Remember the Nikon D600 sensor dust issue? The problem—and resulting service advisory—dominated the headlines for a couple of years, from the time the issue first surfaced in 2012 until Nikon announced it would fix all D600s for free in 2014. But it seems that free service is finally coming to a close.
According to a notice published by Nikon Japan, Nikon will stop offering free repair service for affected D600s on January 10th, 2020—exactly six months from today.
“As of February 26, 2014, to ‘Customer for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras D600,’ we were able to provide free support if this phenomenon occurred,” reads the translated statement. “We would like to inform you that the registration for the free service will be closed on January 10, 2020. From January 11, 2020, we will respond according to our repair regulations.”
That means no more out of warranty repairs if your D600 is affected by the sensor dust issue and you didn’t already have it fixed (or replaced by a D610). The move isn’t entirely surprising or upsetting given the issue (and free fix) has existed for over 5 years now. Nikon likely believes that most, if not all, of the D600s with this issue have been serviced, and no longer wants to stock the parts required for a fix. Or maybe they finally ran through the $17.7 million they reportedly put aside to address the issue.
Regardless, if your D600 is one of those affected by this issue and you haven’t yet sent it in to Nikon for a free service, it seems you have six months left to make it happen. We say “seems” because the statement has only been published by Nikon Japan, but we’ve reached out to Nikon USA to find out if this notice applies world-wide, and will update this post if and when we hear back (see update).
(via Nikon Rumors)
Update: It does appear that this notice pertains to all regions, including Nikon USA. We received the following statement from Nikon:
As of January 10, 2020, Nikon will no longer offer free corrective services to Nikon D600 owners. Those that wish to have their D600 service after this date will be directed to Nikon Customer Service where repairs will be handled in accordance with standard Nikon service policies. For more information, please visit this site.