Extended warranty for Plasma TV?
 

We have a 50" Hitachi Plasma that is 5 years old. When we bought it we purchased the extended warranty that will expire Feb.11th this year. We have not had one single problem with the TV. We have the opportunity to extend the warranty for one year at $99.99 or two more years for $179.99.

This is through Best Buy and the Geek Squad. The main reason we did the extended warranty in the first place is if we have a problem and they cant fix it at home they take care of all transport to and from the repair place, for a 50" Plasma that can get expensive fast.

So the question is...do we extend again. What would you do?

I never buy the warranties...especially on TV's. Seems like prices on plasmas are dropping exponetially every year. It's usually nto much more just to buy a new TV. And you never have to hassle or deal wiht the run around potentially associated with warranty/repair work.

An anecdotal story:

Buddy of mine bought a TV from Best Buy and got the extended warranty. After about a year it started randomly shutting off for no apparent reason. They came out and replaced some parts. It was still doing it so they came out about 6 weeks or so later and replaced something else. The problem was still there so they called again. Best Buy started stalling about the next service call and always had some excuse why they couldn't come out and look at it again. Turns out the warranty stated that if they serviced the same problem 3 times in a 90 day period and couldn't resolve the problem they would replace the TV. They were trying to drag ass and get outside the 90 day window so they wouldn't have to replace the TV. He ended up getting pissed and negotiated a deal with them where they gave him a discount on a new TV and he got a bigger one from a different mfg.

Personally I never go for those warranties - like Adam said - after a few years if it dies it's time for an upgrade anyway.

Take the $180 you would spend on a warranty and put it aside for an upgrade when the TV craps out. When it starts having signs of going bad, put it on craigs list for dirt cheap and say goodbye to it. Best Buy makes 75% of their TV revenue of the extended warranties. I live in Minneapolis and know many people at BBY HQ. They are a scam.

Time for an LED TV.

LED is so 2011...you need a OLED tv!

I have had two tvs fail in the last 6 years. Both times I recieved a full replacement under the warranty program. Both times I had to call extensively and argue, but both times I got new TVs. The most recent issue was with a TV purchased from Curcuit City. I thought I was screwed, but ended up ok. $100 is cheaper than $1000.0