Is my TV worth fixing? Mitsubishi 55819 (1 Viewer)

[Bruce White]

I hae a 9-year old Mitsubishi 55819. Something is wrong with the red color on my TV. It "droops" on the left side of the screen. When I go to the advanced setup screen showing the 64 individual alignment points (the horizontal and vertical white line intersections). The red color droops down much lower than the other colors on the left side of the screen. Any ideas as to what might be wrong? Is it worth fixing? Geek Squad will have a $150 charge just to come out, but that will include all labor needed for any repairs. Any parts needed will be added on to the $150. Do I fix it or get a new TV? Thanks in advance! Bruce

 

[gene c]

It would be easy for me to just say "no" because I'm not the one paying for a new display. But if you did get it fixed, and lets say it was $400 total (but of course, I have no idea. Mother-boards can cost $500) then all you would have is a 9 year old tv that worked, until the next part failed. New displays are falling in price at an alarming rate right now. I had a 5-6 year old Mitsubishi (52631) that developed the famous "...tv will shut off in a few seconds" problem a few months ago and rather than throw money at it ( I wasn't convinced a solution was found for that particular problem) I shopped around for a while and bought a basic Panasonic 58" plasma for $799 + delivery and tax from Frys. They also had fantastic prices on Mitsubishi display models including a 60" DLP for $399. For $20 they hauled away the old tv. I've seen new name brand 55" LCD's for around $699. But don't buy the off-brands, at any price. If I new for sure they could have actually fixed the old one I might have had it repaired. But as I said before, I'd have a 5-6 year old tv waiting for something else to happen. I also agonized over the decision but when all's said and done I'd do it again in a heartbeat. But I miss the days of the "free estimates". Oh well.

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings Sounds like convergence board failure. Most common thing to go on RPTVs. There are no more parts to order for these sets. The board will have to be rebuilt ... and that takes time. Start the $ meter. They fix that ... and there are two other boards on the TV just waiting to fail as well and those would be additional expenses. $300-400 for a repair here ... and 3 months later another board goes. Another $300-400 ... now you are in deep for $600 to 800 and a TV that stil has no warranty. A 55" flat panel can be had for well under $1000 these days and it has a warranty. Regards

 

[Steve Berger]

Having convergence (registration) ICs replaced is around $200 in my market, but at 9-10 years old, it is a coin toss as to the advisability. It gets fairly model specific on recommending repair. Hitachi - definitely yes. Sony - probably not due to widespread CRT failures on those models. Philips/Magnavox - no, due to leaking fish-caps on other boards. RCA/GE - NO on TTE/Audiovox - Possibly on TCE/Thompson I don't have good data on other brands, but anything HD-Ready would be questionable but a pure analog set would be more reliable afterwards. I would not do one on anything older than 1995-1997. (change in control technology)

 

[Gregg Loewen]

it most US markets, in home repair should be 250-300. It is the # 1 failure issue on the Mits RPTVs. Bruce, where are you located ? Steve, where are you located ?

 

[Steve Berger]

I'm in Peoria Illinois ~150k population. There are no large shops left in town and only a couple of traditional (component level) servicers left here. The only Factory Servicer still in business is 50 miles away. $200 seems to be the magic number; any more and the customer throws the set away rather than fixing it. Its worth more but you either do it for $200 or not at all. Actually there are no "shops" even doing in-home service here at all. I refer them to a tech who worked at one of the big shops that shut down and does it as a side-line to his regular job. I was an authorized service company for 25+ years but all the manufacturers cut the little guys loose about 6 years ago. When they went exclusively to board replacement, the "buy the board", "pay the core", "fix the set", "send the part back", "wait 2 months for credits" method of warranty repair caused cash flow problems that eventually put all the large shops here out of business. One shop had $100,000 in a floating parts fund that was depleted in one month when his son (who was going to take over the business) was inattentive and didn't follow up on claims and paperwork quickly enough.

 

[John Sparks]

It would be easy for me to just say "no" because I'm not the one paying for a new display. But if you did get it fixed, and lets say it was $400 total (but of course, I have no idea. Mother-boards can cost $500) then all you would have is a 9 year old tv that worked, until the next part failed. New displays are falling in price at an alarming rate right now. I had a 5-6 year old Mitsubishi (52631) that developed the famous "...tv will shut off in a few seconds" problem a few months ago and rather than throw money at it ( I wasn't convinced a solution was found for that particular problem) I shopped around for a while and bought a basic Panasonic 58" plasma for $799 + delivery and tax from Frys. They also had fantastic prices on Mitsubishi display models including a 60" DLP for $399. For $20 they hauled away the old tv. I've seen new name brand 55" LCD's for around $699. But don't buy the off-brands, at any price. If I new for sure they could have actually fixed the old one I might have had it repaired. But as I said before, I'd have a 5-6 year old tv waiting for something else to happen. I also agonized over the decision but when all's said and done I'd do it again in a heartbeat. But I miss the days of the "free estimates". Oh well.

I had a Mit 65711 that did the same thing. ISFed twice by 2 of the best in the industry and the lens cleaned. Should I keep throwing money at it or buy another? Pauls TV had a Mit 3-D DLP 65738 for $899 and I grabbed it (they're not making 65s anymore). I calibrated it from specs on the net and it looks pretty damn close to the 65711...film like. My wife doesn't see the rainbows, I see it very rarely, but my daughter got sick watching it...the grandkids see nothing. I haven't tried the 3-D yet, even though I have a Panny BD210 3-D player because I haven't gotten around to buying the glasses. This TV is only for our den, I have a dedicated HT with a PJ for watching movies. You can't go wrong buying something similiar to this, especially when the 65711 initially sold for $8000 and I bought it for $3500 in 2002. Those calibrations weren't cheap, $800 for the first, $550 for the second and $175 for the lens cleaning...the ISF for the PJ was $400.

 

[Bruce White]

Thanks to all who responded! We decided to bite the bullet and replace the TV with a Samsung 59" plasma set. BB comes Thursday for the install. Bruce