HELP: RCA's Repair Record On Tube Sets? (1 Viewer)

The reason I'm asking is because a friend wants to buy a 27 Inch RCA 27F650T & put it in the family room for his kids. The reason he wants the RCA is because it's the only set that has 4 Inputs & each Input has it's own Picture Settings & he wants to be able to adjust everything & then give the kids & their babysitter's a "Simple" Remote to use so they can't mess with any of the adjustments. The only thing that scares him (& me) about the RCA is their poor repair record. RCA now has a 1 year Labor Warranty compared to the old 90 day Warranty so I was wondering if their Quality Control has gotten any better? I'm not looking for any info on the old sets just the newer ones, Thanks.

In my personal experience with retail electronics sales.........NO it is not any better. :frowning:

Your friend may be better off buying a TV from a manfacturer with a good reliability record instead of a repair record. Repairs are always hit and miss, so a TV that doesn't break in the first place is always a better bet.

Personally I'd look at Panasonic and Samsung direct-view CRT sets...they are the most reliable (according to my sister who is a manager of a Best Buy).

Yes but Consumer Reports is based on past models & doesn't include most of the newer models. Thanks guys & I'm going to tell him it's a crap shoot & it's up to him if he wants to go with RCA or buy an Extended Warranty. Myself I would opt for the the JVC AV-27F475 which is what I told him to go look at in the first place.

consumer reports repair records have nothing to do with sets sold, they send out surveys asking readers what was repaired, they have the worst method of rating out there. The rca sets don't fail regularly they just sell a ton of tv's, there is also a difference in sets they have a few lines the cheap sets you find on sale all the time the mid line, and the scenium (which seems to be pretty good from teh feedback I get )
last time I checked the repair ratio (number repaired compared to sold under warranty) the best was panasonic, the worst was zenith rca fell in the middle

Oops that's right, Sanyo was the more reliable brand, not the Samsung. I don't think Best Buy (here in Canada) carries very many Sanyo products, and now that I think about it, my sister only mentioned Panasonic as reliable, nothing else.

they base it on perceived reliability also, they don't ask for any stats from manufacturers, they try to keep from asking for things so they can say they are unbiased. My favorite was when they tested 4 cars 2 japanese 2 american, each japanese car had 8 or 10 defects the american ones had none, but the average reliability for the japanese was better than average, the american was lower than average (toyota's president said a year or so ago the american companies now had the edge in reliability since japan was going for style) to get acurate reliability info use many sources not just one

So would you guys give the RCA a shot & would you buy an extended warranty? My thought is go get the JVC made in the same plant as the Panasonic's & don't be so picky about the Video Quality on the Inputs for the Kids

I find that the Panasonics have much better out of the box PQ than the JVCs. But then, I've never seen a JVC TV I liked...they always looked awful to me. Maybe that is why they are so inexpensive?

I'd go with the rca, they aren't bad, and can usually be had a little cheaper