US$74.12 to clean my P5000? Ripoff?

My Coolpix P5000 has been used pretty heavily abroad for about 3 years, and I decided to sent it into Nikon's California service center to have the sensor and optics cleaned, even though it's still very much working. (I just think some of the images when I first bought the unit were sharper.)

I received my estimate today:

B1 Service Repair B1: $56.00
Shipping: $12.50
Tax: $5.62
TOTAL: $74.12

My two questions are:

1. Is this an acceptable price to pay? I was quoted over the phone $22-35 for cleaning, which is clearly not what was delivered.

2. Why am I being charged tax when there are no parts? Why am I being charged tax on a service? Is this standard California procedure?

You may have had better luck with a place near you (not always). I went to local place and took my (now somewhat ancient) P&S Sony rig. They wanted $120 to clean the sensor, while Sony wanted $180. There was no point cleaning, so I bought a better camera (for not much more).

You might want to try to clean it yourself, but the initial supplies will cost too.

I had some lens work performed and they did charge tax (El Segundo) - sounds legit.

Leswick

which isn't unreasonable, shipping about right. The tax is a ripoff but, that's California, not Nikon.
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Cost of the service is $56.00, not $74.12.
Just cleaning will still involve dis-assembly - takes time.
What does a B1 Service entail? Maybe your camera needs more than just a clean.
Sounds quite reasonable to me.
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Ken AD

Sounded very reasonable for that type of work
I have a p5000 too but let's face it
it used to be one of the better ps around but it is time to move on
as for the tax, ..... Unless you live in Portland..
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CKL

... I am currently in Portland.

If I want an electrician to shop up at my house it is going to cost me a $75 trip charge just to have them show up at the door.

But there is absolutely no reason to clean the inside of a P&S camera where the lens never comes off and their is little way for dust to get inside the light box.

If there is dirt on the sensor you will see it easily by taking pictures of the sky in bright sunlight and with the camera on its lowest ISO setting and smallest aperture. At f11 and smaller apertures and dust will be easily seen in pictures of the sky where there are no patterns of details to mask the specs.

Softness in images is more likely caused by alignment problems with the zoom lens as this is a very inexpensive camera and not a lot went into the construction of the lens. Softness can also be easily the result of not holding the camera steady while shooting or waiting for the optical image stabilization to kick in. The blurring can be mistaken for softness due to the camera's optics when it is actually due to camera movement. If the shots in bright light where you have high shutter speeds look noticeably sharper than your hand holding and shutter release technique may need some work.

That's what it cost 30 years ago to clean an SLR.