Dear Sony

UncleZen

Dear Sony
My Sony TV is less than 3 years old and has failed. With two faults:

1. The built-in blue ray player no longer works
2. The firmware cannot be updated from a flash drive

I reported this to customer services who tried several things and eventually decided that this was a hardware fault and put me in touch with an authorised repair centre.
The authorised repair centre inspected the TV (cost £60) and informed me that:

1. The board that drives the blue ray player is faulty and will need replacing, unfortunately this part is no longer unavailable
2. The motherboard will need replacing at a cost of £280 + vat

Now, this is a TV that is less than 3 years old, and, in my opinion parts for a TV of that age should still be available. The fact that parts are no longer available suggests to me that they have been used up quickly because of the high number of failures. That in itself is a reason to continue to produce the parts. Sony on the other hand, appear not to think that way.
Furthermore, fault 2 requires a new motherborard, that’s an expensive failure on a TV less than 3 years old. I’m not impressed.

I’ve had Sony TVs for years and my last Sony TV is still working 10 years later. It would appear that your quality standards are not what they used to be.

When I buy my next TV my list of manufacturers will not include Sony.


All the best
UncleZen

Jnelhams

Dear UncleZen,

Get your TV engineer to write you a report on the reasons for your Sony's failure and how long in his opinion he would expect such an appliance to last. Then write to Sony setting out these faults, along with a copy of the engineers report. You can then remind Sony that under the Sale of Goods and Services Act, a Television should be of satisfactory quality and as such you want to know how they intend to rectify this situation.

If Sony ignore this, go to the County Court and make a claim for the costs of a repair or replacement reconditioned TV of a similar specification. As clearly a failure in under 3 years is not of Satisfactory quality.

Regards
John

Ectophile

Unless the TV was bought direct from Sony, then the contract is not with Sony, but with the retailer.

In other words, if the TV was bought in a shop, Sony can deny all responsibility for any problem unless the TV actually injures someone.

As for the board not being available, I'm not particularly surprised. The rate at which new models of electronic gadgets is released these days means that most things are becoming obsolete by the time they get to the shop. Nobody keeps selling the same model of TV for three years any more.

UncleZen

I won't have much joy with the retailer, I'm afraid, it was Comet :-(

vuvuzela

UncleZen wrote: »

I won't have much joy with the retailer, I'm afraid, it was Comet :-(

Did you buy it on a credit or debit card ?

wealdroam

vuvuzela wrote: »

Did you buy it on a credit or debit card ?

I am pretty sure a debit card won't help after this length of time.

HPoirot

This company has gone completely down the pan in recent years, and don't bet on them admitting that there is a widespread fault in one of their models either.

I recently bought a vaio which had a number of issues, including failing wifi connection, sticky plastic keyboards etc. The previous vaio I owned was of a much higher quality than this. Customer services just fobbed me off. On their support forum, there are hundreds of pages of vaio owners complaining about the failing wifi. From denying that there is a fault at first, sony started saying back in August that they were working on the fault and would issue a fix "very soon". I bought mine thinking all had been fixed. When I called customer services 2 weeks ago in October, hello, the same mantra was chanted to me, ie they would find a fix "very soon". They are not interested in issuing a statement about computer models faulting or recalling products. What they did instead was discontinue production of the vaio model on the quiet - when I went to return it to John Lewis a week after I got it, I was told that it had been discontinued. Meanwhile the forum is still living on with vaio customers spouting bile everyday.

I have owned a number of sony appliances over the years, but no more. I shall be looking elsewhere.

OP, sorry for the rant, your post just made me see red!!! I do not think the fact that you bought from Comet makes the manufacturer any less responsible for the goods sold.

vuvuzela

wealdroam wrote: »

I am pretty sure a debit card won't help after this length of time.

Exactly, which is why I asked the op which it was that they used

frugal_mike

HPoirot wrote: »

OP, sorry for the rant, your post just made me see red!!! I do not think the fact that you bought from Comet makes the manufacturer any less responsible for the goods sold.

As frustrating as it must be, the manufacturer has no responsibility (other than any warranty they supply) for the goods that a consumer buys from a retailer. It really isn't Sony's problem. As already pointed out, the OP has no contract with Sony so even the Sale of Goods Act can't make Sony do anything.

As vuvuzela said, if you paid on credit card then you have a claim against them, but you would need an engineers report claiming the fault was inherent and the tv had not lasted a reasonable length of time.

As a counter to the bad press Sony are getting here, I have a Sony Bravia that's a good few years old and hasn't had any problems at all. It's one of the better pieces of technology I've bought. Maybe their quality has gone downhill since I bought...

shaun_from_Africa

I have a Sony Bravia 32" TV that I bought in March 2007 and it's still going strong. (it had one problem about 2 years ago but when I bought the set, Sony offered a free 5 year warranty, so it was fixed FOC).
It's a bog standard 32" set and 6 1/2 years ago it cost me
£1199:eek:

frugal_mike

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

I have a Sony Bravia 32" TV that I bought in March 2007 and it's still going strong. (it had one problem about 2 years ago but when I bought the set, Sony offered a free 5 year warranty, so it was fixed FOC).
It's a bog standard 32" set and 6 1/2 years ago it cost me
£1199:eek:

Wow, prices have changed haven't they! Mine was around about that price for a 46" set 4 or 5 years ago. It claimed it was reduced from double that, but I've no idea if it was ever sold at that price.

I remember being amazed at how small it was. Previously I had a CRT that weighed 60Kg for a 32" screen that took up significantly more space than this Bravia. Now I go in shops and see TV's that are wafer thin and make mine look like a monster.

I wonder if this reduction in size makes them less reliable over time?