Nikon D5000 Service Advisory

Yep, it's been months since my beloved D5000 suddenly went dead.  The last time I took photos with it was on our family trip to North Cornwall in May 2011.  Tengah syok2 ambik gambar, suddenly it just shut down.  At first, I thought the battery was drained. But after charging the battery and still couldn't switch it on, I knew something was amiss.

I remembered a friend telling me how her D5000 acted up, only after a few months of use.  I felt sorry for her then and had hoped that mine would not suffer the same fate.  Well, hard luck.  After almost two years of productive use, **** happened :(.

My precious... :)

The first thing that I did was to google for  information.  Well, what do you know... Nikon had - in July 2009 -  issued a service advisory regarding the D5000.  It seemed that "a certain electronic component related to power control in some Nikon D5000 cameras is of substandard quality and may, in rare cases, prevent the camera from powering on".  Nikon had therefore asked D5000 owners to verify (through a simple online procedure) if their cameras were affected by this issue.  If you are a D5000 owner, verify yours here now.

Well, I verified mine and yup, it was one of the affected ones.  The bad news was, I had to send my Nikon to the Malaysia service centre (bad news coz I was in the UK, then).  The good news, however, was my camera was entitled for a FREE repair :D.

The camera was practically in cold storage for about 3 months before I had the opportunity to send it to Nikon (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd in Menara PKNS, Jln Yong Shook Lin, Petaling Jaya.  Yeah, before I went there, I googled to find out about the after sales/customer service.  I was quite worried because the reviews on Nikon (M) customer service were pretty BAD.  I read that Canon (M) customer service was much better (in terms of speed of repair and public relations).  At one point I was even thinking of buying a new camera (and defecting to Canon... Hehehe!).  Anyway, memandangkan keadaan kewangan yang tidak mengizinkan, I decided to take the camera for repair and see how it goes.

The place was pretty easy to find and there was ample parking.  I was well attended by the frontliners and my queries were dealt with, most professionally.  I guess Nikon (M) must have cleaned up their act, following the numerous complaints regarding their poor customer service.  So far so good, I thought.  But then, before I left, I just had to ask them one LAST question:

Me           :  How long does it take to repair the camera?
Frontliner :  Normally about two weeks....bla... bla... bla...

Ha!  Gotcha!  This was the standard answer which I had anticipated based on the comments I read on the internet.  Canonites (or Canonese/Canonians??) claimed that Canon (M) offers speedier service.  Anyway, at this point, maybe it's too early to tell how good or bad Nikon (M)'s customer service is.  I'll give them the benefit of a doubt and hope that things will turn to my (and their) advantage.  Will be reporting back in 2 weeks time.  Taa! :)