Updated 8/9
Crowd sourcing is fun. In many dozens of responses to me, I’d say the following. If you return your Z8 to NikonUSA for the service advisory, you’ll get it back:
- Drop off and pickup at Nikon (either location): one or two business days. A few have had same day service, but that may entail a significant wait.
- Ship to Nikon and shipped back: seven to fourteen days (not business days, but overall days).
This may change as more cameras get returned (or most get repaired), but the simplicity of the repair means that once it’s on a technician’s desk to fix, it’s not there long. As you can probably tell from the above, most of the time is spent in shipping the camera as well as logging procedures at NikonUSA. If you’re NPS, make sure your NPS number is on the camera and you’ve put one of the NPS “Priority” labels you received on the box.
One thing to note: NikonUSA ships via UPS but does not always use “signature required.” If you’re at an address where a package might be left without anyone to receive it, you should talk to NikonUSA customer service. I believe that they have a procedure for you to pay for “signature required.” It appears that the Signal Hill office is using signature required, but not Melville. I’ve gotten mixed responses on this. Note that Nikon doesn’t insure the shipment, even if signature is required.
Another thing to keep in mind is that UPS and the Teamsters Union are in contract negotiations that could lead to a strike at the end of July. If a strike does occur, any camera en route via UPS may end up in limbo before it is delivered.
So what does it look like doing the return?
- You’ll generate the paperwork at the Nikon service advisory site. That will include a UPS return label.
- You’ll need to take the battery and card out of the camera, and the camera strap off. Ditto any special things you’ve added, like a third-party eyepiece. I suggest that you put the camera in a bag that you take the air out of, then bubblewrap that bag and tape off the bubblewrap so the camera can’t spill out. Put the bubblewrap in a box with a copy of the paperwork that was generated in Step 1 and seal it up.
- Take your sealed box with the UPS label generated in Step 1 to your nearest UPS Store or other outlet that takes UPS drop-offs. Make sure they secure the label to the box and give you a recipe of the scanned package.
- Once Nikon receives your package, they’ll generate a repair invoice and send it to you via email. Be sure to check the Estimate PDF that accompanies this email. If the estimate is for no charge, you don’t have to approve anything. However, if Nikon discovered other things that they need to repair on the camera, there could be a cost on the estimate and you need to approve that before Nikon will do anything else. It’s doubtful that this will happen, but if you sent in a camera that was highly abused, you might see a repair estimate with a cost associated with it.
- You can track the repair status, sort of, via NikonUSA.com/service and following the Approve & Track button (the first two characters that Nikon asked for might be those in your first name ;~). However, with quick repairs like this you’re not likely to see anything other than the estimate prior to its changing status to shipping/shipped back to you.
- You should get an email from Nikon when your camera is shipped back.
- Nikon’s shipping is very generic, and much like I suggest you do in Step 2: you’ll get the camera back in a bubble wrapped plastic concoction within the UPS box. Be careful about opening the bubble wrapped body back up. I’ve seen people do two silly things: (1) drop the camera out of the bubblewrap, and (2) slice through the bubblewrap into the body leather.
The question I keep getting is “should I do this at all?” My current answer is yes. I’ve had reports of two Z8’s that appeared to be fine for awhile, then suddenly clearly developed the problem. Just time your return for a two-week window you can be without the camera.
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My own experience (however, note that I’m NPS Platinum):
- Shipped to Nikon July 8th (Saturday)
- Received and acknowledged by Nikon July 10th (Monday)
- Shipped by Nikon back to me on July 11th (Wednesday)
- Received without signature on July 12th (Thursday)
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It appears that Z8's shipped to Nikon and repaired in the first week of August were also repaired for the lug strap issue, as well. Cameras repaired for mounts after July 31 seem to have also been repaired for lug strap issues, as they do not show up in the affected camera list.
