Sony Camera Repairs

I have a Sony Nex7 camera and the door protecting the memory chip/battery broke.

I had it sent through the Sony dealer/distributor here to its "official Sony" repair shop.

A couple of weeks later, it comes back with a "sorry, can't fix it".

Dave Pierce suggested the Precision Camera Repair in CT and it got fixed.

What I can't understand is why a Sony camera, which is about $1,000 brand-new, can't be fixed by the Sony Repair people?

Anybody else has had problems with manufacture's official repair shops?

Yes, i had same issue with a Sony Cybershot, the door broke after 14 months of very light use (I mostly use my DSLR's). Sony asked me to send it to their service partner who returned it with the notice "we only repair SLR", then went through the dealer who after 2 months said they wanted $200 to repair it. Sony Denmark have never been forthcoming so I've given the camera to our 10 year old niece and vowed never to purchase anything from Sony again.

I would expect the locking mechanism to be a bit more durable.

So now I'm the happy owner of 3 Canon DSLR's (70D, 60D and 450D) and use my iPhone 5s as point and shoot camera.

Br

Nicolai

Panasonic sent me a replacement camera when the battery door latch broke.

To be fair, camera manufacturers won't stock a lot of repair parts for rapid marketing cycle products. When the battery door broke on my SD-800 after a year, Canon repair told me it would cost more to fix than the camera was worth (yay, gaffer's tape). It has also been my experience that while companies are quite responsive during a warranty period, low-profit out-of-warranty repairs are often diverted to independents like Precision Camera. I'm curious as to why they didn't inform Tom of that option...I guess that's what friends and forums are for! :)

Dave

I've sent in my Sony F717 for a repair once - the only time I had any issue with any of my Sony cameras...it was repaired and returned to me in 5 days, and cleaned as well. Can't say I've experienced any issues with Sony's official repair center myself. Fortunately through a dozen Sonys, I haven't had any issues other than that one.

I had a Canon P&S with a motorized extending lens that failed to extend after 1 year - like Dave, I was told from Canon that they wouldn't fix it because it would be more expensive than the camera, and it was out of warranty. I didn't forever swear off Canon products due to an unfortunate failure, but to each their own. There hasn't been anything from Canon I've wanted to buy in the past 8 years, but if there was, I'd not be worried at all to buy it even though the only previous digital Canon I had broke a few weeks out of warranty...I considered that a fluke or bad luck. Breaking off a battery door, unless it literally fell off while sitting on a shelf, I would have to consider my own fault, not the camera's or the company's...I can only guess that the Sony repair center deals with warranty-related repairs and out of warranty or physical damage repairs may often get referred out to another facility like Precision (which is an authorized Sony repair center). Though I agree you would expect the person at the Sony facility would have notified the OP of the option to go through Precision.