending in my 10X50 Trinovid BN. It's probably nothing, but it seems that the diopter setting is off. What I mean by that is the diopter setting on my 8X42 BA is set to zero with my eyes, yet I'm about -1.5 diopters on the 10X. In the past, I was always at the zero mark with the 10X. I don't know what I could have done to it, but I'm getting it checked out anyway.

So, I called the Leica USA in NJ to inquire about sending it in. They said no problem, however, my warranty did not cover water damage or dropping damage. I was totally astounded at that, as when I purchased my BN about 8 years ago, I got the "Passport" warranty which supposedly covered anything, even negligence like running it over, as long as you had the piece with the serial number. Same deal with the 8X purchased 10 years ago. So, it appears that Leica did a bait and switch. If that is the case, my respect for the company and confidence they'll take care of me is severely lessened.