Originally posted by ossa I haven't been back to this website in a bit. Thanks for the responses. I tried the rapid shutter actuation thing....that only worked for a few days and then the camera completely died. Only 2700 shutter actuations and it's ready for the waste bin. I decided to just buy a KS-1 - for $179, I'm regarding it as a disposable purchase. I stuck with Pentax out of some misguided sense of brand loyalty- I've owned Pentax products since the 1970's, and recently have purchased some vintage Pentax binoculars for similar nostalgic reasons. I'm infuriated that Pentax/RIcoh in 2015 isn't worthy of such loyalty. They basically have left hundreds if not thousands of K-r, K-30, and K-50 owners in the lurch by continuing to manufacture products with known defective parts. In so far as I can tell from the very friendly Pentax customer service line, the replacement parts that they're repairing your camera with are no different than the parts that have failed. It's just a matter of time and luck as to when they will fail again.
I am planning on starting an online petition to try to shame Pentax into issuing a recall - even though most of these cameras are long out of warranty now. It's inexcusable for a company to either deny a problem exists (as the first customer rep did) when there's abundant evidence online of significant problem, or to downplay it (as the second rep did) and then to inform me that Pentax hasn't issued a recall because there were only a few/isolated failures and the only recourse is to replace the part with the same part that failed- at my expense!
I am going to start another thread on here where K-r, K-30, and K-50 owners can list their cameras, date of purchase, number of shutter actuations til failure, so that we can amass the quality control data that Pentax should have done in the first place.
If there is a significant number of responses- I'll write an online petition calling for a recall of the cameras so the defective parts can be replaced free of charge.
Bought my K30 on 2012/2013. I'm up to around 7000+ actuation and I'm having the issue. I've actually emailed customer service about the issue, and they didn't even have the decency to reply back. I only own 3 lenses for my pentax, so if the K30 gives out completely I have no issue leaving Pentax name behind. I'll just sell all my lenses and just move on.
I'll be happy to sing the petition.