high repair cost for canon 20d out-of-warranty

OK, so I accidentally banged my camera, a canon 20d. To my surprise,
three pieces fell
out of the bottom of the finder, into the mirror box. I carefully
removed them: 1. a rectangular piece of frosted plastic with some tabs
on the edges, maybe a fresnel lens, but maybe not. 2. a metal
brass-colored rectangular frame with some asymmetric tabs not really
matching the tabs of the other piece, and 3. a black metal rectangular
frame that looks like a retaining framework with springy pieces.

I put the pieces in a plastic bag and tried to take photos. Yes, it
worked but the exposure was way off. When I got home I tried to figure
out how to replace these guys, but considering the number of
possibilities, I decided I might damage something, and anyway it
probably had to be recalibrated.

I sent it to Canon repair in Irvine, California. Within about 24 hours
they emailed a repair estimate, including shipping, of $305. Whoa! I
called them up and it turns out that this is
their minimum. (They claim on the estimate to be replacing the mirror
-- which is just fine -- and don't mention the viewfinder -- which is
the problem. But the phone person said that I should ignore the exact
message because the charge is always the same minimum.

This is the 2nd time the 20d visited the repair station. The first
problem, under warranty, and right out of the box, was that the camera
would try to pop up the flash, and fail. After 3 tries it gave up and
shut down. They fixed it promptly, and free. Still not fun.

I think $305 is kind of high, and the camera is perhaps unreasonably
delicate in ways that have nothing much to do with electronics. Maybe
someone at Canon is reading this??

 

You should have googled a little before sending it in. With a little
luck, you would have found a detailed document explaining exactly how
to put those things back in place:
http://doug.kerr.home.att.net/pumpkin/Replace_focusing_screen_20D.pdf

 

If you consider the time it takes to decide what to do, doing it, parts,
returning it incl. shipping and the capital cost (equipment/parts) of
maintaining a repair depot, it's not that much. Stings, but it's not
that much. Cut down on the beer (or other little comfort/luxury) for a
year and its paid for.

Most Canon 20D owners find them reasonably robust. They are not
hammers. If you hit it one way really hard: no damage; another way half
as hard: kablooie. It's a bit of a lottery.

Cheers,
Alan

 

I don't need it but it is an excellent guide.

 

A friend of my dropped his 20D on the concrete floor twice. The camera was
still OK, but he has to remove concrete particles that was press into the
camera house.

 

Consider this...in 1980 salaries were considerable lower than today's.
It would cost $120 minimum to look at a SLR back then. According to
the Consumer Price Index, what was $120 in 1980 is $297 in 206 dollars!
The increase is only 3.4% per year for the past 25 years!

 

All the price justifications fail to impress me - these people are experts
in their trade, with a million spares at hand. They would know exactly how
to repair anything sent to them in a flash - $300 minimum estimate is a
bloody rip-off and something I will now carefully consider before committing
to a new 30D

Steve

 

My point is simply that YOU are not getting ripped off any worse than
any other generation of photographers, so you can quit feeling sorry
for yourself, because I've been there too, and so has everyone else who
ever sent in any camera!

 

The repair probably costs $5.

Knowing *how to* costs the other $300.

 

All the price justifications fail to impress me - these people are experts

What sort of argument is that? You acknowledge their expertise and
intimate knowledge of a very complex device, then say it's a bloody rip
off that they charge top dollar for their service?

If you disagree with their valuation of the investment they've made in
training their staff, precision equipment, etc., you can always do the
fix yourself. Shouldn't take you more than a couple of years research
and a couple of dozen camera bodies to practice on.

 

I think that people come to a "justified" or "rip-off" conclusion by
comparing the price asked to the price of a new item, but it's not a valid
comparison. The likes of Canon (and all other camers manufacturers) are
primarily geared up as a manufacturing organisation, where these things are
made in highly automated factories.

With repairs they are now accounting for a far less automated and far more
labour intensive environment - they have the expenses of paying the staff -
training the staff - funding the facilities - developing and maintaining
expensive test and repair equipment - plus when all of their expenses are
paid they want to return a profit so that they can have a return on their
investment.

Many will adopt a standard repair charge (call it what they like), but in
many cases to cut down on the labour component they tend to adopt a fairly
agressive policy of replacing the "next higher assembly". As an example of
this Hewlett Packard used to break a particular inkjet printer down into
only 3 components (case, printing mechanism, and power supply) - if you had
a chipped line feed idler gear they wouldn't replace the 10c gear - they
replace the entire printing assembly - charge you a standard repair fee -
and out the door it goes - next please. Same with their calculators - mine
developed a broken key, but they don't fix keys - the keys are on the PCB
which also contains the CPU + memory + display which is all welded to the
plastic facia - so what you got back was in essence the original rear 1/2 of
the case, and that's all.

I'm not sure what Canon's policy is, but they could well adipt a policy of
replacing entire front ends from stock units - it's easier for them - you
get a better result - and it costs a known amount.

I'd be VERY surprised if any of the major manufacturers were any different.

 

You're ignoring the costs of maintaining a shop and the value of the
expertise. Those spare parts at hand have a carrying cost as well.

 

Well, back in the good old days, they did a lot more than just replace the
parts. They would lubricate and calibrate the entire camera as well. Many
pros would just wait until the camera broke before sending it in for
"preventative" lubrication, as the price was the same. It's possible they
spent a lot more time on your camera than you thought, and they do this with
every camera aside from the repair. Even though it's digital, it still has
a lot of moving parts in there.

Compare this to sending in a defective Rolex, Omega, or other fine watch for
repair or just maintenance. You get a complete overhaul, including a
handful of new parts for the price of about 100 Timex watches -- that all
keep better time than your Rolex.

The problem is, we don't know exactly what they do to the camera. I doubt
they just put the old parts back and send it on its way.

 

I agree that there are a lot of situations where this makes sense.
Especially if something way inside the mechanism is broken, the
disassembly alone could take ages. So swapping the whole unit can be
necessary. Unfortunately, for the consumer it is usually cheaper to
just get a new device, so from a repair perspective the whole device is
just 1 component. I learnend this when I repairs the aperture mechanism
of a Minolta 7000, which took me 4 hours (granted, a skilled
professional would probably do it within 2 hours...).

But there are easier cases, when the broken part is accessible and easy
to replace. The part will be just 10 cents to produce; plus stocking it
may cost 5 bucks. Add five minutes labour, and the bottom line should
still be very affordable. However, with a standard repair charge even a
simple repair as this woud be charged hundreds of bucks, and so the
customer will probably decide against it. What is economical in that?
Especially since I would not buy from the same brand again.

Thomas

 

But that's not why they can charge so much. The reason is a combination
of a) having a monopoly (since nobody else knows how to do it and can
access spare parts) and b) our willingness to pay. It has almost
nothing to do with skill (except inasmuch as they need something to
sell, to wit, the skill).

A good example is this: someone with a phd in theoretical physics (say)
has quite specialised expertise in pretty complicated methods and
ideas, which takes time to develop and is anyway inaccessible to most
people since it requires specific abilities. Yet, the average salary
for practicing it is literally ridiculous compared to that person's
skills (compared, for example, to what the same person would get in a
bank as a quant). Thus, it is not the difficulty in acquiring the
skills, nor the mere possession of them, that gives them value, but a
combination of demand and willingness of people to pay for them.

Completely obvious, actually. Don't know why I wrote two paragraphs on
it.

 

If they stock the part - often it's already pre-assembled as part of
something bigger.

The other danger is that if, for example, it's "just a mirror", what's to
say that there aren't other "walking wounded" parts that were damaged by the
same drop - last thing you want is to have a new mirror fitted and then a
week later something else breaks.

The other issue is that by doing it in major assemblies they know what their
costs are, and how long things take - plus they definately want to make a
profit on the exercise.

 

You think its so easy You repair it. Anybody who actually repairs
cameras instead of just telling you to buy a new one will charge pretty
near the same amount.

 

Sometimes knowhow is over changed like this, doesn't make it right, just
makes it ripoff.

 

We call that colusion don't we? Doesn't make it fair or right.

 

No, we call it "understanding the problem".

The fact that you don't like it doesn't make it unfair or wrong either.

Camera repair is not performed by high school dropouts making minimum wage
you know--good techs cost, tools cost, the building costs, the land that it
sits on costs, lights cost, heat costs, taxes cost, paperwork costs if it
takes three hours from open the box to close the box then there's your 300
bucks.

As for "knowing how to repair anything sent to them in a flash", it's easy
to criticize when you don't have to do the work. Diagnosis is often the
most expensive part of the job.

Tell me, have you ever worked a job where you were expected to repair
complicated things that were brought in broken? If not then perhaps you
should cut those who are in that business some slack. If you have been in
that business and know of a more fair pricing scheme then please be kind
enough to present it.