17-55 f 2.8 focus problem

Hello, newbie here and as the saying goes not everyone is good at everyting at that include professionals!
I have a problem, I dropped my 17-55 f 2.8 and sent bit off to Nikon authorised repair shop.
when it came back the auto-focus worked briefly then stopped, remove, reattached the lens seemed to clear prob, then it stopped again, switch on off, remove, reattach...nothing, then switch off and tada it worked, then stopped. I sent it back waited 3 weeks and it came back, to cut a long boring story and saga short after sending it off four times it still has the same prob, the repair say it works fine when they have it but the facts are, I have tried this lens on four Nikon bodies and the fault is the same, while other lenses work well on the same bodies so logically it must be the lens!! has anyone any ideas, am I missing something?

Since you've had the problem so many times, it could either be something wrong that you're doing OR something is actually wrong with the lens, which the repair shop is responsible for.
Take your camera (or 2 if you can), and the lens to the repair shop & show them what issue you are facing.
If your technique is incorrect, they'll tell you what you're doing wrong.
If the lens has a problem, they'll see what you're talking about.
Either way you'll be closer to getting the issue resolved.

Thanks Whitelight for the reply and the welcome from marilynne.
the company want another crack at the repair (4th time lucky), but where does this end,they claim it leaves their place working fine and as soon as I connect it 'wham' it broken again, the other thing that sets it off is if I try and manually focus it, it really hates that and gives up completely, but why as the M/A focus switch is engaged I don't think I,m missing anything here, I contacted Nikon UK and they have basically washed their hands and refered me to the repair shop, the sickening thing is it worked well before it was dropped!!I,ll send it off again and see what happens.
Thanks again for the help.

QUOTE=WhiteLight;207593]Since you've had the problem so many times, it could either be something wrong that you're doing OR something is actually wrong with the lens, which the repair shop is responsible for.
Take your camera (or 2 if you can), and the lens to the repair shop & show them what issue you are facing.
If your technique is incorrect, they'll tell you what you're doing wrong.
If the lens has a problem, they'll see what you're talking about.
Either way you'll be closer to getting the issue resolved.[/QUOTE]

Welcome to the forum

Hello, thanks again for the badvice.The repair shop is about 250 mile round trip, so I put a small video together about the problem and dropboxed it. They received it and were looking at it. hopr to hear soon.

Marilynne said:

When I had my problem with the D5100, the repair shop wanted both the lens and the camera after the third trip back. Maybe you should send both. Just a thought.

Click to expand...

Welcome to nikonites! Have you tried to clean the contacts on your Nikon's? I had to do that when my lens stopped working, and after I used a pencil eraser on the contacts on my camera it worked fine again. Just thought it could be something you could try.

Welcome to the site! Keep us posted on your progress.

I'm very curious concerning this problem. I had a 17-55 that a zoom blocage. I had it repaired at Nikon, used it for a while and then sold it. The buyer contacted me 5 months after getting it saying that it didn't focus and that he wanted me to pay for a repair he had done at Nikon. It cost him 427.00 $. Same price I had paid for the zoom repair I had done.

So I'm wondering if this could be a common problem with this lens...