Warranty on Panasonic Home Theater System

Thursday May 11, 2007

Dear reader and friends and family,

Normally I am not a big believer in extended warranty on products I buy. I figure that
in most case the product has an initial factory warranty and they, the manufacture, believe
in the reliability of the product guarantee it sometime in excess of a year.

But Karen had bought a Sony Home Entertainment system about 5 years ago and she bought
for about $19.95 a 4 year extended warranty. She felt like it was a good investment on something we enjoy and not have to worry about it. And the warranty was cheap.

The Sony system soon had a glitch in it and we called Best Buy and they said to dismantle the
whole thing and bring it in. The put all these expensive components in a mixed box behind the counter and told me to go an select a replacement crediting me with the $249.95 we paid for it.

Well, they did not have that same model I brought in so the clerk told me I could select any system I liked to replace it. Of course I decided to upgrade and paid another $100.00 to get a nicer more powerful system. The Panasonic was $349.00 on sale but it MSRP was $499.95.

Now decision time as I go to checkout. Do I want to spend the $19.95 for a 4 year extended warranty since the first one failed. Yes! I spent about $140.00 more than I did on the Sony and have truly enjoyed the Panasonic since September of 2005.

This morning my power goes off as I am watching "Because I said so", a movie I rented from Blockbuster. Boom, everything goes out, the lights, TV, electronic phone, all are now off and I am sitting in the morning light with only my laptop to entertain me.

30 minutes later, the power comes back on and something goes wrong with the Pansonic subwoofer and central unit. The door on the DVD disk player comes halfway open and it says on the screen "Wait!". I did and nothing happen. Just like your computer locking up sometimes this piece of electronic dies.

I called the tech number on the back of the book of directions and we walk through trying to fix this glitch. I am undoing power, exchanging power cords, and resetting the power strip all this is plugged up to. But the subwoofer will not come on as the power light is now out and nothing we do will correct this. Service or warranty is now the question.

I told Al with Panasonic thanks then called Best Buy. They dial up your phone number and it shows I have the 4 year warranty and yes, the unit is under warranty. The lady is service said to dismantle the whole thing, bring it to us, and we'll give you a NEW ONE! WOW!

Karen and I plan to dismantle this bad boy tonight and cart it to BestBuy tonight. So wish us luck on putting the new one together as they are all different and you spend quite a bit of time getting all the cords connected between the unit, the TV, and the sub-woofer. Al said the sub-woofer is probably the culpret in this and it blows something in the power source inside and this shuts the whole thing down.

News at 11:00 tomorrow...Jeff in Birmingham, Alabama, USA

 
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