My 50 inch plasma TV went out last week.  It's a Panasonic that I bought April 17, 2012. It's not top of the line, but it cost me a thousand dollars and that's a significant amount for me and mine.  Anywho, I contacted Panasonic customer service and went through the whole warranty process.  They informed me that it would be a week before they could get someone out to look at it. The date didn't work for me, and they said I would have to call and set the service up myself. Okay...thanks for nothing. I call, they come get it that day and say they anticipate a week. They order the needed part. The service company calls this morning and says they were just informed by Panasonic the part is backordered and won't ship for three weeks. Back on the phone with Panasonic...

Panasonic says that I should just be patient with them. I say I shouldn't have to wait for over a month to have a TV on my wall when it is less than a year old and cost me $1,000. I want a replacement or my money back. They say no dice. We are locked in battle at the moment.

What says the hive: Am I being unreasonable or is Panasonic being the douche?

Their warranty, their terms on how and when it gets fixed

Seems excessive though

Try and get extended warranty out of them

Shitty situation but they are making good on it. Just because it is taking longer than you expect, doesn't make them wrong.

 

They're not dishonest, their customer service just sucks.  After hearing that, I wouldn't buy a Panasonic.

So at what time frame do we draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable?

I'm not sure. I paid $250 to get my $2500, 55" Samsung fixed at my local TV repair shop. Took the guy a couple hours.

Was it under warranty?

Maybe, didn't even check.

Television warranty service sucks these days. They pay so little for warranty work that no one wants to do it, so you have very few factory warranty centers. Usually you have to send the shit out to a remote servicer, then get it sent back.  TV's have become nothing more than commodity pieces with no profit in them unless it's top of the line product. We have considered a number of times just dropping audio and video depts. for this reason.

I wouldn't say you are being unreasonable, but just not accustomed to the tv warranty experience, as most people don't have to go through the process during the warranty period. Think if you had bought it more than a year ago and were fucked on having to cover the repair yourself. We try and help out customers in this situation, but there is only so much you can do when you are only making $100 on a $1000 tv sale.

That doesn't really sound like an unreasonable amount of time these days.  

It is possibly the power supply, sourced from someone else, has to come from China because they don't keep them in stock here, etc.  If you were within the first 3 months or so they would probably do a full replacement, but close to a year, nope.  They really should have stepped up and said "we will replace at no cost" to try and retain a customer instead.

Where did you buy it?

Costco?

Best Buy.

When my TV died, I did some internet research.  Found out a fuse on an inverter board is a usual culprit.  Figured the TV wasn't getting anymore broken so I tore into it.  Sure enough the tiny fuse (about the size of a grain of rice) was out.  Figured out it's specs and bought a couple from Mouser (order from them all the time anyway).  Soldered it on and it's been 2 years and the TV is still working.  Saved a $1000 TV with a $0.50 fix.

Supposed I wont always be that lucky.

Meh. Took me a month and a half to get my computer video card replaced under warranty. I did get a newer model back, though. Only TV repair I ever needed I did myself... Bad caps in the power supply. But it was also far out of warranty.

Guns don't get used by the entire family every day. Apples and oranges comparison, but thanks for your opinion.

So what would be considered a reasonable time frame?

My wife works with warranties every day at her work and the issue is that manufactures change models and components so often to bring us the "latest and greatest" that they don't keep a lot of replacement parts in stock for each model! It sucks your TV broke but it sounds like they are fulfilling the warranty as stated.