My big TV is fixed
Whoof! This is such a relief... My faith in Samsung is restored now. But there were a couple of weeks full of stress, and I did spend $230 needlessly in the end. How it happenned, very simple. In November 2004 I bought a 50" DLP HDTV by Samsung. Since I have never dealt with electronics that would die on me, especially since I always tried to select products of a well-respected companies, I never even considered buying extended warranty. I did register my purchase with Samsung, though, which extended manufacturers warranty by 3 months.
However, 2 weeks after 15-month warranty has expired, my $3000 TV loses the picture. No worries, I order a replacement lamp (since the indicator loops though "lamp/temp" pattern, I thought lamp resource exhaustion is the cause). It arrives in a week, I install it: oh horrors! Does not work either! Call to customer service confirms my worst fears: my warranty is out, and a search on the internet indicates that to fix the problem ("three LEDs of death"), technician will have to replace the so-called "light engine", which is basically the only valuable innard of this TV set. And at today's prices it stands at $1500 for the part alone (which is, incidentally, at or below the price of a new TV set of the same now outdated model, if one is lucky to find it somewhere). Additionally, this happens right in between the dates when I order an HDTV service from DirecTV, and a date when it actually gets installed (which is next week). Some of you might have come through similar state of frustration and anger with oneselves, feeling powerless and violated...
Fortunately, folks at Samsung Customer Service have considered my situation (just two weeks out of warranty, and probably due to the fact that such failures are really not common at all with their product) with kind understanding. After having me fax them the paperwork confirming the date of purchase, they have extended manufacturer's warranty by another 3 months, just enough to have this costly repair (and a home visit by technician, really nice and knowledgeable guy) performed for free. So, I have this DLP lamp left and a feeling that I should buy an extended warranty, if at all possible... Will call Samsung support tomorrow about this.
However, 2 weeks after 15-month warranty has expired, my $3000 TV loses the picture. No worries, I order a replacement lamp (since the indicator loops though "lamp/temp" pattern, I thought lamp resource exhaustion is the cause). It arrives in a week, I install it: oh horrors! Does not work either! Call to customer service confirms my worst fears: my warranty is out, and a search on the internet indicates that to fix the problem ("three LEDs of death"), technician will have to replace the so-called "light engine", which is basically the only valuable innard of this TV set. And at today's prices it stands at $1500 for the part alone (which is, incidentally, at or below the price of a new TV set of the same now outdated model, if one is lucky to find it somewhere). Additionally, this happens right in between the dates when I order an HDTV service from DirecTV, and a date when it actually gets installed (which is next week). Some of you might have come through similar state of frustration and anger with oneselves, feeling powerless and violated...
Fortunately, folks at Samsung Customer Service have considered my situation (just two weeks out of warranty, and probably due to the fact that such failures are really not common at all with their product) with kind understanding. After having me fax them the paperwork confirming the date of purchase, they have extended manufacturer's warranty by another 3 months, just enough to have this costly repair (and a home visit by technician, really nice and knowledgeable guy) performed for free. So, I have this DLP lamp left and a feeling that I should buy an extended warranty, if at all possible... Will call Samsung support tomorrow about this.
posted by denka at 11:29 PM
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