Sony HDTV Replaced With Mitsubishi WD-62627

The Sony started to have a small blue triangle in the lower left corner of the screen about 3 weeks ago, and as the pic shows, has continued to get larger. Two weeks ago I was told by the local Sony repairman that the optical driver unit was the casue, the cost of the part is only $2,085 and the labor is $400. This infomation only cost the $130 inspection fee for his 20 minutes of time.

I have talked with Sony reps and CS supervisors about this and I'm told this is a rare occurance on a 14 month old set and as much as they would like to reslove the issue, they can not and will not do any repairs with out payment. The extened warrany that was available when the Sony was purchased was only for an additional year and the cost at the time was not reasonable at all. So of course the first time I do not purchase the additional coverage on an pricey toy.......it was a bad decision. With this amount of a repair cost the decision was made to just replace the Sony with a new unit.

The new toy will be a Mitsubishi WD62627 a 62" 1080p HD DLP and is scheduled to be delivered on April 12th. The 4 year extended warranty also includes bulb coverage so now I'll have a unit that will have a record bulb life.

If any forum memebrs have a Mits unit would appreciate any comments they may have.

WD62627 LINK

Sorry to hear about your misfortune Dennis. 14 months is a pretty short lifespan for a product that costs that much. Is it me or is Sony developing a less than stellar reputation for product support?

Sorry to hear about the death of your Sony, always nice to get a new toy, but not before its time.

What companys like Sony fail to realise is that thousands of people like me on the fence about what to get read these kind of reports on the internet.

Clearly you will not be buying Sony again any time soon. Now hearing this I will be rethinking what I'm going to get HDTV wise. Was going to get a similar Sony, but now I'll be re-evaluating.

sorry about your tv....you have a new PM

Dennis, it's pretty sad when a company like Sony (with all their resources), treats customers that way. As a percentage of their total overhead, replacing your set would cost them pennies. Extremely short sighted IMO. Do I sense a sale on E-Bay?

Once the new set arrives, would you mind posting a comparison of the two sets? I'd be interested to see how they stack up against one another.

Tharkun,

What video technology is the Sony? LCD rear-projection? Plasma panel? LCoS? (or a variation. . .). Just wondering. ..
Sorry to hear about the breakdown.

Regards,

You know I was at Circuit City the other day and I saw the same thing on the new Sony Lcos XBR. I thought that was weird. I was going to buy that set. Then I saw that and decided to bite the bullett and buy the Pineer Elite 50 inch plasma.

Apprecaite the comments and hope all understand I did not post this in the hopes of casuing any loss of sales for Sony. I'm sure this issue is not a common occurance, and had Sony worked with me on even a partial compensation I would have been a happier customer.
I just wanted to give a heads up and strongly recommend purchasing extended coverage on these pricey display units. The one year warranty seems to be a standard thing with all brands, so guess none of the companies place much faith in thier products.

In reply to:
What video technology is the Sony? LCD rear-projection? Plasma panel? LCoS?

Alan: This was the Sony KDF-60WF655 and it is the LCD Rear Projection model.

In reply to:
Once the new set arrives, would you mind posting a comparison of the two sets? I'd be interested to see how they stack up against one another.

Shawn: Will post my thoughts once the new toy is here and have had time to play with it.

At this time I'm not sure what will be done with the Sony unit, guess it could work as a garage set, would keep the Axiom set up company........rather an expensive paper weight really. lol

Well I knew I had seen something similar to this before, one post here lists the same problem but there are a lot of posts and the cause seems to be similar. Sony

Dennis I've read somewhere that some of the Sony TV units (can't remember model numbers) were having troubles with this or similar type of problem on the screen, from what I understand Sony isn't taking charge and helping the customers like they should *but* I will say that we've had a Sony plasma for over 2 years now and haven't had nary the first problem ... matter of fact we really like the TV.

I also believe you'll be happy with the Mitsubishi, we have the Mitsubishi 73" WD73727 DLP RPTV and are very pleased with it thus far.

I have not entirely given in yet on Sony, I'm still calling and bitching.................. figure if I call enough they may agree to fix it to get the calls to end. lol

Since we were going to replace the Sony I was looking at what it would take for time to enlarge the tv area for the 73". But I would need to cut out part of a 10" header and replace it with an I beam and just don't have the ambition for that project. the 62" will fit in the exisitng opening and once it is here I can finish up the trim and be done.

>>At this time I'm not sure what will be done with the Sony unit

I think the standard EBay description when selling a TV with a problem like that is "like new, in box"

Tharkun

Very sorry about your Sony and congratulations on the DLP, looks awesome. I do ready about some unbelievably bad reliability and horrible customer service with many brands.

I have owned a Mitsubishi WS-65313 2.5 years, it is an RP not DLP. Wish I had purchased the extended warranty, although I hear Best Buy is not the greatest when it comes to service. It has basically been a good unit. One small problem with what I think is teh geometry. Picture looks nice but right vertical edge is slightly tilted so that there is a thin (maybe 1-2") dark strip on the lower part of the right side.

Mitsubishi has service they refer you to, $100 just to look + repair and adjustments, maybe in home maybe has to be taken out. I live in a Townhouse and the first floor is above the ground floor so this thing has to be taken apart to get out.

It looks to me like it is just an adjustment but Mitsubishi includes nothing on how to do it. Thinking of trying to learn to do it myself. If anyone knows about this would love to hear. Right now, my laziness, cheapness, and affinity for long hours in front of the TV are battling it out over what to do. Believe me, none of them are pushovers so it could be a long battle.

Lot's of things here http://hometheaterspot.com/ you might find a second opinion on old problem or new set.

Link

The Mits arrived today and took a few quick pics of the test to make sure it works. WIll be running some more cables and hope to set it in place in a day or two.

Hope that you have much better "luck" with your new set. I would be really pissed if my Sony failed after only 14 months. I bought mine with my VISA card and I think they double the warranty (I checked and thats what it says in the VISA brochure). Of course, you never REALLY never know until you actually need the service!!!

Looks like you have already moved on, but just wanted to remind you (and others) that some credit cards (e.g., Amex) automatically double the warranty on purchased products.

Wouldn't that be a bummer if he had double the warranty and didn't know it?

That would be a lousy deal, but I can think of worse things than having 2 working 60' TV's.

Sorry to here about your Sony Dennis. Have you looked into what the cost would be if you were to do it yourself?

Anyway, be sure to post pics once you have the TV all setup.

A few answers for all.

Nope....was not lucky to have purchased it on a card with warranty extension, and still talking with Sony to force a repair at their cost. As for repairing it myself, would not attempt it, the part from Sony is about $1,500 if you trust that number, could be more once it is actually a confirmed order thing.

Not sure what will be the outcome, it may end up being put out in the street for someone that wants a bargain. lol The new one arrived just in time as the Sony has progressed to the point of almost being unable to watch anything on it.

An update on the Mits and Best Buy, was over to BB today looking for a RJ45 inline connector. Walked past the HDTV area and noticed they were having another sale on the HD units, and the Mits was $ 600 less than the sale price we paid for it 27 days ago.
Made a quick trip home to get the receipt and then back to the stor, the sale ends today. BB has a 30 price matching guarantee which includes BB.com and any BB store. So after about 20 minutes of wating inline and paper work, had a cash refund of $645. So this helps some with the lost cost on the Sony unit.

Certainly your trip (or 2) into BB was worthwhile today. Great news!

Okay the big question is, what are you gonna do with that unexpected cash

There are three areas in the HT department that are in need of additional funding :

DLP projector & powered screen
Replacing the Twin 600s with VaSSallo Series EP600 Horizontal units in Rosewood.
Trip to Axiom

At the present the tip to Dwight is looking like a priority and is the least expensive of the three, if I find a
good deal on the airfare.