The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: Johnny Bravo on June 30, 2010, 03:05:13 PM
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I bought 2 Vizio 47" LCD Tv's from Costco in June 2008. I get a 2 year warranty because I bought them at Costco. Monday morning the picture went black on one of them. I called Costco and they called Vizio with me on the phone. After testing some things on the set it was determined it was not repairable. The Vizio guy says he thinks he can get me some help. Yesterday the " Vizio Guy " calls and says there is nothing they can do. I spent $3000.00 on 2 tv's and there is nothing he can do. I figure it cost me $750.00 a year for 2 years to watch that tv in my bedroom and I'm 18 days out of warranty. I went to Costco since my purchase with one of my buddies since then and he's purchased 4 Vizio tv's since my purchase. I explained all of this to 2 Costco people and 3 Vizio people with no results. Vizio finally said they would sell me a reconditioned tv for $534.00 and it comes with a 90 day warranty and then he goes on to say that I can purchase an extended warranty for it. WOW..............at these prices I can't afford to watch tv on a Vizio. I would think I could get more than 2 years ans 18 days out of a $1500.00 TV ??? I'm just warning all of my friends on this site. DON'T BUY VIZIO !!! OK Rant over
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I bought 2 Vizio 47" LCD Tv's from Costco in June 2008. I get a 2 year warranty because I bought them at Costco. Monday morning the picture went black on one of them. I called Costco and they called Vizio with me on the phone. After testing some things on the set it was determined it was not repairable. The Vizio guy says he thinks he can get me some help. Yesterday the " Vizio Guy " calls and says there is nothing they can do. I spent $3000.00 on 2 tv's and there is nothing he can do. I figure it cost me $750.00 a year for 2 years to watch that tv in my bedroom and I'm 18 days out of warranty. I went to Costco with one of my buddies since then and he's purchased 4 Vizio tv's since my purchase. I explained all of this to 2 Costco people and 3 Vizio people with no results. Vizio finally said they would sell me a reconditioned tv for $534.00 and it comes with a 90 day warranty and then he goes on to say that I can purchase an extended warranty for it. WOW..............at these prices I can't afford to watch tv on a Vizio. I would think I could get more than 2 years ans 18 days out of a $1500.00 TV ??? I'm just warning all of my friends on this site. DON'T BUY VIZIO !!! OK Rant over
Don't buy digital period! I don't mean to sound like an old fart, but.......In my day, you bought a TV, plugged it in and you were good to go. I have a 28" wall mart special that works just fine. I then bought a battery powered TIVAR that I could use during hurricanes. I talked to a guy named "David" at CS for 20 minutes trying to get it to work (if his name is David, I'm a Sarah Palin voter). His English was about as good as my Hindi. The up shot was that after 20 very painful minutes I could get Ion and 3 Jesus channels, two of which were in Spanish. None of these will help me during a storm. I am now waiting on an adaptor to let me plug rabbit ears in so I can maybe get the local news channels. This after 2 bills. >:( It used to be so much easier and the reception was better, without all the pauses and crinkles that seem to go with digital and I'm not noticing such a wonderful increase in my picture quality. ::)
FQ13 who will close with this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1_NhnXMCKw
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It does sometimes seem that there must be a room full of techno-guys sitting around a table designing things to stop working right after the warranty period runs out. It seems to happen a lot these days. And when something does go bad under warranty, they give a big run-around to try to keep from having to pony up the fix.
Sorry for the troubles, JB.
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Had my 50" Vizio, "die" last year, called Vizio, and if the symptoms are similar, they ARE repairable.
Mine was fine up until I heard a "Pop" like a light bulb from the lower left corner (as your looking at the screen), and it turned out to be a small processing board Vizio makes replacement boards for.
Check with TV repairmen around your town, don't give up hope yet.
Mine is an old Russian guy, I swear, probably wired ICBM's during the Cold War, he said it was not anything major, and charged me $265.00
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Hey, before the government mandated switch to digital I could get 8 or 10 so-so stations at my trailer....now with the converter I get 1 maybe! Ain't progress grand?
Richard
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Hey, before the government mandated switch to digital I could get 8 or 10 so-so stations at my trailer....now with the converter I get 1 maybe! Ain't progress grand?
Richard
Yep.
Before the "Big Switch" I never had problems getting local channels on the tv in our bedroom....heck, the NBC and Fox station tower was only 35 miles away. Now, I can't get one at all and the other fades in and out. Seems to me it was just another way for the gubmint to spend money (remember the $80 per household for converter boxes), fueled (no doubt) by lobbyists for the tech industry and most probably the cable/satellite companies who have probably benefited greatly via new subscribers. I shoulda bought stock in those companies.
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Yep.
Before the "Big Switch" I never had problems getting local channels on the tv in our bedroom....heck, the NBC and Fox station tower was only 35 miles away. Now, I can't get one at all and the other fades in and out. Seems to me it was just another way for the gubmint to spend money (remember the $80 per household for converter boxes), fueled (no doubt) by lobbyists for the tech industry and most probably the cable/satellite companies who have probably benefited greatly via new subscribers. I shoulda bought stock in those companies.
After my experience today spending time and money trying to get a TV to work getting my ostensibly "free" broadcast channels to work so I can get life saving storm info..............well, I'm with Tom. You should have bought stock in a company selling extra scratchy, but solid, hemp rope! >:(
FQ13 who looks at progress "and he hates it". I prefer when we were bald head kabobs with a rabbit skin bungee corded around our dinks and the TV worked without a tech degree from MIT! And I liked it! ;D ;D ;D
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FQ......where is all of this heading? I just watched a movie called SURROGATES. It sure makes you think about what's coming. Anybody else seen it?
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I saw it and liked it.
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FQ......where is all of this heading? I just watched a movie called SURROGATES. It sure makes you think about what's coming. Anybody else seen it?
good one.. found it online and burned it to bring out to the ship. surprised there wasn't more hype.
deepwater
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do you have anything like a statutory warranty (also known as implied warranty) in Australia under the law. The law says that all products supplied to a consumer must be fit for the purpose for which they were supplied.
take For example, a refrigerator is an expensive item. It is not unreasonable to expect it to last longer than 18 months before it’s ready for the scrap heap. Even if the voluntary (manufactures) warranty on the fridge has expired, a consumer may still have a valid complaint under the law if it had a structural fault eg. defective insulation not apparent at the time of purchase, which became obvious after only 18 months. ( we get a few people at work using this one) most people don't bother with it though
contact Costco & Vizio and speak with there Customer relations people and see what they can offer as a TV even a new Digital should last more than 24 months and 18 days
might use a bit about what I have above be polite however firm another thing is see if they would do a deal say they cover the part and you just pay the labour
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No such luck Phil. I've talked to 2 Costco reps and 3 Vizio reps. The Costco people act like they can't do anything about it even though they are the ones that extend the warranty to 2 years and the Vizio people aren't going to do anything. I thought Vizio was going to help after I talked to the first rep but they aren't. I was in shock thinking they were going to take care of me ( a customer ). I kinda gave up when I looked Vizio up online and the first site I found had 38 pages of people this year with the same type of problems with Vizio products. Tv's around 2 years old that had failed and Vizio didn't do anything to help. I gave away a 40" Sony Trinatron and a 32" Toshiba when I bought these Vizios. I thought they would last for years. I did report them to a consumer affairs group. They are VERY familiar with vizio complaints. I'm just saying DON'T BUY VIZIO. Everytime I go to Costco I'm going to walk through the tv section and if anyone is looking at tv's I will warn them not to buy VIZIO. I gave them a chance to make things right and they didn't take it. They have pissed off an ole Texas boy now. They could have worked with me or helped me in some way and chose not to. This is going to cost them 50 times more than it cost me!!!
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Earlier some one mentioned things lasting only slightly longer than the warranty.
It is not that they build the stuff to only last for the warranty period, it is the other way around.
With modern QA testing protocols good engineers can predict fairly accurately what parts will break at what point.
Computer sims are incredible tools, they allow you to model and test, to destruction, before you ever take the material out of stock.
So then the Bean counters say, " the first major failures begin at 2.25 years, lets give them an unlimited 2 year warranty".
The fact that your TV's only lasted <3 weeks beyond date is not the "Smoking gun" of built in obsolescence, but a tribute to the research that goes into a new product.
I know.
It still sux though. ;D
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I had a la-z-boy recliner that broke THREE FRICKIN DAYS after the end of the warranty!! (no fat jokes, plz, it was the wife's chair)
Long story short, the person I talked to on the phone at la-z-boy was VERY helpful, and promised to take care of things. His way of taking care of things was clarified in a "eff-off and die" letter that I received from him 4 days later. I will NEVER own another la-z-boy piece of shit as long as I live!!
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I had a la-z-boy recliner that broke THREE FRICKIN DAYS after the end of the warranty!! (no fat jokes, plz, it was the wife's chair)
Long story short, the person I talked to on the phone at la-z-boy was VERY helpful, and promised to take care of things. His way of taking care of things was clarified in a "eff-off and die" letter that I received from him 4 days later. I will NEVER own another la-z-boy piece of shit as long as I live!!
See this is the thing. People are stupd. They generally think short term. They forget that the reality of the situation is that your stuff is broken. You're going to replace your TV or chair. Do you want it to be from them or someone else? If they'd just cut a deal, say sell you a new one at half off, they're still ahead with one and half units sold. They don't help you, they've only sold the one unit, you'll never buy from them again and you''l bad mouth them to anyone who will listen. In the days of the net, if you piss off a humorous and creative SOB, that can bite you in the ass on youtube to the tune of millions of hits. I've longed believed that doing the smart thing is more often than not doing the right thing.
FQ13
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Johnny B, I feel your pain, before I tell war stories, my new mantra, BEFORE YOU BUY ANYTHING, GOOGLEFU THE HELL OUT OF IT. Now to stories.
1) Bought a 52" Mitsubishi LDP HD television, 1080p, real nice picture, since my wife was disabled, I figured she would watch a lot of TV, and she did, I did not buy and extended warranty, standard warranty 1 year, after about 15 months, a message would come up, " your lamp has exceeded its normal life expectancy, change now " well the picture and TV were working fine, until at about 18 months black screen, looked it up and got all kinds of horror stories, new bulb from Mitsu, 500.00, so I bought one off Ebay, no workie, other people on line say if the lamp actually go's out, it will take out the lamp drivers, local repairman, thinks he can fix it for 600 bucks, but of course does not no until he gets a chance to look at it. It has been a redneck souvenir for the last 2 yrs.
2) Next I was getting all these free or nearly free offers for stuff, one of them was Video Professor, you have all seen the commercials, sounds pretty cool if you want to learn more about computer use, so I got an offer, 30 days to use the product for 9.99, so I signed up, got the discs 10 days later, and on that same day, they took 399.99 out of my bank account, I went postal, reviewed the email confirmations and no where did it say anything about 400 bucks, called my bank, who issued my debit card, and they said try to reconcile with VP 1st, got at 1st a rude bitch on the phone, that said " oh no, it was a 10 day trial, and your on the hook " I told her I had contacted the bank, and she did not like that, offered a 299.99 deal with unlimited access to their website, I said no, I am burned I want to send it all back and get my money back, she gave me a return merchandise # and I sent it back, now it is 2 1/2 months later, still no money, funny thing as soon as I googled VP, the 1st thing that popped up was " Video Professor Scam ", now trying to work with the bank, be advised, if you use a Credit Card, you get more protection, than a debit card. Hard lesson not over, yet.
3) Not mad, bought a Panasonic 42" plasma, with 780p, with a 5yr warranty through Fry's, have had it now, 14 months, and it is great, better picture, even at 780, blacker blacks and the sound from the TV is good enough, I hardly ever use the stereo hook up, 1100 bucks with warranty out the door. So far I cannot complain.
Summary, don't buy S**t without googling or your favorite search engine what ever it is, you want to buy.
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Summary, don't buy S**t without googling or your favorite search engine what ever it is, you want to buy.
I feel your pain and I hear what you're saying !