I have a TiVo, and while I love it, this would really piss me off. So there's NO period of time in which you can get a free repair? What if the unit is DOA?

@lannister80: I left out a crucial detail, which I've since added in. If your box is still within the first 90 day period, repair/replacement is free.

Its $50. To replace a unit that sophisticated no questions asked, thats reasonable. Its a lot better than having a 'free' warranty repair that falls into a black hole( HP cough cough)...

@lannister80: also updated the headline to avoid any confusion. Thx!

I started having an issue with my Dish Network VIP722 DVR where it can't pause or record TV. It's a year and a half old. A 5 minute call to Dish and I now have a new one on the way under warranty.

I'm kind of glad I never got a Tivo. I've always been happy with my Dish DVR and with their great customer service.

@Silversmok3: It's not *that* sophisticated. It's a VERY low end computer, running Linux, with some hardware-based encoder/decoders slapped in.

@Chris Walters: Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.

PS - I LOVE MY TIVO
(Series 2 with 640GB of storage. Good times!)

I guess this would have been about 3 years ago, but when the TiVO I bought from Best Buy would freeze the TV after 5 minutes of television, I just took it back to the store and they exchanged it no questions asked.

the article states, "We're not sure why the TiVo CSR couldn't explain that to Sam over the phone."

we are also not sure that the TiVo CSR didn't explain this to Sam over the phone.

thanks for the information on tivo warranties, i guess.

My TiVo went bust (hard drive failure) after three years, and they replaced it completely (with an upgraded model no less, as the old model was so old they stopped making it) for free. Free shipping both ways (me returning and them sending), too.

I wonder if this is a newer policy, or if they offered me my deal as a retention strategy.

It's because I love my Tivo that it hurts me so much when the company takes additional steps in douchebaggery.

I ran into this before with my TiVo HD. Not long after I got my box, it would start, occasionally, recording nothing. As in, my season passes would show up, but hitting play just showed a 0:00 video of nothing. It only happened about once every few weeks, but once it started it affected every recording from that point forward, and the only way to fix it was by power cycling the box.

Because the was so intermittent, I waited for about 5 months before finally getting sick of rebooting it and called in for warranty service. The CSR I spoke with told me about the 90-day rule, but said because the issue started well within the 90-days, and that she understood that I just wanted to confirm it was an issue and not something I was doing wrong, she went ahead and waived the $50 fee. All this, without me even having to ask, dispute, or throw a tantrum. One of the best customer service experiences I've ever had.

Sorry that Sam had such trouble. I love my TiVo! Because of the great service I received, I will not hesitate this fall when I plan to buy a Tivo HD-XL, and move my existing TiVo HD to my bedroom. This is why TiVo should just be done with it and move to a 1-year warranty for all boxes.

Loved my TiVO, but I'm afraid they're the next AOL. Fewer and fewer people need a seperate TiVo at $12/mo when you can get a fully integrated HD DVR satellite/cable box for $4/mo. My TiVO box has been relegated to a shelf in the laundry room for over a year now, and my cable box has 60 second skip...something very dear to me that TiVO took away from me with a firmware "upgrade."

Best Guess - the buyer doesn't get a new unit - he gets a reconditioned factory rebuild - someone elses returned unit.

Interesting to know. If I ever decide to purchase a new Tivo I might grab a SquareTrade warranty for it. $35 and another $15 for accidental damage. Plus you can always find a discount code for SquareTrade if you look around.

@citking: I LOVED out Dish Network DVR it worked great and was very user friendly. Now that we have to have Comcrap it makes us miss it even more. The Comcast DVR has problems responding sometimes and is just overall frustrating.

Cherish every moment with that DVR my friend.

BTW I came up with the idea of being able to set recordings from the internet for your DVR so I wish I could get some royalties from Direct TV. It is only a matter of time before Dish comes out with something similar.

My other idea was to be able to push shows or recorded clips to a friends DVR. It would be great to have a friends list on your DVR and if you each have access to a certain channel you should be able to send them clips you record from your DVR.

If all it takes is a broken port to cause the entire unit to be replaced, what justifies a simple repair? (Maybe the top is dusty?) Seems like:

1) Tivo charges the customer to replace the unit,
2) Fixes the broken one for very little cost,
3) Sells the newly fixed one for more profit.

TIVO is going to send back a cannibilized unit built from previous returns and the unit you return will be used for future cannibilized units. You will lose all your programming.

$49 sounds like a good deal to me on a 5 month old unit. It sucks, but for a no questions asked swap it sounds alright.

On a side note, I have had nothing but great customer service from Tivo.

The warranty on most TiVo boxes is 90-days parts and labor (i.e., FULL WARRANTY) and 1 year parts. This basically means that after 90-days, TiVo will charge a fee (call it a labor charge) for swapping the unit. If TiVo offered a longer/better warranty, the price of the unit would no doubt be higher...so you got what you paid for. What you DIDN'T say is that after a year--after the warranty expires and after TiVo has no obligation whatsoever--they will STILL offer a repair service for less than the cost of a new box, and in many cases will move the service to that new box (perhaps with a fee). All in all, more than what they are required to do under the fine print of their warranty.

@citking: Having owned a Dish DVR, and now a Tivo HD. The Tivo blows the doors off of Dish.

WRT the HP snark, when any device starts to fail, CALL IT IN AND GET A CASE ESTABLISHED.

Save the magic case number, as it is your record of what's going on. Sure, it may piss off the CSR taking the call, since they can't help you at _that_ point, but it sure makes life easier when it does get to the point where action needs to be taken.

It also proves that you complained and they did nothing well within warranty period, which gives a lot more ammo in your pouch than you realize...

@Silversmok3: Erm. It's not very sophisticated.

@maxx22: Which is lame.

@FoxBearDog: The Internet recording setting is available on Tivo. Your second idea would probably run afoul of copyright law, unfortunately, at the current time, even though it's a cool idea. You can manually accomplish the same thing with a Tivo, though, since you can copy shows from the DVR, decode them to remove DRM, and send them over the Internet to your friend, who can then upload them to their Tivo. Not anything like as convenient as a friends list, but it is possible if you put out some effort.

@nakedscience: Then by all means, get out the soldering iron!

@lotussix: What is this new trend on Consumerist where people always say something bitchy about not having enough information and then trying to snark on the article? It's getting really annoying.

@ChaunceyKaplow: Tivo has always had the ability to reprogram one of the remote buttons as a 30 second skip. I believe it still works although I personally don't use it. I also invested in a lifetime subscription for both my Tivos. One has already more than paid for itself and the other is about a year away from paying for itself. After that the cost is 0 for me. And the features they keep adding blow anything Comcast has ever offered. I guess that's one of the reasons why Comcast is now offering their own Tivo box for rental.

@ChaunceyKaplow: enable the 30 second skip in tivo: while watching anything, hit select, play, select, 30, select. You'll hear 3 dings as a confirmation. Basically you just need to hit that combo every time the tivo gets power cycled.

@Etoiles:
This same thing happened to me. After 5 months, my TIVO would not work. They upgraded mine, but did charge me $49. They didn't really explain this very well either.

Mine was a refurb, so maybe that had something to do with it.

@IphtashuFitz: We bought lifetime subscriptions as well. We have two now and they have both paid for themselves so there's no additional cost at this point for the remainder of the life of the TiVo.

I would recommend it to anyone buying a TiVo, for sure.

a couple of points

-if you explain the CSR that you are a long time Tivo customer and say you will not pay the fee, they usually waive it (they have everytime for me but I have been a 6+ years Tivo customer)

-to the response that said 50 was reasonable to replace a sophisticated piece of equipment like a Tivo is flatly wrong! When you buy a Tivo for lots o cash and it comes with a year warranty, then its more than reasonable to assume that the product IS covered for a year and that would of course include replacements for defective equipment. Of course they will not repair the unit, no cost-efficient manufacturer of electronics fixes anything anymore, they just replace it and resell your defective unit as refurbished to the next sucker after they fix it...

TiVo's service has really tanked in the past year. I've been a customer since 2001, and have recommended the service highly and given several TiVo's as gifts.

Lately, however, I'm more and more disappointed. They keep adding off-the-wall "features" that I can't turn off, that take forever to load, and while I can't prove they are the problem, my existing TiVo HD *never* froze and had to be rebooted anywhere nearly as often as it does now that this extra junk is there.

Then there is the once wonderful, now craptacular "TiVo Desktop". The "basic" version does all I need it to do. The "plus" version will convert the files for play on a mobile device (which I don't have, and even if I did, there are many other programs out there that I'd use instead), but that's the only "plus". With the latest update, I have to be annoyed with a "DO YOU WANT TO BUY PRO?" nag screen. Now, if this was "freeware", then fine, nag me. But I PAY FOR THE TIVO SERVICE.

In less than 2 years they've gone from the #1 all time customer service company I've ever dealt with to offering me customer service *almost* as good as Comcast's.

So glad I live in the UK. Here, it is warranted by the retailer by law for the first year and there is also legislation that a product should be "fit for purpose" which, if it develops a fault in only a few months, it blatantly isn't. It's up to the retailer to deal with the manufacturer as your sales contract is with them. Most stores will just switch an obviously defective item there and then at the customer services desk.

That's pretty normal. To send back a defective $150 graphics card to Sapphire, I have to pay my own shipping, which is about $15, and then pay for a $15 processing fee. $30 for a $150 card covered under warranty :(

@Chaun@Houston Eby: @malraux:
Direct tv has the 30 second skip on by default

With my 30 day old TiVo Series 3 (that was $800) I had to pay return shipping when it failed.

My first TiVo is in a closet, I bought it in May 2000.

There stuff could be better, but the worst is that the cable companies churn out garbage and most of the public doesn't know any better.

@GildaKorn: Or, here's an idea: get it replaced for free because it doesn't work and it's covered by a warranty.

As a former TiVo CSR for over a year I've seen this first hand. TiVo gives a full Hardware warranty for 90 days after this period the RMA fee is $49 if the exchange is processed within 90-365 days. after one year the fee goes up to $149. If you have Product lifetime Service (PLS) and your machine breaks, paying these fees is the only way to retain that service. Also when you get an RMA after 90 days it is a refurb (one thing most CSRs fail to mention so the customer doesn't get angry). Also the customer is responsible for shipping of the 11 pound TiVo.

As far as getting the RMA fee waived there are two groups that can accomplish this. First are the supervisors, and second are the top level tech support, the Customer Service Investigators or CSIs. The supervisors won't usually approve no cost RMA because they are busy and usually don't care. So speaking to a CSI is your best bet. The problem is that CSR and CSS agents are instructed only to transfer to CSI upon supervisor approval.

@squinko: i was stating a fact. we don't know what the rep said and honestly, the rep wasn't out of line when doing it.

so, if it's snarky to point out that consumerist did nothing but point out what the policy really is. then thanks. really.

Gaaah. I'm glad I didn't do this. It sounds like it's rapidly going downhill.

I would have done the DirecTV one when I got it, but they wanted me to pay $100 for it and then they would "credit my account." I said no way, babycakes.

I wish I could just buy a DVR like you used to do a VCR and just tape stuff. Why can't you do that? Without paying 500 million bucks?

Well, have you seen the price of these darned things? I would be quite irate at this situation if it were me. I will not be "upgrading" to the S3 until all 3 of my S2 units are dead. I may just kick in for the cable provider's DVR to save money anyway. I mean, the this "resolution" seems no better than the way the cable provider would treat a customer.

TiVo used to be better than this "fine print" or not. Too bad.

@HogwartsAlum: You can. It's just not a simple, out-of-a-box solution like the DirecTV or Tivo ones. But you can make your own DVR using free software on Linux and a TV capture card (there may be something simpler on Windows Media Center Edition or whatever it's called, but I've never looked into that). It's just that you'll need some expertise at getting different pieces of software to work nicely together.

I personally really, really like my Tivo. I think it's much better than all the cable company DVRs I've messed with. I don't have many complaints.

@LisaAndromeda: The S3 ones are way expensive, but the Tivo HD is fairly reasonably.

Tivo was my best wedding present - coming up on my 5 year anniversary I'm up to 3 Tivos and have always had good luck with their customer service. The Husband wouldn't let my buy Tivo #3 at first - he insisted we try the less expensive Comcast box, but within a week we were miserable (as I predicted!) and the HD Tivo was on the way. I think Tivo is far better than anything else out there.... even with just a 90 day warranty.

@Silversmok3: Yeah...Tivo really kind of bare bones in terms of computer. Why they do not redo the whole thing I do not know. But Tivo is the only reason I actually have a TV.

@ChaunceyKaplow: Except that Tivo generally is a lot better than the cable company boxes. Also, you don't need both a cable company box and a Tivo if get cable cards, so I don't know what you mean about the cable company ones being better because they're "fully integrated". The one advantage they do have is access to cable company video-on-demand, but that's not really a really problem for me since my Tivo can access Netflix on-demand, videos stored on my computer, Youtube and a bunch of other services.

@FoxBearDog:

My other idea was to be able to push shows or recorded clips to a friends DVR.

MythTV. Okay, it's not push, it's pull by default unless you want to do some work, but hey, anything is possible. It was probably the first HD DVR, as well...

And, you've been able to set recordings for MythTV over the internet since it existed (2002). Being as TiVO was released in late 2000 and was probably the first reasonable consumer DVR system, that gives only 1 1/2 years span for internet recordings being an original idea. :-)

@Etoiles: Same thing here. My TiVo Series2 died after a couple of years. When I called to cancel the service, they offered me a replacement box for free instead. I accepted and they sent me a refurbished Series2 Dual Tuner, which was better than my original model.

(...except for the fact that I couldn't get it to work with my OTA antenna. So I just called again and canceled anyway. They didn't want the TiVo back, so I sold it on Craigslist.)

TiVo's business model is in jeopardy when cable companies provide DVRs for a fraction of TiVo's subscription cost. So TiVo is scrambling to keep customers any way they can.