(БРАТСТВО)
I feel a certain kinship with Alan. Two years ago, both of us purchased HDTVs made by Vizio. Both of us bristled at the idea of buying an extended warranty for an electronic device that really shouldn’t be disposable. Both sets are out of warranty, but mine still works (for now) and Alan’s has black horizontal streaks running across the screen. A warranty’s a warranty, but he wonders: did he really just pay $1,000 per year for the privilege of owning a TV?
I purchased a 55inch Vizio TV two years ago. The TV has developed dozens of dark transverse lines across the screen. Vizio refuses to do anything about it.
At almost $2,000 that means television has cost me $1,000 a year. No I didn’t get an extended warranty. And why should I have to pay more to make sure their product works as advertised? The television has never been abused is on a surge protector. In an adult home with no children. There is no reason for it to malfunction other than poor construction.
The help department has been anything but helpful. The tech department has no solutions. Now I have a 55inch piece of garbage.
Folks don’t buy a Vizio unless you want a piece of junk that the company won’t fix or support. Multiple emails and pictures get nothing but robo responses about turning off the TV and and repowering. Of course I’ve done that. These lines have nothing to do with that. They look like water tracks except they are on the inside of the screen.
Bad company, bad service actually no service. Buy at your own peril. And for those of you who say get an extended warranty. Why? Shouldn’t a product that expensive work for longer than 2 years without protection money?
More From Consumerist
-
Bank Of America To Pay $11.6 Billion In Latest Countrywide Settlement
-
LG Rep: Washers And Dryers Are Not Meant To Last
-
Toyota, Honda & Nissan Recall 3.4M Vehicles Because Air Bags Need To Work
-
Anheuser-Busch & Czech Brewer Continue 100-Year Fight Over Budweiser Name
-
Ten Years Later, Maybe The ‘You’re Getting A Dell’ Dude Can Save Dell
My Brother in law and Sister in law have a Vizio. We had a severe thunderstorm a year or so ago that fried their surge protector and one of the HDMI channels on their TV. Did they replace the surge protector? Of course not.
Cue another severe thunderstorm a few months back and their other HDMI channel was fried. Now they get green and pnik rolling lines across the screen on all HDTV channels.
The TV is only 3-4 years old and it’s junk as far as HDMI goes.
By contrast, we have a Panasonic. Same storms, no issues with either the surge protector or the TV. Never buying a Vizio.
Do you have your cable box and coax cable going through the surge suppressor whereas maybe your brother and sister and law have the coax or cable box unprotected? The fact it is only the HDMI tells me it is something to do with the device that is using that port that is at least part of the problem.
Lightning is unpredictable. The damage I’ve seen in consumer electronics is amazing.
Most memorable was an RCA TV that was DEAD. When I went to check it out I found all the solder on the power supply board was GONE, vaporized. The board rattled like a maraca.
I replace1 the board and 1 antenna balon (very minor part) and the TV was good as ever.
First off, the OP is full of crap that this TV cost $2000.
Secondly, cool story that you don’t want to purchase protection.
“works as advertised” = 1 year limited warranty. If you buy a 2000 dollar tv just get the freaking service plan for 5 years and don’t worry about it
Worth mentioning, this being a Consumer Reports affiliate, that the CR Frequency of Repair record of Vizio as a brand is on a par with other major brands (such as Samsung, LG, JVC, Toshiba, for example) and better than some. One reason, perhaps, for hearing of more failures from them is that they sell more TVs than any other brand in the US.
I can’t believe anyone who has an internet connection would ever buy a Vizio TV. They undercut prices on other brands to make the sales, then are MIA when then the TV inevitably breaks.
Really, look at any consumer website. The phrase “Vizio pop” is almost a meme because so many customers hear it just as their purchase becomes forever worthless. Go ahead, Google it.
I have had a Vizio for long time and haven’t had a single issue. Every brand makes TV’s that don’t quite live a typical TV life expectancy.
First mistake was buying a Vizio
Having worked for a major electronics manufactuer i can say this, some companies temperature cycle their components. That means heating then cooling, then heating then cooling, this is repaeted over and over. What this does is weed out the bad components and gives you an idea of how good your product is. You can estimate how long your product will last. I’m pretty sure Phillips has this down to a science. You can cut corners and basically make them fail in a given time frame. You can also skip this step, and cut your quality control department too if you wish. Saves money. Me, personally from years of working on electronics, i like Sony or Panasonic products. My current tv is a LG 720p plasma, not a tv but a actual 42″ monitor, made for commercial useage, was on clearance for $499 5 years ago,marked down from over $2000 ,no tuner or speakers but i use with a cable box and external speakers anyway.
Read the warranty… expired? SOL.
You knew when you bought it that the warranty was only 1 year, so why not fix it yourself? Based on what you are describing I would guess you need to replace the T-Con board (timing control) Check out ShopJimmy.com for replacement parts for your model. When my 46″ Samsung was 2+ years old it started having issues with displaying anything on the screen (menus included). LCD, backlight and sound were fine so that pretty much just leaves the T-Con board which was like $60. Easy enough to replace if you’ve ever worked on a computer before. Saved myself hundreds if not thousands of dollars.
Just wandered in to say that my two Vizio televisions (37″ and 47″) are both 4 years old and still no problems at all.
See how anecdotes can work both ways?
I’ve had similar issues with my Vizio. I bought my 47-inch about 5 years ago for about $1700 from Costco. Within a year the first one blinked out on me. I called Vizio and they thankfully replaced it no problem. Then about a year later that one died. Again, luckily, Vizio also replaced that one.
Then about a year ago now the third one died. By that time, it was out of warranty so I didn’t even bother calling Vizio. But, again luckily, I purchased the TV just before Costco changed their own warranty terms on electronic items.
So I was able to take the broken down TV into Costco 4 years later and get a brand new replacement without issues. I didn’t get the full $1700 credit towards the new TV; mainly because the 47″s are cheaper now. But none-the-less, I got a brand new 47″ LED/LCD 3DTV!
Granted it’s still a Vizio and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this one lasts! It’s a shame that the old tube TV’s can run circles around these cheap LCD’s as far as quality is concerned. I have 13″, 27″ and 32″ tube TVs kicking around that I got decades ago that still work just fine!
It too bad Costco changed their “warranty” otherwise I’d be buying a lot more big ticket items from them!
If the OP wants to make lemonade out of a lemon, here are a few tips:
* Search the exact model # of the TV on eBay. Some models have a fatal flaw in the main board (bad capacitors, etc.) that can be easily repaired by someone with advanced soldering skills. There are eBay sellers who specialize in selling repaired boards – often with a discount if you send your dead board back as a core exchange.
* Finreputable TVleTV repair shop in your area and get an estimate (an Angie’s List subscription is well worth the price for this or any other repair provider search). They may be able to do the board repair locally.
correction: TV repair shop
edit button….edit button….Bueller?….Bueller?…
Vizio is the brand pushed hardest by WalMart.
That should tell you something right off the bat.
Consumer Reports is useless here because they
do not do longitudinal testing on home appliances,
so a Vizio that looks great is really crap in disguise
over time.
Try Samsung. They actually make LCD and LED panels in
their own factories and have actual service centers with real
people. Sort of like Zenith (in the old days) who actually made
their own picture tubes and they made the best sets on the
market (not to be confused with the new crap Zenith which is
Chinese junk with the Zenith logo on it, the old Zenith went kaput
because people didn’t want to pay for reliability and excellent
parts in teh build) I have a 20-year old Zenith set with a picture and sound as
perfect as the day I bought it and it wasn’t cheap and it was made
in Illinois. It actually got an even better look when showing an HDTV
source because Zenith sets scanned twice the number of NTSC
scan lines for a crisper picture.
Actually, Zenith got bought by a not-so-well-known Korean company, or one that was only known for making poor to average products…Lucky Goldstar, in the mid 1990′s. Guess what Lucky Goldstar is…? “LG”, a company who greatly improved their image and products.. Zenith TV’s after the mid 90′s have all been LG clones for the mostpart, especially after the tube TV’s were phased out. You can only seem to find some oddball Zenith-branded plasma TV’s at Sears and Kmart stores, but those too are just relabeled LG models.
My Zenith 42″ plasma is a rebadged LG. Same model # even, just they put a Z at the end… Just like Samsung, Sony, Sharp and Panasonics I can also order parts for it if a control board or power board burns out.
Bleh, haven’t been a fan of my Vizio. I don’t know if it is my DVR service or the TV that is having the issue as the DVR in my bedroom doesn’t have an issue with my 5 year old Sony TV.
I had a Phillips 60 inch rear projection TV for 6 year before it gave out, I guess I got off lucky, it seems that all these new TV’s have issues, or could it be that they are designed this way so you have to buy another one within 2 years, sort of like a cars and CPU’s.
I’ve had my Vizio REFURB unit for over 2 years now and it’s still going strong. So good I bought another one (bigger, better model, etc) and that ones been just about a year. I’ve had 1 issue and I called customer support and they actually sent a tech to my house to fix the circuit board.
Ask for a supervisor and push the issue. If worse comes to worse, email bomb them.
Yeah, when Circuit City was still around, I bought a Mitsubishi 57″ DLP tv and paid something like $300 for an extended warranty on it. Only to find out later that it only includes ONE lamp replacement. My lamp has failed twice. I still buy an extended warranty, but I’ll take the one that gives 3 years for $28.33 from Wallyworld for the 32″ LED-LCD tv I just bought.