Nikon Customer Service

I would've never believed I could have such a disappointing, frustrating experience with Nikon. My father-in-law has been a Nikon person all his life and has never had anything but wonderful things to say about their products. I am sitting here in shock trying to soak this in. Here's my story:

My D200 started flashing the dreaded "Err" message around the holidays. Thank goodness I had a D50 as a backup. Not having time to investigate the problem, I just put it aside and used the D50. Earlier this month I decided it was time to tackle the problem and researched the problem online, tried everything I could find and ended up calling customer service. I talked with a technician who walked me through several possible "fixes" and when nothing worked, he informed me I would have to send it in to the company for repair for the "injury." ??? Injury? Excuse me? Never mind, I won't even go there. I shipped it the same day - to the company - to Nikon. Not some third party company, to Nikon.

Flash forward to a couple of weeks. I finally received an email with a pdf attachment requesting my repair approval to the tune of $224 for a "standard B2 repair." That's it. Needless to say I called customer service the next day for an explanation. I didn't get one. The CSR I spoke to told me exactly what the standard form I received said - "standard B2 repair." I explained to her that I didn't know what that meant and I wasn't going to pay $224 for something when I didn't know what it was. She said she'd have to request that information and email it to me when she got it - and that could take 24-48 hours. That's the best they've got? Seriously?

Almost a week later I get an email explaining that a "B2" repair is a "standard shutter/mirror replacement." OK. I authorized the repair. Last week I checked the website several times checking on the status - it always said, "SHOP." No problem, that's what I expected. I checked it today and was appalled at the status of my camera. The current status of my camera's repair is "PARTS HOLD." The definition? "Product is waiting for repair parts." ??? Are you kidding me? This is NIKON! It's a standard replacement part! Where are they getting the parts from then? If I had sent it to a third party company for repair I could certainly understand them having to wait for parts ... but wouldn't they order the parts from Nikon? I just don't believe this.

So I started more research about Nikon's customer service. Wow ... I found all kinds of things. In fact I found very little positive about it. Think I'll buy another Nikon in the future?

I don't have enough sangria to feel better ...