A friend of ours bought a Sharp Aquos LC-32D40U last year. Its warranty expired in August. Naturally, this month, it developed a strange liberation. There’s a thin black line on the right side of the screen. It sorta looks like it’s not completely hiding the letter boxes when you go to full screen format. When he called Sharp, they didn’t want to help him because his warranty was over. Best Buy, where he bought it, will charge $100 to come out and look and it.

Our friend asked, how Sharp could, “be ok with a product that craps out after a year, especially such an expensive one? How is that smart for them?”

Well, then they can sell you a new one right after their liability for your old one expires! In our friend’s case, he’s going to pay for the repair as long as it ends up being cheaper than the cost of a new one. Is his story as a reason to get extended warranty protection for higher-end electronics?

For instance, with laptops and computers, extended warranty protection for laptops is a good idea because they’re so expensive and critical. The day your computer’s warranty dies is the day to sell it and get a new one. Otherwise, extended warranties are usually bad. The cost of the repair usually equals the cost of the warranty. Plus, some credit cards, like AMEX, offer built-in extended warranty protection. Consumer Reports felt so strongly that extended warranties were a scam that they took out a full page ad in USA Today warning consumers against them.

RELATED:
American Express Extended Warranty Protection Buys You A New Laptop
Consumer Reports Warns Against Extended Warranties

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