Nikon responds- "rapid deterioration in the market occurred and fiercer competition"

Too vague. How should they make it public? Should they just issue a press release, send letters to every D800 owner, advertise on television? What, exactly, would they say?

What would you say in this FAQ?

You mean extend the warranty? Other than that, they are already doing this.

They probably already know. It was explained earlier why making this public would be a bad idea. They would get most of the bodies in the early number range back whether they had a problem or not. Resale value for early serial numbers would drop. That would punish early adopters.

You mean ship all cameras back to Japan so they can be re-evaluated and the ≈ 20% fixed? That means the sales channel would dry up completely. People would be upset that they couldn't get a D800, D800E, or D4 for some period of time. Factory production would be slowed or stopped.

Or, do you mean that every camera should be run through evaluation at the service centers before it can be sold. What happens to the cameras people send in for repair? People are not happy about the turn-around time now. Think how angry they would be if the service centers were trying to evaluate 100% of the cameras coming through distribution?

You've never run a company, have you?

Thom says this has been done. I expect Nikon did this as fast as they could. It isn't in their interest to produce defective cameras.

D600 oil splatter is from Thailand, D800 left-AF issue is from Sendai, Japan. Let's not complicate the discussion with two very different problems.

This is the distribution company in the USA. It is a separate company from Nikon, Japan. Nikon USA has always been a difficult company. Let's leave that for another discussion.

--
Robin Casady
http://www.robincasady.com/Photo/index.html
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
— Bertrand Russell