M8 Warning, camera shell failure

That's pretty bad. All castings. like that body can have flaws but that is where good inspection comes into play. As thin as the metal is I would bet that a flaw in the cast would have been seen before any paint or covering was applied.

Looking at the photo a second time it is also a horrible design flaw if that is the only locking point on the base plate. The weight of the lens and camera is on that one point which looks pretty thin to me.

Hey. M8 users love these problems. Add "character" to the best camera in the world.

It's obvioulsy a design flaw when it has happened to so many others.

Reading through the thread, there were total of three people who directly experienced the problem (including the person who made that quote), and a report by one other person who had heard of one other failure. That's a total of four. "So many others" actually refers to "two or three others."

It may be three of four who are reporting about the problem in a forum like this. But it is still a serious design fault. Obviously it only affects people who use a tripod a lot, and in vertical orientation. Coming from a company whose main selling point is quality and realiability, and with such a high price tag, this is really disappointing.

But how many of the 20,000 owners (I realize multiple camera ownership) read and post to forums? Of those, who would put an M on a tripod (lol)?

I'm not arguing that it's an excellent design. I'm simply pointing out that "so many others" is actually "two or three others" so this thread won't propagate that bit of hyperbole from the selected quote. I realize that's not as exciting for those who like to get worked up into a frenzy over camera faults (of any brand), but I'd prefer that this forum not add fuel to the fire with quotes that intentionally distort the extent of the problem.

"... and was told that shooting vertically on a tripod was misuse of the camera... "

A fine excuse. I'll be damned! :-( As long as I use M-Leicas for film I "misuse" my bodies that way.

Missuse is a real stretch.

This is something they can`t fix right away because it is will break again and again. If they admit it is a warrantee problem, they will open themselves up to bankruptcy. Therefore it must be missuse.

Rest assured the M9 will be better made if possible. Or maybe they will remove the tripod hole stating it is a supposed to be hand camera. Then they will offer a tripod adapter accessory for the few who need it.

This whole M8 thing just keeps getting worse and worse the more we learn. I am getting turned off from the R10 and it is not even out yet just because the the engineering can not be trusted.

I am willing to bet there are way more than 4 failures out there. One can hardly get a true analysis by reported internet failures.

Whatever the alloy used ("mag" or "alu", or whatever), a casting may not be be the best route to take (a hot stamping may have been a better choice). However, this is probably a rare case and due to a an undetectable contamination of the metal in the molten metal bath that led ultimately to this brittle fracture. It happens. I had a Mustang in 1970 with a zinc alloy cast door window levers (pre-electric) that one day simply snapped off with the lightest of force.

Warranty or not, Leica should replace this.