Toshiba service nightmare - great unless they break (1 Viewer)

[John Frankel]

I have a TW40X81 and loved it for the first year. Almost exactly at the end of my warranty period I noticed that the convergence wasn't holding very well. After a quick search here on the forum I discovered it was a known problem with the digital convergence board.
I immediately called and purchased the extended warranty for the TV, just a couple days before my year was up. This was mid-December, and with the holidays coming I didn't feel like dealing with the TV, so I waited till January to report the problem. Oops.
The extended warranty people were nice enough, and they did know about the problem. The local folks who needed to do the service weren't quite as clued in, but after a phone call back to Toshiba they understood what was needed. Unfortunately the part wasn't available.. and wouldn't be until March!
Oh well, what was I to do. The TV was still useable, I just had to adjust the convergence each time I wanted to watch it. A pain to be sure, but not the end of the world.
March came.. and so did the phone call. Now the part wasn't due in until May. Sheesh! To make it worse, the convergence was getting "looser". I was having to fix it in the middle of a movie.
You can see where this is going of course... May came, the date was moved till June. It's now July and I still have a broken TV, and the problem gets worse each day. The convergence needs to be fixed every 30 minutes now, and the regular convergence adjustments don't even come close to fixing it. Obviously it's way too much trouble to go into the service menu every 30 minutes, so I'm stuck watching a $2500 TV with blue fringes on the left side of the frame, red on the right.
The local service people say they can't do anything till they have the part. Toshiba says it isn't their problem, I have to take it up with the extended warranty people. They of course say they don't make the part, so I have to wait on Toshiba. Keep in mind this is the extended warranty contract that came in the box with the Toshiba, not something I bought at the retailer.
Anyway, the picture on the TV was quite stunning when it was new.. I even bought the Toshiba SD-9100 to go with the TV so I could get 480p and switched from DirectTV to Dish to gain the HDTV channels. Of course, now nothing looks good and its gotten to be so much trouble to use the TV that I had to buy a cheap tube set for everyday use and switch the Toshiba to movie-only use. So, before you plunk down your hard earned cash for a Toshiba set, keep in mind that if you have a problem the company most certainly won't stand behind your purchase. I've got $4500 worth of their equipment, and I'm certain it will be the last money of mine they ever see.
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John,
www.moviesforguys.com

 

[Jim Douglas]

John,
I know where you are coming from. I had a convergence board problem with a TN50X81. I had a extended contract from the Good Guys store where I bought it. In my service contract there was a clause about a no lemon policy which basically said 3 service calls in any 12 month period and you could ask that the set be replaced. After not getting the set fixed after 3 tries I went back to the store and showed them all the service call tickets (actually six tickets, come out look at it order parts,come back) and they verified everything in the computer. They then offered me a new set but where out of the Toshiba so I got to trade for a Sony KP53HS10. Check out your contract good and see if there is anyway to get something like this or start complaining about having a 1 1/2 year old set you cannot get parts for. Call Toshiba and keep complaing on up the ladder till you get someone to do something. Good luck and keep after them
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[Greg Schwabacher]

I had the EXACT same problem with my TN55X81 back in March of 2000. My third and fourth Toshiba sets (the first two were replaced due to the infamous s-video problem) wouldn't hold convergence. The third set's convergence board completely died soon after I received it (the screen looked like you needed 3D glasses to view it after this happened) and, after being told that I'd need to wait three months for a replacement part (on a brand new set, no less), the TV was replaced by a fourth one. Almost immediately upon receiving the fourth set, the convergence started to drift wildly, and I decided enough was enough. I was able to get Toshiba to refund my money (less my extended warranty, which was purchased through a dealer who had gone out of business), but I had to speak to a "higher-up" to get anything to happen; the regular 1-800-number folks were of no use.
Send me an e-mail if you're interested in the name and contact info of the person I spoke to at Toshiba. I don't want to post the name here for fear that they'll be swamped by calls from people with relatively minor problems. Since you're out of warranty, you might have some additional stumbling blocks, but it's worth a shot.
Good luck!
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