Originally posted by tonyzoc As a K-S2 and K70 owner who had AB failure twice on the K-S2 and once on my K70, I think it is reasonable to mention the potential for this issue to occur to a prospective buyers. I wouldn't sell it as inevitable or even remotely likely...but it can and does happen. If I knew about this issue ahead of time I wouldn't have purchased the K-S2 originally. I probably would have gotten a K-5iis. With the K70 I fixed it myself and it was easy to do. I wouldn't hesitate to buy a K70 again. I'm happy I have a white solenoid installed so now I'll never have to worry about it ever again.
But...my point is, there is nothing wrong with mentioning AB failure as long as it's presented in proper perspective.
You purchased your K70 in Dec. 2019 if I remember right and thus it didn't get the 2-nd modification for the solenoid but just the 1.st!
Since then Pentax got it together and modified the solenoid again and as far as we can tell they did it the right way as I showed here in all detail:
A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY: Development of the solenoid in Pentax cameras - PentaxForums.com Since quite a while we only hear very occasially about ABF with the K70 and ONLY in early production versions.
When we were in the midst of the K30/K50 ABF situation,
quite a number tried to do everything to play something down which evidently was quite serious (about 25% of a sold K30's were sent back for warranty to a German dealer during the first 2 years but hardly showed up in forums then, one didn't know yet, but I got this information by a that person specialized on Pentax) and it didn't stop afterwards. Same for a time with the K50 and those few K500's which didn't sell so well).
It was different in the beginning with the K70 and we had this thread:
K-70 Underexposed Photo Reports - PentaxForums.com
If you read post
#149 you can see how strong "efforts" went to block serious research!
It continued with the invention of the infamous
resistor chip a fairytale defenders of "ABF isn't really a serious problem" readily embraced. "Alternative facts" crawled in.
The solenoidproblem was very serious and could have wrecked the reputation of Pentax. I think that was the reason why some defended with all their might. I had contact with some of the major people of Ricoh in Europe. I myself wouldn't know what decisions or choices I'd have taken if I were in their place. Not so easy.
But now I can defend the very opposite side regarding the K-70 and can happily say:
Buy it without the slightest worry! It is a great camera.