Should I buy a Circuit City Extended warranty with my Sony Bravia LCD HDTV?

Question

I just purchased a 40” Sony Bravia V Series LCD HDTV (KDL-40V4100) from Circuit City.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oid=209193

I spent an extra $213 (including tax) for a 3 year extended warranty from CC. It starts on the day of purchase, so it’s valid for 2 years after the 1 year Sony warranty expires. My questions are:

1) How reliable are Sony Bravia LCD’s? This is for folks who have owned one for many years… have they given you any problems? Did you ever need to use any warranty or get any repair work done on it?

2) What kind of problems can LCD TV’s have? What are the typical costs for repair incase something does happen and I don’t have an extended warranty?

3) Is the Circuit City advantage protection plan (warranty) even worth it or should I return it for a full refund?

I’m really confused as to what I should do. Should I save the $213 or keep the warranty “incase” something happens after 1 year. What are the chances with a brand like Sony?

Answer 1

I don't have anything to say about question 1 or 2, but I bought Circuit Cities protection plan on a TV before.  Was glad I did too.  This was a while back though.  Had a 36" Sony I bought.  2 years after owning it it would keep turning off by itself.  Circuit City came right out and fixed it at my house.  Well it happened again 2 months later.  Kept turning off on its own again.  The guy said if I happens again after this fix I should just go get a new TV and take that one back.  Well like 5 months later it did happen again and I got a brand new TV to replace my 2 1/2 yr old one which ended up being a better model.

Answer 2

There are many schools of thought on this.  Personally, I buy a warranty on all big ticket items.

The way I look at it is, if I'm spending a $500+ on something it's gonna be expensive to fix.  I've been doing this for years and have cashed in on it several times.  My Wii broke 6 months after I got it.  My TV (Sony) broke 4 years after I bought it (I had the 5 year).  My refrigerator leaked one year after I bought it.  My PDA (Sony) broke 4 years 10 months after I bought it (5 year warranty).  My digital camera broke after 2.5 years.  So yes, it has worked for me.

Answer 3

Circuit city don't repair the tv's. There is a reputable company in your town or nearby that honor's most warranty's on various tv's from different stores.

You can wait and buy the warranty 11mos prior to the one year manufacture warranty is up. They don't tell you that. Also you can buy your warranty for 2yrs more cheaper with the manufacture.

Especially after I found out that circuit city doesn't repair them anyway. Why should you drop it off with them so they can transport it to the companies that are going to repair it anyway according to your warranty? You can verify everything I am saying.

I already bought 2 warranty's with them for laptops and could have saved $200.00. Also I just bought 3 tv's. Call the manufactures they will tell you who will be fixing your tv's.

Answer 4

I'm glad you asked. Circuit City's warranty is a bit different than some others. You did well by purchasing one and I suggest you keep it. You did not state the price of your TV, but I'm going to assume it was considerable.

I don't have the "Bravia" LCD, but a Sony Wega I bought from Best Buy. Boy, am I glad I bought the $299 service warranty; the first warranty I ever bought for anything.

What can go wrong? I'll only mention a few of the many. The "engine" can go out, which is the mirror device that projects the image onto the screen. Mine went out and would have cost $900 to replace. The lamp can burn out. Mine did and would have cost about $250 to replace. The LCD TV's have three full sized screens; blue, green and red (the primary colors of any TV set). Any one of them can loose pixels. Typical warranties will not replace either or all of them unless you loose at least 6 pixels, which would leave you with white spots on your screen. I have not have that problem and it is rare. However it does happen and to watch a TV with small white spots is maddening I would think.

Circuit City's warranty differs from others in this respect. If you do not use it, they will give you a free lamp at the time it expires. This is the cost of a new lamp which you will at one point need, no matter what you do. At between 3000 and 6000 hours of use, it will burn out. It may at best last 9000 hours (The life of a plasma TV), but it WILL burn out. This option in your warranty pays for it hands down.

The problems I had occurred was after the first year, therefore buying the warranty was a good choice. The reason it is for 3 years is statistically people replace their TV's every - you guessed it - 3 years. Since my TV was $3000, I invested in the warranty because I did not intend to replace that investment in such a short period of time. I just received my second lamp (by mail) only one month before my warranty was to expire. I saved $1400 by purchasing the extended warranty.

As a side note, I also purchased two LG LCD computer monitors at the same time I bought my 50" Sony LCD TV. They were $750 each and I did not buy extended warranties for them. They are still working fine and now sell for $300. Had I purchased warranties for them, they would have expired by now and the price of the warranties would have nearly been what the selling price of them now are.

Answer 5

i also have a sony bravia lcd tv. the issue is that you cannot fix these tvs. if you do have the xtended warranty you will get a brand new one if something goes wrong. i didn't do that though...now my tv is 2 1/2 yrs old and luckily never had a problem. so, if you can afford it, buy it. just in case....