D300 repair: This could take some time!
Be comfortable and wait!
On Monday, October 27th I packed up my D300 and sent it to the Nikon service facility in Melville, NY. According to FedEx, it reached its destination at 9:27 AM on Wednesday, October 29th. On Monday, November 2nd, I called Nikon to inquire as to why I’d not gotten an e-mail saying that they had received my camera. I was told that they were a bit backlogged and hadn’t even made it to the packages that they had received since the previous Monday! Uh! Oh!
Well, I finally got an e-mail on Tuesday evening, November 3rd, asking me if I wanted to authorize the repair for $224.00. I promptly went to the site, entered my credit card information and received page indicating that I had paid.
This evening, Sunday, November 8th, I checked the status again, hoping to see that it was at least into the repair process. Nope. It is listed as “Bill”, which means that I have paid for it, but it has not even moved onto the repair process.
Oh well, might as well hunker down, keep shooting film, and wait it out. It might be a while! Basketball season starts on Friday. At least I still have my video camera!
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This is really bitter! As Nikon has quite a good reputation regarding their service, I wonder how bad it is with other brands repair facilities. Here in Germany, at least Pentax takes its time, my father now waits for more than 6 weeks to get his camera back from focus calibration.
But of course you will cherish it even more afterwards!
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@Markus: This is the first time that I’ve ever had to have a Nikon repaired. A few weeks ago I sent my Oly to Camerarepair.com to fix the shutter and do a CLA. Total turn around time was about 2 weeks. Not bad at all. I hope to see my camera soon. Six weeks is a long time, but I’m into week 3 already.
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Sounds like a “red flag” to me! What exactly does “backlogged” mean? Either they only have one 80 year old guy in a backroom somewhere doing all the repairs or they have lots and lots of incoming not-quite-serviceable cameras to deal with. I’m not sure which scenario would be more disturbing.
Maybe there’s still time to come back from the “darkside”….:)
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I’ve used Nikon repair before and I think that “Bill” means one of two things.
1. They’ve not yet entered your CC info and charged your card. (go online to your bank and see)
or
2. Bill the nite janitor has borrowed the camera to take toilet shots. Either way, they are bumping you for the newest D9Thousand sent in by the 21 year old future Celeb Wedding Photographer that is “All that and More”
Call them and tell them in a nice calm way, you know, what you’ve learned in New York, “GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR YOU DUMB BASTARDS AND FIX MY EFFIN CAMERA.
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@Tom: Well, I called them and was a bit nicer than NYC/NJ style. Looks like Bill the night janitor has finished with it.
Their website says that “Bill” means the order has been confirmed. According to the rep that I spoke with, Bill means that the repair is complete and it has moved to the QA department to make sure that the camera is up to Nikon specifications. According to him, the camera will be shipped within 24 hours. Now, I hope that’s not 24 business hours! I didn’t ask. 
So, it looks like I may get my camera back this week. Fingers crossed!
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Paul
Went thru the same process with a couple of flash units so I know your frustration. I have since found a repair shop in Seattle that is really good and use them for cam stuff. Hopefully this will be the last time and you get a ‘new’ camera back soon.
Fantastic photo of Hobbs, really brought a smile to my morning.
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Maybe they’ll get confused and send you a D700 back instead.
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“Maybe they’ll get confused and send you a D700 back instead”
Too funny Rob……. He deserves it too!
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Well, this image in context with the post can be interpreted or captioned as…
“Oh boy, he is fretting about camera stuff again”
“I know better and I can sleep awhile… he sent it to Nikon”
“I hope that camera gets lost in the mail somewhere, at least there won’t be more pictures of me anytime soon.”
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I’m so glad to hear that the camera is coming back! When you mentioned basketball season, I got worried. Your son is a senior this year, right?
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@Micki: Yep. He’s a senior! I’ll probably not shoot much this season because we need the video to send to coaches and whatnot. There’s another parent who records every game, so I won’t miss too much of the action, even though I’ll get to see it second hand.
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I am particularly interested in your back-and-forth experiences from film to digital.
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