Sony TV out of wty, bought for approx $4k 4 years ago, can ACCC help me as SONY is not helping me

Ldumboo on 16/01/2014 - 08:26

I purchased KDL 52W4000 in 4 years ago, 1 year ago screen started showing horizontal lines for first 1 minute once ON then gradually that increased upto 1/2 hr now with even ghosting issues. Sony convinced me to pay $165 for in home assessment so they can help me further. Service centre advised part- LCD panel alone will cost me approx $2500 so escalated to Sony and the lady offered me couple of TVs(55W8000 for $1234 and 55W900 for $1505) last month which were selling for approx $100 more at various outlets including their Sony Centres. I feel like I have been cheated as they did nothing to help me as I would have saved my hard earned $165 and had gone for other cheaper brands since these reputable brands seems to be no longer reliable.

I asked Sony to reduce the price of 8000 series TV as I am happy to pay $1000 (that much I can afford now) but she simply refused saying cant help me further.

Do you guys think its unfair and can someone please suggest me what I need to do for Sony to return my $165 back if they can't accept my offer???
Please please help me….

Electrical & Electronics Sony TV

Comments

  • hvalac on 16/01/2014 - 22:50
    -6

    I think you're fooling yourself with accc.

    You have an out of warranty product which you should have dome something about and did not within the warranty time frame.

    You then proceeded to call the tv brand company aka Sony and they advised you about their call out fee? which you state is $165. They advised you on what you probably already knew but they did exactly as they said they would help you find the problem.

    You now complain about burning your money on the services they offered because??? your retarded?

    • PinzVidz on 17/01/2014 - 10:31
      +5

      your retarded?

      You're retarded?

  • Shwayne on 17/01/2014 - 00:15
    +2

    How long do you reasonably expect a LCD/LED/Plasma TV to last?

    If you can argue that a TV should last longer than 4 years under normal worksmanship, then you might want to talk to Fair Trading. (http://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/ftw/Consumers/Consumer_gua…?)

  • Cheeper on 17/01/2014 - 02:17

    From all that I have read on statutory warranty the point of responsibility lies with the retailer …and that is where you have to present your case and ask for remedy or compensation. Its not the manufacturer, they have no obligation beyond their provided warranty.

    Re the fee the op got charged by sony for the tech inspection there is a similar case on whirlpool (home theatre tv section) where they tried to pull the same thing but he stood his ground and they arranged the inspection for free. Another claimed it back as compensation on top of their rights under statutory warranty and got it.

    Good crt sets used to be far more reliable … looks like we cannot expect that with panel tvs.. or should we?

    AFAIK Sharp is the only maker that provides more than the std 1 yr makers wty with their 3 yrs.

    I'm just starting on a similar fight, as a replacement Panasonic plasma issued by ext warranty for a failed 3 y/o pana plasma has just contracted the same disease after 10 hour of use.
    Which sets are not junk?… and don't mention Sony, Samsung or Panasonic to me.. :-(

  • spersephone on 17/01/2014 - 07:27
    +1

    My KDL40V3100 also stopped working properly. About two years in the digital tuner stopped functioning. We have it connected to a TiVo, so didn't realise for ages, just thought we needed to change the aerial cable. Eventually cottoned on, but the tv itself is now just a device with other items plugged in.

    Sony were completely unhelpful. Won't be purchasing a Sony again.

  • mdcsooty on 17/01/2014 - 08:17

    Back in the (CRT) day I used to sell electronic components to the Sony TV factory in South Wales.
    Their Chief Engineer at the time said they design TV's for a 10 year life.
    Having said that you are going to get some longer and as in this case for the OP shorter.
    Also Sony Is a good brand, but there was a time where it was felt their quality did suffer as they were losing money, sometime people aren't prepared to pay for quality & sometimes even when you do you get unlucky. How many other devices does anyone have that lasted much longer than warranty?

    • dumboo on 17/01/2014 - 09:11

      I have a long list of items which are more than 5 years old and still going strong e.g. &5 Breville Microwave just broke after 7 years of continuous use, Fisher&Paykel fridge still going strong with no issues ever in last 7.5 years, Breville Rice Cooker working fine for last 8 years which is used min. 2 times a week, Sony Camcorder, Sony Ipod Dock 4 yrs old, ipod touch 1st gen., etc.(Hope I haven't jinxed myself)
      Lesson I have learnt is don't pay inflated prices for reputable brands or cheaper prices for unknown brands but go for middle range which always last longer than expected and Thanks to Ozbargain community who always make us aware if it is worth to spend money on something we are planning to buy.

  • mousie on 17/01/2014 - 10:46

    Why did you spend 4200 on a tv without negotiating an extended warranty. These policies area around a 70% mark up fee and I would anticipate would have costed a marginally higher amount than your call out fee.
    The Accc should only be called into the fight if it's clear that the manufacturer intentionally designed their products to fail outside of their warranty period. I have bought a Hitachi LCD 7 years ago for 3800, and personally feel that I've been on borrowed time since 2010 after my planned extended warranty has run out. So I'm provisioning my savings to cover it's replacement.

    • PCHammond on 17/01/2014 - 14:05

      Extended warranties are usually utter crap. I don't buy them. I read into the fine print of an extended warranty of a large retailer one day and basically for them to even look at the product there had to be 3 provable instances that were exactly the same.

      • mousie on 17/01/2014 - 20:56

        That's for a payout generally for a lemon clause.

        If the fault isn't intermittent then surely would be easy to claim against. Otherwise even the manufacturer may renigg on any repairs.

        I've called these in on a hp laptop purchased at Harvey Norman, where the motherboard and graphics card had to be replaced after 3.5 years.

    • johnno07 on 18/01/2014 - 01:34

      These policies area around a 70% mark up

      Only 70%? And only if the warranty is actually made use of. Otherwise - it's 100% profit.

      • wartortle on 18/01/2014 - 16:01
        +1

        Having worked for a company that sells extended warranties, we always made a 'fixed'amount off every warranty sold. So if the retailer sells a $100 warranty they pay the insurance company something close to $40 to register the warranty. The retailer will make their $60 regardless of a claim being made, it's the insurance company that has to pay out and deals with all the variables.

        So yeah, they have a fixed mark-up like most other products in the store.

        • johnno07 on 20/01/2014 - 19:08

          Thanks, cal89 - didn't know that was the case :)

  • Deesiel on 17/01/2014 - 12:37
    +1

    I have a Sony XBR 46" and then one day it started to have issues after 5 years, lines across the screen and certain areas of the images were blurred, sometimes it'll clear itself in 5 minutes and sometimes in 30 minutes… Anyway just my luck it was also out of the extended warranty by a few months… so I thought I'd Googled it just in case it was a trivial issue and may be I could try to sort out myself… Came across some forums and it turns out that people had similar issues and it was apparently a manufacturing fault which caused the issue so Sony extended the warranty to Oct 2012. Someone even posted a URL about it but it was for Asia. Luckily for me someone also said that it was also valid for OZ. So I rang Sony OZ and I referred them to that URL, they asked me zillions of question about the purchase date, purchase location, serial numbers… etc… eventually they gave me a case number or something and said that someone will contact me and then they will have someone to come and assess it for a $165 so I was quite annoyed as for that price I could possibly use that to fund the purchase of new TV. Anyway a lady rang up and I've described the symptoms and she said that the TV will be fixed under warranty and it'll take about 30 minutes. The field techo came around and he checked the symptoms of the TV again and then confirmed that it was a warranty job and he replaced with a brand new screen. He also told that me that I had another 3 months warranty on it. So in my case I was very fortunate and it paid to Google! But in saying that I doubt that I will shell out another $3.5K for a TV, regardless of the brand.

    • noddypiper on 19/01/2014 - 07:01

      Hi Deesiel, I have exactly the same problem on the 52" model and is about the same age. I was going to buy a new TV as I thought it would cost too much to repair. The TV takes about 25 mins before the lines go away, any contact details you can supply of the person you spoke to at Sony would be appreciated. I have googled the problem but can't find the URL you spoke about, any further info you can send would be greatly appreciated.
      Thanks,
      David 0422 009 032
      [email protected]

  • IdBuyThat4aDollar on 17/01/2014 - 16:04
    +1

    I had a samsung $2k tv outside of the 3 year warranty period it started getting horizontal lines. I think my tv was over 4 years old.

    I called samsung mentioning ACL and that I would reasonably expect a brand name tv of this price range to last at least 5 years (even though I knew ACL didn't come into effect until well after when I bought the tv). They said they could send out someone to look at the tv and then determine what they would do but it would cost me $90. I said ok worst case I'm out $90.

    Anyway to cut a long story short Samsung said they could reimburse me the deprecated value of the tv which was calculated to approx $400. Plus they reimbursed me the $90. Agreeing to this meant they would have to take the tv.

    Pretty happy with the outcome because I was just going to dump the tv on the street anyway. However this whole process probably dragged out to over a month so a bit of a hassle.

  • Pungentia on 17/01/2014 - 17:34
    +1

    our Sony did the same thing, but we'd purchased an extended warranty… thankfully for us it happened within 30 days of the warranty period coming up to expiring. I thought it had expired but I called to check, the extended warranty didn't kick in until the standard included warranty period had finished and so it went for longer than I had initially presumed.

    Through the warranty it got picked up and repaired and seemed to have worked fine fine another few months but I think it may now be starting to have another issue.. not what I really like to see given the amount I paid for it.. I got it for about $1k off at $3k 4 and a bit years ago.

    So the repair I think would have cost around about the $800 if we had paid for I think

    I would google with your model if it's a known issue and if there was a recall on that model, as I know that thee was a recall on some of them.

    Bottom line, I would still never buy another Sony

    • Cheeper on 20/01/2014 - 00:16

      A neighbour was a devoted Sony fan and after repeatedly putting his failed products out on the footpath for collection he has seen the light.
      They look good, perform good, but not for long.. generally speaking.

  • longislandicetea on 17/01/2014 - 18:37

    I have had a similar experience with my Sony TV. I have a Sony KDL-52Z5500 that I bought about 3 years ago from greys online (i know it wasn't the smartest move but i wasn't earning much back then and didn't know about ozbargain) and it came with one year of warranty. The LCD panel had a similar horizontal line coming on the lower left side of the screen (something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85CcotWunM4) about 8-9 months ago. I just usually wait for the lines to go away as i am not a big tv watcher but recently its taking upto 30-45 mins for the screen to go back to normal. I am pretty sure i cant do anything about it now but I think the old sony LCD panels were just really bad since they have been breaking down heaps. I hope the OP gets a proper solution and I truly understand your pain.

    • tumsum on 31/10/2014 - 14:29

      Exact same situation. Sony support could only offer me a trade in deal as repair is no longer practical. In this trade in deal, you pick your new TV at a discount, keep your old broken TV but submit your old serial number.

  • plmko on 17/01/2014 - 19:48
    +1

    Horizontal lines on your Sony TV?

    Blown capacitors on the Samsung panel. AVOID Samsung panels. Research and get ones with Sharp panels.

  • BuuBox on 18/01/2014 - 12:39

    Keep in mind statutory warranty isn't a hard and fast rule. Even if a tribunal finds in your favor (if it got that far), it may not be for a zero cost repair or replacement.

    Contact your local Consumer Affairs for advice. Arm yourself with the specific date of purchase, as this model could be up to six years old, and any common faults with the model.

  • PresidentClinton on 19/01/2014 - 02:21
    +2

    This really comes down to how eloquently you state your case. If you believe that it's reasonable a $4000 tv should last more than 4 years- which most people would - you will probably have a case.

    Things that might help you:

    • LED/LCD TVs are advertised with slogans such as "50 000 hours lamp life." Use these as part of your argument.
    • Mention why you bought a Sony as opposed to AWA or Sanyo. (reliability, longevity)
    • Be polite! Let them know you attempted to negotiate with Sony.
  • Freakycat on 19/01/2014 - 07:26

    Buy 4 TV from Graysonline, brands including Toshiba and Panasonic. The oldest one last for almost 6 years and still working fine. Latest one is Panasonic 55" for about $5xx. Great TV and great price.

    • Mikinoz on 20/01/2014 - 12:51

      Im not sure buying it from Grays makes it last longer, maybe you are just lucky

      • Freakycat on 20/01/2014 - 13:02

        Not that buying TV from Grays makes it last longer. You just pay less for the products they sell in Myer, DJ and JB. $4k a TV that didn't last is really disappointed!

  • Baghern on 21/01/2014 - 11:20
    +1

    I think this will be the norm in future. TVs are disgustingly cheap now. Can't imagine the quality of the components.

    I hear the 50inch bravia can be bough for around 700-800 now.

    Think about this, TVs are getting bigger, meaning higher transport/handling cost. Transport/handling and warehousing a big cost factors for the western world.

    Yet prices are going down. The manufacturing end must be be going down tremendously

    • PresidentClinton on 22/01/2014 - 01:35

      Thats a bit cynical for me. Its the cost of the chips, diodes and other electronic parts that are going down to a scale where we will soon be able to afford 'intelligent' objects like walls, furniture and utensils.

      • Baghern on 22/01/2014 - 15:11

        Those parts are manufactured right…

        Basically I'm referring the the back end, how much has cost changed for them

  • Daturian on 28/01/2014 - 07:14

    Damn I wish my 9 year old Sony rearpro TV would die so i can get a new LCd. Kids abuse it every day but still going strong

    • Cheeper on 28/01/2014 - 12:06

      I know a guy who is still getting a good run out of his P76 ;-)

  • tooblue on 30/01/2014 - 17:36

    A 20-year-old Sony Trinitron KV-K29 is still working perfectly, two to three hours a day. No faults at all except there is no analog broadcasting anymore and I have to plug in a set top box.

  • darkmattersunB6c0MV on 22/12/2015 - 07:09

    Ha ha.. My father bought a Sony black screen Trinitron in 1986 (first year when it was introduced, direct from Japan). Still going strong- almost 30 yrs later! But has been used sparingly in the last ten yrs.
    I have had two TV, KDL46X3100 X series 46" bought in 2008 for 4k +, got the dreaded lines - engineer came and replaced the panel- engineer told that the panel was defective in the original lot and the panel cost over 2300/-. ( It was actually cheaper for Sony to give me a Z series, but I love the metallic Bezel). Anyway, I bought KDL55HX800 in 2010 for the 3D feature - frankly, waste of money. KDL46X3100 worked till 2011/2012 and then there were lines that appeared around the edges.
    Just pressed on the bezel, and the TV was clear again. Use the same technique if it gives trouble.
    The KDL55HX800 is working flawlessly.

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