Lens repair worth it?

The zoom ring on my Tamron 70-300mm suddenly stopped working in the middle of an outing today, for no apparent reason.

Question now is... do I get it fixed, or get a replacement lens?? It only cost me about £90 in the first place, so I doubt a repair would be cost effective.... unless you can tell be different???

You could always get a quote, assuming they don't charge for the quote, but you're probably right about the cost effectiveness of a repair.

I had exactly the same problem with my lens about 2 years ago. Bought from Jessops and fortunately still just under warranty. They sent this off to Tamron for repair - took about 10 days to fix and has been fine ever since. Mind you, the Jessops store and the Tamron repair base were both (fortuitously) in Maidenhead, Berks.

If your lens is out of warranty, why not contact Tamron at the UK address on -

http://www.tamron-usa.com/about/international_dist.asp

The zoom ring on my (six month old) Tamron 17-50 F/2.8 stopped working a couple of weeks ago. It's still with Tamron for repair right now. Common problem with Tamron lenses, perhaps? Anyone else with similar experiences?

yep, had tamron 17-50 serviced 3 or 4 times, still under warranty. zoom ring loose twice (did not wait as long as you did) and front lens loose/wobble. no problem fixing. then started misfocus, out of warranty. focus electronics replacement, 50 eur. works fine, but i got limiteds and almost not using it. and fixing it at home now.
about 70-300, try to find out about the costs of repair. if it is to expensive, there are many around. even i have one, for tree years now and almost unused, ready to leave the house.
and check on youtube, many tutorials how to fix certain lenses common problems diy...
good luck
janko

Thanks guys.

I've now contacted intro2020 and am sending the lens off to their service department. The rates per hour (around £42) seemed reasonable + parts so hopefully will be fixed at a reasonable cost. They'll give a free quote before doing anything as well.

I didn't realise how much I relied on it for butterfly shots - it's hard to see what would be a replacement. If Sigma did the 180mm macro for pentax I'd go for that - but they don't! I was thinking about the 70-200mm but it's a lot more expensive - and I don't know if I'd really get any better images!

My philosophy is...once it's fixed and QC'd then I'd be happier with the repaired lens than an 'unknown' one....

even with a lens that was £90 new, I think newer Tamrons are more expensive but not quite as good optically.....

Got my 17-50 back today, anyway. Fully repaired. Zoom seems even smoother than when brand new.