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I finally dove into the HDTV pool and bought a budget LCD, as soon as I registered my set's SN# I got a flurry of emails advertising extended warranty coverage. Is it worth it past 2 years? The coverage cost is pretty steep for the initial layout. Someone told me at one service shop that they see most LCD sets come in at/around the 2 year mark - usually for a $200-250 price estimate. Is 5 years of coverage worth it? FWIW, I had a Sears LXI for 18.5 years...I LOVED that TV, great picture and 1 repair in 216.5 months.
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If you take all of your household goods and bought a warranty on all of them - you would likely pay double or triple what the overall repairs would have been. Warranties warrant the trough period of fewest breakdowns. Take CD players. They typically fail in the first month. Then failure rates drop for the next 4-5 years to next to zero. Then begin to rise beyond year 5 and increase. (Picture a U shaped period of breakdown). The bottom of the U is where warranty companies live - they charge high prices exactly during the time when products fail the least. That's how they make their money and why places like Future Shop push so darn hard selling warranties.But of course worry sets in and depending how much it costs and the fact that we live in a disposable society you might say to yourself that if you pay 1/5 or 1/6 the cost of the item for a long warranty of 4-5 years that it might justify itself to you on piece of mind.
However I'll give you another example. About 4 years ago I bopught a 3.2megapixel Canon Digital Elph camera that I paid $499 for. The extended warranty they tried, without success, to sell me was about $150 for 2 additional years. Think about that. There is a $150 I could have thrown out the window. The camera still works perfectly but let's say the camera did fail in year 3. Sure they replace the camera - but had I just kept my money I could BUY a much better camera for $150 than that camera I paid $499 for.
You see it with virtually all goods sold in big box outlets. A couple years ago getting a decent laptop under $1000 was impossible. Now you can buy a laptop for $399 that will destroy a 3 year old $1500 laptop. The warranty they charged would have been in the $300 range. You might lose $100 if it blows up in year three - but people often look at what they PAID as a loss.
Try not to do that. Yes I paid $500 for the camera and if it breaks drat - but 4 years late a $150 camera kills it (and I get to choose which $150 camera I buy - not the store deciding which camera to compensate me). Televisions DVD players etc are all exactly the same. Think of the "replacement cost" not the purchasing price when you factor in whether or not to by the warranty.
Now if the warranty is dirt cheap that's another matter. I bought a $1530 laptop and for a two year extended warranty the price was $50. For $50 and because it's a product that gets jostled around that seemed reasonable and I paid it. Plus it had a few complaints on forums about the graphics card eventually failing so there is a known long term issue that affected all NvIdia cards. If your TV is $1500 and they charge $150 to go from 1 year to 4 or 5 years then that is reasonable - especially if it's a plasma. But just remember that 5 years from now you could buy a $500 TV that will be considerably bigger and better television.
Edits: 09/16/09
Hi RGA - many thanks for the response, the company offers:
1 Year: $49.99
2 Year: $64.99
3 Year: $79.99
4 Year: $99.99
It just seems like you never stop paying for the TV this way. I figure I would go for 2 years tops, signing up at the end of the 90 day warranty. Now I miss my 20 year old LXI more than ever.
Thanks again for the great response.
Rich
Depending on the price of the TV, $100 for four years sounds like a bargain.
One service call will pay for it.
-Wendell
Without being able to see into the future, you have to guess.
I bought one for my 65" LCD Rear Projection and it has paid for itself. I bought one for my 42" Plasma and have never used it. I didn't buy one for my 32" LCD and haven't needed it. Based on my experience, they are probably not worth it unless you can get it at a low price.
-Wendell
Its only worth it if you own a PLASMA tv...
my Marantz plasma is going on 6 years now. Color is starting to fade a bit but a line conditioner perked things up nicely. While some plasmas are a bit more notorious than others, many are are very long lived. On the other hand my LCD set (22 inch Sharp) shows a distinct burn mark on he screen after three and half years.
In my estimation TV sets are the most long lived of consumer products, for the most part. A seven year life span is not uncommon in the mature technology, and definitely both LCD and Plasmas fall in the category currently. Both had significant failure rates early on, however.
Stu
we consider 7 years "long-lived". But I know what you mean. And chances are that you'll want to change the display for some new must-have tech by/before that time.The more expensive the display, the more likely I'd go for the extended warranty. You'd think anyway... I have a Sony CRT RPTV which is still working perfectly after 8-9 years. I got the extended warranty for it and never used it. I got a Pio 151 early this year and didn't go for the extended warranty. I'll probably regret it. Mostly extended warranties are a profit-center for retailers IMO, but if you're going to get one, a laptop and a display are probably the best bets to be worthwhile.
But yes, they had a lot of problems with thin/flat displays in the early days largely because of solder joints failing due to the heat/stress. Then when they changed to lead-free solder they had another round of failures due to that learning curve. By the sound of it these displays should now be like most typical electronic stuff: if they don't suffer infant mortality they'll probably be good until you're tired of them.
Edit: Now I remember why I didn't get the extended warranty on the Pio. I had called Visa, and they said yes indeedy, Visa does extend the standard warranty by 1-2 years (I forget which now). Canadian forums indicated that Visa was truly good for it if needed.
Edits: 09/26/09
nt
I think for most consumer electronics it's not worth it to get warranty because of how fast the prices go down. For example my $3k LCD TV that I got 2 years ago is now worth $1k :(
But for equipment that doesn't advance as fast - cameras, speakers, etc. and that hold their value over time sometimes it's worth it to get insurance. Me personally I never get it though...
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