Trials & Tribulations with 50" Vizio Plasma TV

[am7crew]

So about 2 years ago I bought a 50" Vizio plasma from walmart for around 1400.00. Like a idiot I didnt get the extended warranty as Ive had good luck with stuff not crapping out on me (mistake #1). Anyways It worked great, standard def channels looked really really crisp and clear with charter, HD was great as well. Anyways about 13 months later (1 month out of manufacturer warranty) the TV out of nowhere wouldnt power on. I happened one morning I tried to turn it on and nothing. Called Vizio they said it was no longer under warranty and it would costs probally $1,000.00 to fix. I said forget it and put it in a extra room and bought a much smaller and inexpensive LCD TV (got the extended warranty this time).

Anyways after it sitting in that extra room for nearly a year I saw a HD repair company on craigslist and they only charged $50.00 to come out and look it over, I decided to go with it and they came out and informed me it was literally 2 $10.00 fuses that needed to be swaped out to fix the problem. I agreed and they did it for $100.00 for everything. TV has been working perfectly ever since, just goes to show sometimes getting a repair man to look things over can turn out good, otherwise I would still have a 50" paper weight in my extra room and just waiting for the time/strength to dispose of it.

Just thought I would share in case this happens to anyone else maybe they wont wait nearly a year like I did before thinking it might be worth paying someone to look at. And of course I now always get the extended warranty on anything I buy.

[Stargazer]

Some repairmen might come out and tell you for $50 that it is junk when they didn't really check it over. It is a risk. That is why most just buy a new one when a tv flakes out. It is good to know that there are still cheap ways at getting a tv fixed. I wonder why those two fuses blew though. If a fuse blows dont that mean that there is something wrong causing it to blow?

[am7crew]

from the research Ive done online Vizio uses very cheap fuses and this is a common problem with them. Either way Im just glad it worked out, it did take him forever to take out all the screws in the back to get to the guts.

[yorktown]

Some repairmen might come out and tell you for $50 that it is junk when they didn't really check it over. It is a risk. That is why most just buy a new one when a tv flakes out. It is good to know that there are still cheap ways at getting a tv fixed. I wonder why those two fuses blew though. If a fuse blows dont that mean that there is something wrong causing it to blow?

Most don't just buy a new one when a 2 year old TV flakes out.

It makes a hell of a lot more sense to spend a little money to at least get a repairman to try and see what's wrong with it first.

[jayn_j]

Most don't just buy a new one when a 2 year old TV flakes out.

It makes a hell of a lot more sense to spend a little money to at least get a repairman to try and see what's wrong with it first.

Actually, there have been several threads on this subject. First, the value brands, such as Visio, do not maintain parts warehouses. Their warranty policy is to replace the set with a new one. Once the set is out of warranty, the customer is often out of luck.

Modern Televisions have a large percentage of parts as custom ICs That are not standard catalog items, so if not supplied by the manufacturer, the parts are simply not available. Adding to the problem is that circuit boards are all surface mount with ball grid array packages. Very few repair shops have the equipment or skills to make this sort of repair, so repairs are often simply board replacement.

Then there is the economics of repair. If you can find a repair shop willing to make a house call, it will generally cost $150 non-refundable just to look at it. If it can be repaired, the average cost i3 another $200.

So for that Visio, the odds are that it would cost $150 to get someone to examine it and tell the consumer that the set can't be repaired. The street price on a replacement set is around $800 and the customer most often actually tosses the set and moves on.

[Kevinw]

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