Final update for this thread.
I sent my Tamron in on Monday, June 2. It arrived at the Amplis Photo facility (they do Tamron repairs in Canada) on the 4th, repairs were done by the 6th (Friday), shipped out on the 9th, arrived back to me on the 13th (today).
They fixed the broken zoom, and they also repaired an error I was getting with the exif data (17mm was registering as 45mm).
The costs were as follows:
$20 EXIF repair
$22 Parts
$140 Zoom repair
$15 Shipping
$10 Tax
$207 total
Oh, and they REPLACED MY FRONT ELEMENT FOR FREE (I put two scratches on it a few months ago, now they are gone).
The lens is like new. I'm very pleased. I would not hesitate to get a Tamron lens repaired from them again.
Also, there's a 6 month warranty for the repair.
EDIT:
May have spoken too soon. There appears to be focusing issues with the lens. I'll run the lens through the testing gauntlet over the weekend.
Last edited by EarlVonTapia; 06-13-2014 at 02:47 PM.