As I understand things if something goes wrong with anything within what could be expected the reasonable working life of an item, you are entitled to a repair, or replacement if a repair is not satisfactory. You are not bound to send it to the manufacturer, but can elect to send it to any competent person and bill the manufacturer.
I instinctivley distrust most big companies as I have been burnt too many times in the past.
How you would get Pentax to pay for an independent repair is another matter even when they are legally bound to do so. At this stage I would have in the small claims court quick smart.
I have used Pentax gear for 30 years with no problem, but then nothing has ever gone wrong. However a friend of mine has had terrible problems with trying to get his LX fixed by Pentax (sticky mirror, a common fault).
It came back Worse than when it went away.
He now uses Olympus gear and all his loveley Pentax primes are idle.

If any law was proposed banning outside photography, then we (photographers) should take a leaf out of the french book of direct action, which is their way of opposing unpopular legislation. Hundreds, if not thousands of people with cameras could meet in some city centre and start taking photos. Let's see 'em stop that.
I tell them to arrest me or leave me alone, and any individual citizen who tried to touch my camera would get a monopod round the head, in self defence. The trouble with the UK is that we let ourselves get rolled over all too easily by the government, who are supposed to be there for US, not us there to finance THEM to do what they want.

I find it disgusting that Pentax don't continue to support older cameras, after all many people invested a lot of money in kit over the years to find that it is now useless.
Top brand watch makers like Rolex can and will repair any of their watches no matter how old thus enhancing their reputation even further. Seiko don't do this. I am a fan of Japanese technology but they are quite ruthless with their older equipment support and this upsets a lot of people who thought they had bought something that could be used "for life" with proper back up.
I have a Pentax MX and have just read on one of the links above that some parts are unavailable so depending on the fault in future my camera might at best be useful as a donor of spare parts to repair someone elses.
A friend of mine has just sent his LX to Pentax for repair and got a bill for inspection and a report that a repair was not possible.