Horrendous customer service

Marksman

Marksman

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Darryl
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Has anyone else had this from H Lehmanns??

I sent a canon L lens for repair in Nov 12 where it has a new focus drive fitted and was calibrated within the repair at a cost of over £220.
Since then it has been used for a max of 1000 shots.
Only till last weekend when I was shooting a friend wedding did I notice the subject out of focus but the rear in focus.
I sent the lens back only to be told it needs calibrating again at a cost of £72.
I understand they give a 6mth warranty but how can it need doing again after such a short period of time a d lack of use.
The lens had not been dropped or knocked in any way.

Needless to day I am not happy and am seeking advice through the help of Canon UK and citizens advice
 
so How long would you expect a warranted canon repair to
last then??
Would you be happy buying an L lens, having it repaired then sent back every year for work doing related to the same repair??
I think not!
 
Marksman said:
so How long would you expect a warranted canon repair to
last then??
Would you be happy buying an L lens, having it repaired then sent back every year for work doing related to the same repair??
I think not!
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what i was saying was that maybe there is an underlying fault/issue with the lens. if they corrected the described fault first time around then its not exactly shoddy customer service.
 
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but then again, if the fault was corrected you would reasonably expect any other issue to have been addressed so that the lens would give many more years of satisfactory service.
 
Personally I have found using Lehmanns like chucking your lens into a black hole for a while. Eventually it gets spat back out fixed but in the mean time emails and phone calls go unanswered. Just to add the couriers they use weren't much better. I found my lens in the student house next door.
I have found Canon in Elstree to be much more reliable.
 
welshwizard645 said:
but then again, if the fault was corrected you would reasonably expect any other issue to have been addressed so that the lens would give many more years of satisfactory service.
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but if the lens was sent in to be calibrated would they be looking for any other fault?

just saying, its a bit soon to be flying off the handle at them. tell them its the 2nd time in X months and ask them to investigate.

i think thats pretty reasonable.
 
neil_g said:
but if the lens was sent in to be calibrated would they be looking for any other fault?

just saying, its a bit soon to be flying off the handle at them. tell them its the 2nd time in X months and ask them to investigate.

i think thats pretty reasonable.
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I have done mate and this is their quoted response...

"Ok all I can confirm is the focus requires attention which we can do at the estimate cost"
 
Marksman said:
I have done mate and this is their quoted response...

"Ok all I can confirm is the focus requires attention which we can do at the estimate cost"
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fair enough :)

if it keeps dropping out of skew though id say there may be something else wrong somewhere. i guess get it calibrated and see how it goes?

oh and.. should've got a sigma :D (joke)
 
Marksman said:
I have done mate and this is their quoted response...

"Ok all I can confirm is the focus requires attention which we can do at the estimate cost"
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I'd be asking them why it needs calibrating again within 12 months of having been done. If they can't give a satisfactory answer get it back and send it to another Canon repairer and ask them to look at it.

Personally I think it's ridiculous that within 12 months of being calibrated it's needing to be done again... this would suggest there's an underlying fault with the lens that needs to be investigated rather than it being recalibrated again with the likelyhood of the issue cropping up again soon
 
That's my point mate, I'm asking them to calibrate it but at no charge to myself what with it being such a short space of time and lack of use.

Am I not being inconsiderate in thinking that if it has been repaired and a fault occurs related to the repair then it should be dealt with???
 
used em a few times.. thought i was unlucky so kept using them.. turns out its them.. useless set of so and sos.. barge pole time :(
 
ajax_andy said:
I'd be asking them why it needs calibrating again within 12 months of having been done. If they can't give a satisfactory answer get it back and send it to another Canon repairer and ask them to look at it.

Personally I think it's ridiculous that within 12 months of being calibrated it's needing to be done again... this would suggest there's an underlying fault with the lens that needs to be investigated rather than it being recalibrated again with the likelyhood of the issue cropping up again soon
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They don't know why mate, all they're interested in is getting more cash.....
 
My Nikon 24-70 developed a fault, the autofocus stopped working. I sent it to Lehmanns and got the lens back within 2 weeks working. It had been stripped, cleaned and calibrated. After a few days the autofocus stopped working again. I phoned them and they couldn't have been more helpful. I was emailed a return packaging slip and was told my lens would be prioritised. It was back and working in 4 days and despite some parts being used there was no extra charge.
 
Marksman said:
Has anyone else had this from H Lehmanns??

I sent a canon L lens for repair in Nov 12 where it has a new focus drive fitted and was calibrated within the repair at a cost of over £220.
Since then it has been used for a max of 1000 shots.
Only till last weekend when I was shooting a friend wedding did I notice the subject out of focus but the rear in focus.
I sent the lens back only to be told it needs calibrating again at a cost of £72.
I understand they give a 6mth warranty but how can it need doing again after such a short period of time a d lack of use.
The lens had not been dropped or knocked in any way.

Needless to day I am not happy and am seeking advice through the help of Canon UK and citizens advice
Click to expand...

Have you tried Micro Focus Adjust on the lens?
 
I've had not so good service from Lehmanns in the past, so has another admin digitalfailure.

Next time I'm sending my business to Elstree.
 
I'll join the anti Lehmanns group, they did the job but very slow and needed constant chasing up.

Canon elstree were excellent , could not fault them at all
 
I rarely hear good things about them. Send it to elstree then you'll know it is repaired properly. If something is fixed it should stay fixed.

There is another repairer in stoke who guarantee the whole item for 12 months after a repair. http://www.pjcamerarepairs.co.uk/
 
I sent my 70-200 f2.8 into Lehmans for repair, it needed a new AF motor. I'm not a member of cps so couldn't use Canon Elstree, and wasn't in priority queue with lehmans. I sent the lens on the Monday and had it back fixed on Thursday, fantastic service.
 
Twizzel said:
I sent my 70-200 f2.8 into Lehmans for repair, it needed a new AF motor. I'm not a member of cps so couldn't use Canon Elstree, and wasn't in priority queue with lehmans. I sent the lens on the Monday and had it back fixed on Thursday, fantastic service.
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Don't think you need to be a cps member to use elstree. Friend sent her 7d and 100-400l to them after a mishap...was a year or two ago though.
 
Is the customer service really horrendous or is it the product that's needing repair horrendous?
 
I should imagine it's a fair old money spinner for all these lens calibrations, should we really be spending money on this in the first place.
Surely fit for purpose must come into it somewhere when spending £xxx's on a lens :thinking:
 
Marcel said:
I've had not so good service from Lehmanns in the past, so has another admin digitalfailure.

Next time I'm sending my business to Elstree.
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I sent the lens to Canon Elstree who then forwarded it on to Lehmanns who then done the "repair"

srichards said:
I rarely hear good things about them. Send it to elstree then you'll know it is repaired properly. If something is fixed it should stay fixed.

There is another repairer in stoke who guarantee the whole item for 12 months after a repair. http://www.pjcamerarepairs.co.uk/
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Cheers Suz... I'll keep them in mind should anything else untoward happen.
 
I'd do the following;

Phone Canon Elstree and ask them as they've sent the lens to a 3rd party repairer, shouldn't they be responsible for honouring the warrant (i'm thinking here that Canon offer a full 12 months warranty for repairs?)
also, i'd explain your whole experience to Elstree and see what they say.
I'd hazard a very uneducated guess that your lens shouldn't be experiencing these problems, especially after alledgedly being fixed!
I would insist on Elstree taking the lens and at the very least investigating the faults at their expense.
Lets not forget, L lenses are very expensive, 'professional' grade pieces of kit.
 
Twizzel said:
I sent my 70-200 f2.8 into Lehmans for repair, it needed a new AF motor. I'm not a member of cps so couldn't use Canon Elstree, and wasn't in priority queue with lehmans. I sent the lens on the Monday and had it back fixed on Thursday, fantastic service.
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You don't need to be a CPS member to use Elstree, you just get priority if you are.

Had excellent service from Elstree when I sent my 70-200 in for calibration. Never actually used Lehmann's but have called them a couple of times to enquire about pricing for servicing/cleaning and each time just their "meh" attitude on the phone has put me right off ever using them.
 
Thanks for the advice folks, have taken it up with Canon just waiting for a reply.

Darryl
 
If you send your lens off to Canon for calibrating they will set it to 'factory settings' which may not be correct for your camera body. What lens and body are you using?

I would look at calibrating your body to the lens.
 
Jonhob said:
If you send your lens off to Canon for calibrating they will set it to 'factory settings' which may not be correct for your camera body. What lens and body are you using?

I would look at calibrating your body to the lens.
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It's a 24-105 F/4L and a 5DMKII mate.
The lens was fine, took 800-1000 shots with it since repaired
 
I've only used Lehmanns once, via L.C.E in Lincoln, to fix my 7D after I'd dropped it. While it took a while for it to get fixed (more time waiting for transit than fixing) I've been very pleased with the level of competance. They gave a list of required parts that were needed and I agreed to the fix, but they even replaced some of the body parts that were scratched in the fall and it looks as good as ever.
 
Jonhob said:
If you send your lens off to Canon for calibrating they will set it to 'factory settings' which may not be correct for your camera body. What lens and body are you using?

I would look at calibrating your body to the lens.
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That's true to a point but, if your body has micro-adjustment then it's enough that the lens is "linear" across its zoom range.

My 70-200 was slightly front focusing at one end and and back-focusing badly at the other, meaning I couldn't adjust for it at both extremes. I sent the lens to Elstree but didn't bother with the body. I explained to them that, providing the focus was the same or linear across the range, I could then adjust my camera for it and, since they could thus calibrate it against any body they liked, there was no point sending the body too.

The technician actually called me when he was about to start work on it to check things with me and ask what body I used mainly so he could use the same model reference body.

I suppose calibrating a lens to the body could actually be counter-productive in some cases. When I got my 70-200 back and tested it to see what MA I needed on my body, it came out around -9 at all focal lengths so I dialled that in and it was perfect. Now the question is, was that because my body is what's out of alignment rather than the lens? If so, and I'd had the lens calibrated to my body rather than their reference one, there's a chance that the lens itself would have been "out of alignment" compared to a "standard reference point" and, although it would have matched my camera body, it may then have not matched most other bodies quite as well.

I keep meaning to get around to testing it on my 40D to see how it performs and test this theory. If I find that it's pretty accurate on the 40D (which lacks micro-adjustment) then that would tend to support my theory and, if I'd had it calibrated to my 7D, it could have then been way out on the 40D and I'd have had no way to correct it. Of course I could find I'm totally wrong and it's way out on the 40D! :)
 
Carlo said:
I'd do the following;

Phone Canon Elstree and ask them as they've sent the lens to a 3rd party repairer, shouldn't they be responsible for honouring the warrant (i'm thinking here that Canon offer a full 12 months warranty for repairs?)
also, i'd explain your whole experience to Elstree and see what they say.
I'd hazard a very uneducated guess that your lens shouldn't be experiencing these problems, especially after alledgedly being fixed!
I would insist on Elstree taking the lens and at the very least investigating the faults at their expense.
Lets not forget, L lenses are very expensive, 'professional' grade pieces of kit.
Click to expand...

Elstree give a 6m warranty relating to the work they have done.

Non-CPS members can use them as well, CPS membership brings priority service and a few other benefits.

Has the problem been on all photos taken since repair or is it a problem that has started since - it could be that the lens is regarded as being within tolerance, but the combination of your body and the lens means it needs microadjustment which you may be able to do in camera.
 
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