NEW 24-70mm f2.8ii Zoom Ring "Ticking" While Zooming

UPDATE!!!

I decided to exchange my lens and contacted GearShop here and got a new one overnighted me me. I got my lens just an hour ago. It is from the older batch. It was manufactured in October of 2012 with the old style side squeeze lens cap. And here are my observations:

1) It does NOT tick or click whatsoever when I turn the zoom ring! YES!

2) The zoom ring is less tight to turn vs the new 2013. It's smooth just like my 24-105. I felt I needed to use about 30% more force to zoom in and out with the 2013 unit I returned.

3) It nailed focus without any AF Micro Adjustments. It's sharper than the replacement based on controlled tests both at MFD and at infinity. Copy variation I suppose.

4) AF seems a smidge faster and less loud. Again, I'm attributing this to copy variation.

So all in all, I'm extremely happy now. It now truly blows away all my other lenses including my primes at the same focal length...maybe not the new 40mm STM but it's close. At this point, I'm submitting my rebate and putting my 24-105 on eBay.

I am not sure what to say to folks who have the ticking issue. I personally chose to swap mine and it paid off. I just would be bothered by it each time I used it with the noise. It may not pan out to much. Honestly, I'm afraid that if I were to sell it in a few years, the new buyer may return it. But that's just me being anal about such things. $1699 is still a lot of money for a hobby.

FWIW, I also swapped out my new 85mm f1.8 recently after my first copy had a decentered element and had huge amounts of CA at 1.8. The replacement was sharper by miles and had almost no CA even at 1.8. I know it's a consumer grade lens so it's probably not held to as tight standards.

Good luck to all members regardless of what you choose to do. At the end of the day, it's the image you capture that matters. If you aren't sure about your copy, go to your local photography store and test one of their copies. Canon will stand behind you...until the warranty runs out. But I personally hate to have someone open up my lens and get dust all over the elements on the inside. That would bother me even more.