|
|
Post by glenr on Mar 6, 2017 11:00:31 GMT
Had a 42" LG LED smart TV, never been dropped hit etc. Last night picture went to black, sound worked and if you took a light and pointed at the screen you could barely see the picture. Well it is only 3 years old and cost north of $700.00 when new. Did all the things they tell you unplug for 10 minutes to reboot. Well called their help line, off shore of course. no help at all. Seemed the whole point was to get me to agree to their choice of service tech to come out, Told them that I wouldn't be buying any LG products in the future. I then hit the net. It turns out that they have had the same problem for a number of years, and it is an expensive fix $300.00 plus. It effects most sizes of their flat screen TV's from the sizes in the questions.
Went to the local version of Wally world, they had one on sale for $399.00. So if you own one be prepared as they have known about the problem for a number of years.
|
|
|
|
Post by ramrod on Mar 10, 2017 3:56:24 GMT
I spent a few years fixing LCD television sets. I still have a nice Vizio 47" 240hz that I bought for $50 off Craigslist and repaired for $50. The 42" models seemed to fail a lot back then. I fixed several and sold them. For a while I had my own ad on Craigslist to buy non working LCD sets. It was profitable but short lived. What I couldn't repair as a full working set, I tested and sold the circuit boards and still made a profit. My first 42" LCD set came from Wally as a display model at half price of new. It lasted five years and could have gone more, but I ended up cracking the screen a little over a year ago when we moved.
Take my word for the LGs and the Sony sets to be the most difficult to repair for the DIYer. Most of the other brands (save Samnsung) utilize many of the same parts and are hybrids of several different brands.
I haven't tried my hand at any LED set repairs. I don't even want to get into that sort of thing. But it's basically either the power board, main board, or backlight board(s). Plenty of times I just took the back off a set and plugged it in and turned it on to find the problem. EBay was a boon for spare circuit boards for a while and cheap. Online vendors were charging 3x as much for the same (harvested from working broken screen sets damaged in transit). The Vizio problem ran over into other brands several years ago. It was due to sub standard capacitor manufacturing from overseas. You can Google 'capacitor disease' to find out more, and a lot of different name brands were affected.
Personally, I've seldom gone for the "extended warranty" on anything, but in these cases and in high numbers obviously........it could have paid off. I bought non-working LCD sets from families that were very disappointed after 90 days or even a full year for $50-$100 depending. Kinda sad in ways.........but the consumer will always get screwed one way or the other. The corporate world could care less. You just have to look to automobile manufacturer recalls to realize this. Recalls only happen after a certain number of folks die. Then you start thinking about why foreign automobile manufacturers send us inferior products to put into American made vehicles while the foreign made vehicles marketed here in the states have a longer warranty, seldom have recalls, and higher resale value.
Maybe I went off on a tangent here, but it's just my insight and opinions of how the system works, and designed to screw the consumer at every turn. It's a numbers game after all. Buyer beware......to hell with the online reviews and consumer reports. Class action lawsuits and legal action are already figured into every product sold. Manufacturers will always make a profit no matter what so don't listen to them when they cry about having to pay out millions of dollars in damages, or have to answer to Washington DC (US corporate) for fraud, deceptive marketing, or violations of consumer rights before and after the sale.
|
|
|
|
Post by glenr on Mar 10, 2017 11:15:03 GMT
The LG as somebody called them on another forum LIGHT GONE went out that night for trash pick up on Monday. An hour later had the new one up and running. I have to agree with you about the attitude to consumers. From what was on the net, it didn't seem worth taking range time to find and replace a $2.00 capacitor that costs an arm and leg today.
|
|
