Well I really don’t want to rant about the company I respect for their products, but there comes a bad experience once in a while.

A month ago I broke my EOS 18-55mm Lens and had given to Canon service centre to fix. Two weeks later, I received a call from a lady at Canon support quoting Rs 6032 to fix it. As I was driving and hearing about the high quoted price, I asked her how much a new one would cost me, to which she replied “about 11/12 thousand rupees“. Now that seemed reasonable, half the actual price to fix it.

But soon I realized, thanks to few friends on Facebook, that the actual price with 1 year warranty is about the same. I could get a new one delivered at my home for 30Rs less than what Canon quoted me.

I raised an issue with canon and after few calls and mails, they tell me the lady never quoted me the actual price, I didn’t bother to argue after that. I asked him if he really expected me to pay more for a fixed lens than just go buy a new one for a cheaper price which in fact would come with 1 year warranty. He told me he can’t do anything about that and the charges involved can’t be discounted.

But really, I don’t feel that bad about this. Just that the broken lens would have made a great paperweight. :/

Now, if anyone is having a EOS 18-55mm IS lens to sell, in Cochin/Bangalore/Chennai , please do contact me.

Edit 17 Feb ’11 : Got the lens 6.2k, CBE