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Bobby McCarley
06-09-2011, 8:10 PM
After doing extensive research for a good product and a company that stands behind their product, I bought a 42" VIZIO. BIG,BIG,BIG MISTAKE. As far a quality of picture and features it is a good TV. But, after a lighting strike caused a problem with the TV, I called to get some help. I wasn't asking for them to replace the TV because it clearly states in the warranty coverage that acts of GOD are not covered. All I needed was help getting the TV looked at so I could get it fixed or if not repairable, replaced under homeowners insurance. After almost an hour on the phone, I was informed that they don't provide that type of support. The repair company they referred me to only deals with warranty issue. That's about the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. Well, I will never waste my money on another VIZIO product and if anyone on here has a VIZIO product, you better hope that nothing ever happens to it that is not covered under warranty and you better never, never, never let your warranty end and be prepared to spend a lot of money repeatedly for extended warranty coverage. With there type of mindset I truly believe that anyone would play heck even getting warranty issues covered. They will find some way around it.

Chuck Wintle
06-09-2011, 8:17 PM
that is the world of consumer electronics...there is very little margin on the sale so after sales service is poor....and that goes for all brands. probably you will need to suck it up and buy another tv but add a surge suppressor to the line input.

Charlie Reals
06-09-2011, 8:24 PM
ours is a disposable world, easier to replace than repair. Warranty's have never been worth any more than the paper they are written on.

Chuck Wintle
06-09-2011, 8:28 PM
ours is a disposable world, easier to replace than repair. Warranty's have never been worth any more than the paper they are written on.

Charlie,

the world will be overwhelmed by the amount of stuff thrown out every day....has society gone downhill that much?

Charlie Reals
06-09-2011, 8:33 PM
Charlie,

the world will be overwhelmed by the amount of stuff thrown out every day....has society gone downhill that much?
Chuck
I would say yes. along the same lines. I send a lot of stuff to our guys overseas as do a million other folks. Can you imagine how big the pile of pogey bait wrappers and spam containers is. Monumental garbage pile in Afghanistan.
But yes I think we are there.

Phil Thien
06-09-2011, 8:55 PM
Unless there was substantial other damage from the lightning strike (like panel and/or wiring), I'd avoid making any claims on your homeowners. The adage these days is "use it and lose it."

If there is extensive damage, talk to the adjuster. They will probably cough up for a new TV.

Dan Hintz
06-09-2011, 8:58 PM
On a 42" screen (especially a low-margin Vizio), you will always be much cheaper purchasing another TV than repairing lightning damage.

Larry Frank
06-09-2011, 9:30 PM
I would be interested if you had a surge protector on the TV. All of my electronics are protected by high end surge protectors and the computer is protected with a UPS.

My worst problem with power damage came when someone drove off the road and through a power pole 2 miles away. I had a lot of stuff fried but nothing on a surge protector. It took out the conrtol circuitry for my whirlpool, popped every GFCI in the house, and a bunch of other stuff. I found out from the insurance that I was relatively lucky as many people lost TVs and electronics. Of course, the driver had very little insurance and I ended up having to pay out my deductible. Luckily, this type of damage is covered by my insurance.

Bryan Morgan
06-10-2011, 12:08 AM
I think this is normal for all modern electronics. Line6, a company that makes guitar effects and amplifiers is about the same. I had a little pocket pod that I dropped onto carped and the screen cracked. My fault, I don't mind paying for a repair. I tried to get parts and nobody would help. I contacted Line6 and they said to contact their authorized repair places. I contacted all of them and they all told me I had to contact Line6 first. I contact Line6 and they say they don't help directly so I have to use the authorized repair places. I'M WILLING TO PAY FOR THE FIX!! The economy is in shambles and people don't want to work for money... amazing. Thankfully Digitech has always been good to me.

Bobby McCarley
06-10-2011, 6:58 AM
Larry, yes I had the TV on a surge protector. I believe that is the only reason the TV wasn't completely fried. Surge protectors only provide a limited amount of protection from surges. A direct lightning strike is almost impossible to protect from.

I am more than willing to "PAY" to have the TV repaired if it can be. My beef with VIZIO is their complete and total lack of willingness to assist in getting the TV looked at to see if it can even be repaired. I would think that a certified VIZIO repairman would be better able to repair the TV than someone who is not familiar with their products. Their attitude is if it's not something covered under their warranty, then you are on your own, "They have their money, and that is all they are concerned about it."

Curt Harms
06-10-2011, 8:35 AM
It's probably an impossible task but if you kept the receipt for the surge protector, surge protectors oftentimes come with a "if your device is plugged into our surge protector and gets fried, we'll replace it up to $xxxx". 'Course they may have impossible-to-meet standards of proof that their device failed.

John Shuk
06-10-2011, 8:44 AM
Unfortunately, when you pay that low initial price, you are proclaiming your acceptance of a given companies business practices. It would be nice to be pleasantly surprised, but you shouldn't count on surprises.

Dave Lehnert
06-10-2011, 12:25 PM
Unless an electronic item is under warranty almost nothing gets fixed. Just to get an estimate you can be in the hole 25% of the cost of new. They probably don't know how to help with an out of warranty issue. Anytime I had an extended warranty issue, they just replaced it. Only time a repair was done was on larger more expensive equipment.

Rich Lester
06-10-2011, 1:13 PM
If you're somewhat inclined most of the newer flat screens aren't that hard to repair. Even if you take it to a shop they won't get down to the nitty-gritty of repairing individual components on a circuit board. The just figure out which one is causing the problem and replace it. That being said, I have an older Vizio, one of their first ones, which had a problem of shutting off randomly. It was out of warrenty so I did a little internet research and found that I wasn't the only one having the problem. I was able to download the service manual for the TV and figure out which circuit board was the culpret. Another internet search and I found a company willing to sell me the board, $187.00 plus shipping and return of the old board. The TV has been working fine for the past two years. So, a $187 investment in a TV that originally cost me about $1200 isn't a bad deal, and now the kids use it for their game system. Not all repars may be as easy as mine was with the research I did but it doesn't hurt to do a little investgation to save a few bucks.

Trevor Howard
06-10-2011, 1:25 PM
Unfortunately, when you pay that low initial price, you are proclaiming your acceptance of a given companies business practices. It would be nice to be pleasantly surprised, but you shouldn't count on surprises.

I would second this advice. Most Surge protector company say they will cover up to several thousand $$$'s

Your mentioning of Visio reminded me of the only time I have dealt with their product. A friend of mine had one of their computers (purple color), her CD player went bad. She called Visio and was quoted $250 for a new one. I told her I had several laying around (at this time I was building Computers) and would see what I could do. I also told her I would upgrade her to win 98. CD install was fine, I changed the front cover so it was purple, and started installing win 98. I spent a week trying to get the drivers for all their propriety components. Finally got it done, and gave it back. I get a phone call the next day from her, would I install the new CD player from Visio when it comes, I asked her what was wrong....wait for it.....
"I don't like how the drawer is white when I open the CD player"

Rich Stewart
06-10-2011, 1:31 PM
I'm with Rich. Do a little research on google. I had a Samsung that wouldn't come on. Put the model number in google, found the problem was two capacitors that were too small and fried. Three dollar fix. BUT, I found I could have bought the whole board the capacitors were on for 100.00. There sure isn't much inside them.

David Helm
06-10-2011, 1:50 PM
Have you thought about going with a whole house surge protector? The plug into the panel and work very well. They cost about 60 bucks and are well worth it. Using it and plug in protectors may just have stopped the spike caused by the lightning strike.

Phil Thien
06-10-2011, 7:22 PM
Have you thought about going with a whole house surge protector? The plug into the panel and work very well. They cost about 60 bucks and are well worth it. Using it and plug in protectors may just have stopped the spike caused by the lightning strike.

This is the only way to go. Normal surge protectors actually wear out. Hole house surge protectors use a different technology that doesn't.

Also, hardware store outlet strips/surge protectors with warranties typically have worthless warranties.

An old (now passed) friend of mine had a PhD from MIT. He was SMART. Patents on all sorts of things like ballistic missile guidance systems.

ANYWAY, he had protectors from a well respected (expensive) company. There was a lightning strike that killed his fax machine and a printer. He made a claim and sent the protector to the company as part of the process. They tested it and said it worked within specification, and denied his claim. He said, "well, send it to me and let me test it, perhaps I'll find a problem with it. It would make an interesting article for any number of journals I've written for." Long story short, he got the check to replace the equipment.

Me, I wouldn't be so lucky. Of course, I don't have his credentials. He had what they call the MIT trifecta, which is an undergraduate, masters, and PhD all from MIT. I hear those are pretty rare.

Bobby McCarley
06-10-2011, 8:12 PM
David, I have considered a whole house protector and in fact my utility service provider, which happen to be a competitor of the company I work for, has such a service. When looking into it, I talked to someone who had one on his house. It took a direct lightning hit and fried just about every electrical item in the house. Outcome, the company refused to pay one cent. Lets be realistic folks, we are not talking about a normal power surge here, we are talking about a force of nature way beyond a simple power surge. If you do a google search of power surges or house protectors you will find that everyone one of them states the same thing, and I quote one review "A direct lightning strike within a few hundred feet of your home is likely to do major damage regardless of the protective equipment installed." While I consider myself lucky on the amount of damage, you will see from the included pictures, the strike was probably within 15 feet of my house, plus the service pole is directly under the tree that was hit.

I don't have a problem with the damage done or if a surge protector would or would not have made a difference, my beef is with a company who sells a product and does not even have the decency to send a certified repairman to see if it can or cannot be repaired and if not I can file a claim on my home owners insurance. Dealing with power surge or lightning damage is a fact of life that every one is going to have to deal with at some point in time. It would be nice if the products companies that we spend hard earned money buying their products would at least make dealing with these problem a little easier. I never once asked VIZIO to replace or repair the TV at their expense.

Jim Rimmer
06-13-2011, 1:51 PM
I guess I just don't understand what you expected Vizio to do. You clearly stated it wasn't a warranty issue. Why not just call a local repair service if you think it might be fixable? I don't think Vizio has an obligation here and if they did provide a name I wouldn't bet on it being anyone who was knowledgeable about repairs.

Myk Rian
06-13-2011, 6:05 PM
I guess I just don't understand what you expected Vizio to do. You clearly stated it wasn't a warranty issue. Why not just call a local repair service if you think it might be fixable? I don't think Vizio has an obligation here and if they did provide a name I wouldn't bet on it being anyone who was knowledgeable about repairs.
Holy cow. Give him a break.
All he wanted was a suggestion as to WHERE to take it for evaluation.

Do you always jump down peoples' throats?

David Larsen
06-13-2011, 6:45 PM
I am more than willing to "PAY" to have the TV repaired if it can be. My beef with VIZIO is their complete and total lack of willingness to assist in getting the TV looked at to see if it can even be repaired. I would think that a certified VIZIO repairman would be better able to repair the TV than someone who is not familiar with their products. Their attitude is if it's not something covered under their warranty, then you are on your own, "They have their money, and that is all they are concerned about it."

Wondering why Vizio needs to set this up for you? You admit that it isn't a warranty issue. With that being said, they have no obligation and most likely do not even have contact information for repair facilities in your area unless it is a warranty issue. Can you call a TV repair place and have them take a look at it? It may cost a small fee just to get an idea if it is a cheap or expensive fix and you can make a decision based on that if you want to go further. I don't see this as a Vizio thing.

Replace the Vizio name with Chevrolet. Say the Chevrolet was crushed by a tree branch in a wind storm. Is it the responsibility of Chevrolet to send someone out to "take a look at it"? It isn't a warranty issue. Since it is your dime paying for it, take it where you want. They could care less because it isn't their problem and I mean this in the best terms. All televisions are about the same under the "hood".

I mean no disrespect, but I don't think Vizio needs to hold your hand on this one!

Brian Elfert
06-13-2011, 7:33 PM
If Vizio has a way to deal with warranty repairs shouldn't they have a way to deal with non-warranty repairs? A Chevy dealer will do both warranty and non-warranty repairs.

Lee Koepke
06-13-2011, 7:54 PM
If Vizio has a way to deal with warranty repairs shouldn't they have a way to deal with non-warranty repairs? A Chevy dealer will do both warranty and non-warranty repairs.
yes, thats possible.
its also possible that its not good business practice to 'recommend repair guy x over repair guy y' ..... to follow the analogy, would you expect the chevy plant in detroit to know the best place in Williamsburg, VA to fix a vehicle?

Bobby McCarley
06-13-2011, 9:05 PM
I don't need VIZIO to hold my hand on this, I'm a big boy. At one time all TV's may have been the same under the hood, but that is not the case today. A certified VIZIO repairman should know everything there is to know about their products where someone who is not familiar with a VIZIO TV may not and then I'm stuck paying a service charge with no results. I don't know what world y'all live in, but there is almost no such thing as free estimates now a days. If you take your "chev" truck to a "ford" repairman good luck getting it fixed. And with just about every consumer product I have ever bought, the manufactor did repair work on their product weather it was in or out of warranty, the only difference was under warranty - they ate the cost, out of warranty - I ate the cost.

Curt Harms
06-14-2011, 7:57 AM
I don't need VIZIO to hold my hand on this, I'm a big boy. At one time all TV's may have been the same under the hood, but that is not the case today. A certified VIZIO repairman should know everything there is to know about their products where someone who is not familiar with a VIZIO TV may not and then I'm stuck paying a service charge with no results. I don't know what world y'all live in, but there is almost no such thing as free estimates now a days. If you take your "chev" truck to a "ford" repairman good luck getting it fixed. And with just about every consumer product I have ever bought, the manufactor did repair work on their product weather it was in or out of warranty, the only difference was under warranty - they ate the cost, out of warranty - I ate the cost.

The difference between Vizio and Chevy or Ford is you don't buy Chevy or Ford at Costco, Best Buy or Walmart. If Vizio doesn't have a list of authorized repair places on their web site, it seems likely that there are no Vizio authorized repair people outside their repair depots (if they have such a thing). I suspect that any competent electronics tech can repair most any TV given a schematic diagram. Modern TVs are a essentially big computer monitor with a TV tuner bolted on. If anything, I'd bet that TVs have become more alike over time. A TV from the '70s was a mass of individual components. TVs today probably have about a half dozen replaceable modules. Figure out the bad module, unplug it and plug in a new one. My concern with a lightning strike is if you had 6 modules, you could have 1 failed one and 4 more about ready to follow their deceased brother.

Jim Rimmer
06-14-2011, 2:34 PM
Holy cow. Give him a break.
All he wanted was a suggestion as to WHERE to take it for evaluation.

Do you always jump down peoples' throats?

WOW! Talk about jumping down someone's throat. I was just suggesting that it was not a Vizio issue as he had already said. If I sounded overly critical, bad on me - not intended.

Bobby McCarley
06-15-2011, 8:38 PM
Well, I had a local repairman come out to check the TV today. Guess what, he was not familiar with model of VIZIO and didn't quite understand the fact that the infra red part of the remote would turn the TV on, but after that nothing. When I explained that all of the features of the TV are operated through bluetooth, I still don't think he he got it. WELL DUH!!!!!!! Who would have guessed? Oh, wait I know, I know, I know....... maybe me. Then he said, well, lets call the manufactor and see what our options are and go from there. After a few OK's and I see and thank you very much, he hangs up and informs me that he can not repair the TV even if I was to want him to. It appears that because it is so new, repair parts are not even available from the manufactor yet. So he said that all he could do was give me a invoice with that fact on it and that it was done by lightning, so I could turn it in to the insurance. Just think, if the tech at VIZIO that I spent an hour talking to trying to get them to send a certified repairman out, and maybe actually sending one, last week, I probably would already have a new TV by now. Oh well, at least I helped out the local economy some and now know what TV not to reinvest in.

John alder
06-17-2011, 1:58 PM
I notice that Walmart advertizes that brand of tv on sale a lot ??

Bryan Morgan
06-17-2011, 11:51 PM
I notice that Walmart advertizes that brand of tv on sale a lot ??

And? So does Costco, Amazon, Target, etc....

Kevin W Johnson
06-18-2011, 12:17 AM
Actually, any electronics repairman worth a salt can/should be able to fix this. First off, if it powers on (and all voltage outputs work, which can be tested), then most likely the surge can in thru the coax input. This would have damaged the tuner board/mainboard depending on the configuration. The grey area is if the processor chip(s) were damaged, which would require the entire board to be replaced and thus whether the board can be aquired is the big question. Damaged TV's on ebay can actually be a great source for parts if gotten cheap enough.

I see your point about Visio, however, most companies contract warranty repair, and any given facility may be an authorized center for many different brands. They just dont "send" their guys out, the tv is typically shipped to the center. Visio pays the center for warranty repairs, the repair center DOESNT pay Visio for out-of-warranty repair referrals. Visio's warranty info plainly states the TV must be sent in to an authorized repair center.

Years ago when margins were much higher, it was easier for companies and retailers to help out a lot more, as it was easier to "eat" or absorb that cost. Low margins and high costs to do business have made that very difficult these days. Budget prices on products have all but eliminated easily obtained repair parts, and repairmen are a dying breed, because people dont want to pay what a man needs to make to survive.

Probably, the biggest thing we can all take from this is to have a real good chat with our homeowners insurance agent about the requirements in getting things of this nature replaced.