EOS R6 AF Issues - Can someone explain why Canons warranty is so bad?

[Rileymon]

After buying my EOS r6 two years ago I’ve always been disappointed with the autofocus. After comparing it to a friends who got one recently I came to the conclusion it might have come broken. After just $100 for shipping and presumably $200+ for the repair I find it astonishing canons warranty is only a year. The camera looks brand new, it’s clearly never been dropped and it’s having problems. This should without a doubt be covered and yet I’m SOL. I worked in the bike industry and we offered lifetime warranty’s for manufacture defects for LIFE on our frames that are much more expensive the the r6. Is there a reason I’m not seeing for this or is Canon really just that cheap? I thought going with the higher end brand I’d be taken care of if their product was faulty but guess not. 

[Lotus7]

Sorry your R6 is not performing as expected.

Unfortunately, modern high-tech devices jam-packed full of complex integrated circuits and micro mechanical motors and actuators are just a little more complex than even the highest-tech carbon fiber, titanium, cromoly-steel or 6061 aluminum bike frame. 

Today, the industry standard warranty among the "big-three" mirrorless and DSLR camera manufacturers (Canon, Nikon & Sony) is one-year  (limited).  Ricoh/Pentax &  Fuji also provide one-year warrantees.  Leica does offer a two-year warranty (with a long list of limitations including "normal use wear"), but obviously has some repair insurance coverage built into their initial price structure, as does Hasselblad with it's two-year warranty. If you can justify paying Leica or Hasselblad prices you get two-years, but that does not imply those cameras are any more reliable than a Canon or Nikon.

Canon does offer an optional two-year extended warranty under it's Carepak-plus plan that even includes accidental damage and free shipping.

For complex electronic devices including cameras, computers, TV sets, etc. most manufacturers consider that they are doing the customer a favor providing one-year of free repairs if needed. Obviously, with a one-year warranty, it's important to use the product enough to identify any initial problems as soon as possible.

Canon's warranty, is exactly aligned with those of it's competitors, so if you believe Canon's warranty is "so bad", it equally applies to all of the other manufacturers in this market segment. Welcome to 2022.

I sincerely wish my equity broker came with a one-year (trades) warranty like Canon provides for new cameras. 🙂

[Rileymon]

Thanks for the reply! I do understand the problem with a longer warranty on such a complex product. I used to work in warranty services. It just seems to me that if your product has a clear factory defect (something’s wrong with it and there’s clearly no damage to the product) it should be taken care of by the manufacturer for at least a couple years after it’s new. If cars can come with five year standard warranties a camera can come with a three year. Especially when people use that camera to make a living. Sometimes we’d get a warranty request with a product that was well outside the warranty window but it was clear the problem wasn’t the customers fault and we’d still go out of our way to make a replacement happen because we took responsibility for our products and stood behind them. This was with a much smaller company than Canon with much less capital. I have no doubt Canon and everyone else could easily offer a longer manufacturer defect warranty without raising product prices but I guess the conclusion of this is why would a big company take care of its customers if it doesn’t have to😂🥲. While on this warranty rabbit hole I did find a couple of cases through the BBB on Canon for their warranty so maybe one day we’ll be able to dump 6k+ into a camera and not have to worry about it being unusable in a year.