Technika tv 27 February 2010 at 3:58PM in TV MoneySaving 10 replies 1.8K views

McKneff

I have had a Technika TV for about 5/6 years.

Suddenly it has decided to be stuck on BBC2. It wont change channel.
Obviously i changed the batts in the remote control but no, that wasnt it because it wont change even with the buttons on the TV.

The workshop where i took it to wanted to charge £30 just for looking at it before any repair.

Anyone any idea what it would be and/or if its worth repairing.
I dont mind paying someone to take a look at it but £30 seemed abit OTT.
Thanks in advance.

keith1950

Hi, £30 seems a completely reasonable amount to pay for a repair estimate and relates to about an hours labour. This charge would be deducted from the final bill if you go ahead with the repair. However remember that a 5 year old tv has zero market value so it's not really worth throwing any money at repairing it. The company I used to work for charged a fixed repair labour charge of £80 whether the repair took 10 minutes or 2 days.

roddydogs

CRT? just bin it.

jb66

get a new one from gumtree

macman

McKneff wrote: »

I have had a Technika TV for about 5/6 years.

Suddenly it has decided to be stuck on BBC2. It wont change channel.
Obviously i changed the batts in the remote control but no, that wasnt it because it wont change even with the buttons on the TV.

The workshop where i took it to wanted to charge £30 just for looking at it before any repair.

Anyone any idea what it would be and/or if its worth repairing.
I dont mind paying someone to take a look at it but £30 seemed abit OTT.
Thanks in advance.

Seems a perfectly reasonable charge to me-what would you reckon to pay then?
For things like this, the diagnosis probably takes longer than fixing it.

brewerdave

Consider yourself lucky that you have a local repair shop - ours went bust several years ago - the owner told me that he frequently had people in who wanted their sets repaired but when faced with his bill , refused to pick up the set and pay.
He was left with a string of 2nd hand TVs that nobody wanted - thats why any remaining shops will want a substantial sum up front even to look at the set.

hpuse

macman wrote: »

Seems a perfectly reasonable charge to me-what would you reckon to pay then?
For things like this, the diagnosis probably takes longer than fixing it.

If it is not a call-out visit in , I think 30 quid is a bit unreasonable.
Unless his diagnostic machine did some reading and writing to prove that it did some diagnostic (which I really doubt) there is no ethics in charging £30.
Professionals technicians demand a pay when the issue or item is fixed. And the smart ones takes only few minutes to decide whether they can really fix it...

macman

That would never work with TV's, because they are now so (relatively) cheap that hardly anyone has them fixed. Would you be willing to spend maybe 30 mins diagnosing the problem for free and doing a quote, only for the customer to say, 'I don't think I'll bother, I'll get a new one instead'? I don't think so.
And the diagnostic fee is always set against the repair cost if the work is proceeded with. Exactly the same principle as with laptop repairs.

hpuse

macman wrote: »

That would never work with TV's, because they are now so (relatively) cheap that hardly anyone has them fixed. Would you be willing to spend maybe 30 mins diagnosing the problem for free and doing a quote, only for the customer to say, 'I don't think I'll bother, I'll get a new one instead'? I don't think so.
And the diagnostic fee is always set against the repair cost if the work is proceeded with. Exactly the same principle as with laptop repairs.

Laptops are a bit different.
With TVs, you could have a minor lose contact with one of its circuit boards. It shouldn't take hours to find out the nature of fault.
Once the fault is fixed, it makes much sense in charging the customer. As a trader, he is entitled to raise an invoice and customer is legally bound to pay. If the fault is not fixed then the trader need to answer all sort of 'trading standards' related questions which could well make the invoice void.

jb66

The £30 fee is needed as the tv itself is probably not worth £30 so there is no security against folk not paying for the full amount to fix it. Most folk would never collect the TV.

will-in-estoril

hpuse wrote: »

If it is not a call-out visit in , I think 30 quid is a bit unreasonable.
Unless his diagnostic machine did some reading and writing to prove that it did some diagnostic (which I really doubt) there is no ethics in charging £30.
Professionals technicians demand a pay when the issue or item is fixed. And the smart ones takes only few minutes to decide whether they can really fix it...

£30 is perfectly reasonable: in fact it is more than reasonable. The repair company/woman/man will have invested in their own skills base, keeping it up to date, equipment, update and maintennce of equipment, manuals, cost of property, business rates, services to property. I could continue.

It is unfair to question the ethics of someone offering a service which is becoming scarcer and scarcer and who is probably scraping a living.

The only valid comparitor I can think of is a local garage: this TV repair shop is good value, I would contend!