Itr could be folks have it and don't know they have it. In my case, you have to be very close to the set, within 3 or 4 feet to actually see them. At regular distance (about 10 feet for me), I can't see them at all.

Tech called today and said plasma screen was not available and that we needed to fax a copy of our receipt to customer service in Alabama to start a return authorization.

I spoke to someone in return authorization dept. They said that once the receipt is received it then goes for a upper management approval. Should take 3 to 5 business days and they would contact Circuit City to arrange for a replacement TV.

I'll post an update once I have further details

We received a letter from LG on Monday "Official Consumer Product Swap Authorization Letter"

I went to CC yesterday and it turns out we need to get a package from CC corporate before we can proceed further.

I was just told that CC package just arrived via Fed Ex today Thurs afternoon. I will be on my way shortly to pick that up and head to CC.

I'm hoping I can get the Panasonic 50" with a 5 year extended warranty. Should just cost about $100 more than the credit we will get for the Zenith which did not have an extended warranty. I know that they currently do not have a LG model to swap with in stock, we will see what happens.

unbelievable. I just went to the website and they removed the previously discussed link showing the 2 year warranty.
I dont suppose anyone had the presence of mind to do a screen capture or create a pdf.
This is ridiculous.

Why, yes I DID do a screen capture (since my z50px2d popped and died on 1/20/07). Incidently, parts weren't available until next week. Repair tech scheduled for 2/15/06 to install them...

The warranty BS is just that--they posted it for several months, confirmed the posting with emails, and now are retracting their statements and 'editing' of the warranty info. This could be the last Zenith/LG product I purchase...

Vince

"Could be?"

I wouldn't buy anything from them if they promised me that Tawanda would deliver it personally!

Just got off the phone with Zenith CSR 'Brenda'. Confirmed the BS warranty story, indicating that the website and any email correspondence was a 'mistake.' Warranty was for LG sets only.

I think these sets are failing left and right, and they want to get out from under them asap--hence, the warranty 'edit.'

Seems that the window for a customer swap is 15 business days, then my case goes to 'review...'

So, since my set was first diagnosed on January 29th (nine friggin' days after I called in the repair), and assuming the repair doesn't fix the problem, February 19 is the date at which I begin the process for a swap...

It has certainly been an 'interesting' adventure...

Vince

"Could be?"

I wouldn't buy anything from them if they promised me that Tawanda would deliver it personally!

Tawanda, Brenda, and Neil seem to all have instantly changed their tune regarding warranties and polices. I hope that screen shot I posted earlier can be of value and help owners on this issue. Even 'Brenda' seemed to have a dose of McNasty for lunch.

Change that after my recent post ^ from 'could be' to 'this will be the last Zenith/LG product I purchase...'

Vince

We received a letter from LG on Monday "Official Consumer Product Swap Authorization Letter"

I went to CC yesterday and it turns out we need to get a package from CC corporate before we can proceed further.

I was just told that CC package just arrived via Fed Ex today Thurs afternoon. I will be on my way shortly to pick that up and head to CC.

I'm hoping I can get the Panasonic 50" with a 5 year extended warranty. Should just cost about $100 more than the credit we will get for the Zenith which did not have an extended warranty. I know that they currently do not have a LG model to swap with in stock, we will see what happens.


Took under 20 min at CC CS desk for the Panny 50" 60U wiith the 5yr ext wrty. Came out to $85 over the credit given for the Zenith. Delivery is Sunday.

We just made the the 1 year warranty by 11 days, I can't believe what LG is pulling with the 2 yr warranty reneg. Good luck to everybody else, I hope they make good on the warranty extention.

Took under 20 min at CC CS desk for the Panny 50" 60U wiith the 5yr ext wrty. Came out to $85 over the credit given for the Zenith. Delivery is Sunday.

We just made the the 1 year warranty by 11 days, I can't believe what LG is pulling with the 2 yr warranty reneg. Good luck to everybody else, I hope they make good on the warranty extention.

Glad to hear you're getting out from under this mess. At least Panny has the Plasma Concierge service (so IF you experience a problem, you'll have a free loaner until yours is fixed). Could you consolidate/outline the steps you took to get the swap? I'm getting close to that point where I'm going to push for this, and I'd like to have a proven process ready to go...

Thanks,

V

Glad to hear you're getting out from under this mess. At least Panny has the Plasma Concierge service (so IF you experience a problem, you'll have a free loaner until yours is fixed). Could you consolidate/outline the steps you took to get the swap? I'm getting close to that point where I'm going to push for this, and I'd like to have a proven process ready to go...

Thanks,

V
After tech determined that the plasma screen was defective, he mentioned there may be an issue obtaining a replacement.

He called us back in about 3 days and said screen was on 4 - 6 week backorder.

He gave us a Case # . This was not the same as the ticket number associated with the service call.

Instructed us to fax a copy of sales receipt with case number on it to Customer Service in Alabama 256-542-5752.

Once the paperwork is received by cust srv another dept (ext 2388)puts it into the system and sends it to the Return Auth Department. If you need to reach RA dept call the CS # 800-243-0000 and ask to be transferred to ext 2327.

Their are two levels of approvals once in RA. Once approved LG will send the RA Swap Out letter to you and contacts the store directly (CC Corporate) where it was purchased.

We received a package from the store directing us how to make the swap. CC package arrive 3 days after the LG letter.

I was unable to open the pic of the 2 year warranty, not sure if why? also no answers about the sound of the Z. Have any of you gues had problems with the sound of your sets? Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

I was unable to open the pic of the 2 year warranty, not sure if why? also no answers about the sound of the Z. Have any of you gues had problems with the sound of your sets? Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

Let me know if you have issues opening it again. I just tried, and it worked fine.
Anyone else out there have problems with the jpg?

Shallace--if you do have further problems, pm me with your email, and I'll send it to you.

V

I was able to open it fine. Thank you NCTS_Tech for posting it.
Good forethought to do a screen cap.
I hope I never need it (and if I do, hope it works). Since my TV was repaired in Jan it works fine. Never had the sparkles, nor any sound problems.
While it was in the shop I bought a 42 Pany. When the Z was fixed I moved the Pany to the bedroom. Everyone feels the picture on the Pany is better than the Z.
I thought the Z was a great TV. Love the RGB input such that I can use it as a computer monitor (along w/ wireless keyboard and mouse). But, in light of the flip-flop on the warranty issue, and the problems many are having, I would hesitate to recommend a zenith to someone.
Perhaps I'm being unrealistic, I knew it was a 1 year warranty when I bought the TV. Was thrilled when JayPB posted the info about the 2 year warranty, and then got real ticked when it was cancelled. I guess my problem with the whole thing is that it looks like this TV may have more problems than "normal". If there is some design defect that causes this TV to fail prematurely (and right now we just have empirical evidence pointing to this), it seems reasonable to expect Zenith to stand behind their product.
I predict that a year from now, some of us will be using this thread to "part-out" the TV after it fails and we discover how much it costs to fix outside of warranty. (relative to the cost of a new plasma at that time).

I was unable to open the pic of the 2 year warranty, not sure if why? also no answers about the sound of the Z. Have any of you gues had problems with the sound of your sets? Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance.


How about here:

http://136.166.4.200/contents/Files/Displays/PDP/50/Z50PX2D.htm


That is a legit website and it is called "LG CS Academy Z50PX2D Resources"

Sound - are you talking about 1) buzzing or 2) how is the sound quaility from the Speakers?

1)The only buzzing I ever hear is when the Zenith is on and I have an AM radio tuned to 1090. The radio will put out a buzzing sound which is so loud that makes it sound like the speaker is going to blow.
I am serious about that. 1090 is a 10K Watt All Talk radio station.

This will also happen if I tune my Denon receiver to 1090 and turn on the TV

2) This past Football season made me very pleased that I did have an HDTV with it's own speakers.
I have a big UHF antenna outside and will often watch more than 1 football games that are being broadcast.

The Zenith's Favorite and Flashback features on the Remote allow one to quickly and easily switch back and forth between 2 channels and it does this MUCH better than my Directv Sat Receiver.

So, I watched most of the regular season while using the built in speakers on the Zenith. They sound decent,decent enough for sports and the 3D sound effect is not a gimic.

I was able to open it fine. Thank you NCTS_Tech for posting it.
Good forethought to do a screen cap.
I hope I never need it (and if I do, hope it works). Since my TV was repaired in Jan it works fine. Never had the sparkles, nor any sound problems.
While it was in the shop I bought a 42 Pany. When the Z was fixed I moved the Pany to the bedroom. Everyone feels the picture on the Pany is better than the Z.
I thought the Z was a great TV. Love the RGB input such that I can use it as a computer monitor (along w/ wireless keyboard and mouse). But, in light of the flip-flop on the warranty issue, and the problems many are having, I would hesitate to recommend a zenith to someone.
Perhaps I'm being unrealistic, I knew it was a 1 year warranty when I bought the TV. Was thrilled when JayPB posted the info about the 2 year warranty, and then got real ticked when it was cancelled. I guess my problem with the whole thing is that it looks like this TV may have more problems than "normal". If there is some design defect that causes this TV to fail prematurely (and right now we just have empirical evidence pointing to this), it seems reasonable to expect Zenith to stand behind their product.
I predict that a year from now, some of us will be using this thread to "part-out" the TV after it fails and we discover how much it costs to fix outside of warranty. (relative to the cost of a new plasma at that time).

Well, I contacted Neil (the LG e-mail System Administrator) again inquiring about the bad info/flip flop....and here's his response:

Thank you for your continued correspondence. The warranty on Zenith plasma screens has been returned to 1 year on parts and labor. Evidently, this was a mistake in our computer system. If this television currently needs repair, then we will extend the warranty to cover it at this time. However if this is not the case, then the warranty will remain as posted. We apologize for the inconvenience and confusion. Thank you again for contacting LG Electronics.

So, there it is....I *guess* if they have proof that they told you that the warranty was a 2 year jobbie, they'll be willing to eat the additional year IF you currently have a problem with the TV.....which, at this time (as he takes a HUGE 2x4 out and knocks on his wooden desk) I do not have. So, for those of you who, like me, e-mailed Zenith/LG's CS, I guess you have a leg to stand on.

just contacted cc to fix my sparkles, this should be interesting. I really want to just exchange for a new tv, but it seems the tech needs to confirm theres a problem.

So, since my set was first diagnosed on January 29th (nine friggin' days after I called in the repair), and assuming the repair doesn't fix the problem, February 19 is the date at which I begin the process for a swap...

It has certainly been an 'interesting' adventure...

V

Service tech arrived this morning, swapped-out several boards. Unit would power up, but no image. Ugh. Next step is to have the shop pick up the set for further diagnosis...and there's no way the set will be fixed by the 19th...

V.

Service tech arrived this morning, swapped-out several boards. Unit would power up, but no image. Ugh. Next step is to have the shop pick up the set for further diagnosis...and there's no way the set will be fixed by the 19th...

V.

V, Regarding the unpublicized exchange policy.... I was told by one CSR that 10 days was a "magic number", TheFly was quoted 15 days, a different CSR later told me 1 month. I am curious, are you basing your Feb 19th date on something posted here or did a CSR give you additional info?

V, Regarding the unpublicized exchange policy.... I was told by one CSR that 10 days was a "magic number", TheFly was quoted 15 days, a different CSR later told me 1 month. I am curious, are you basing your Feb 19th date on something posted here or did a CSR give you additional info?

Johnin: Just got off the phone with CSR, and the exchange is now moving forward. I'm not sure what 'magic number' today's CSR referred to, but he gave me an RMA, had me fax the repair history and proof of purchase. I offered to scan/email the documents, and he indicated that would work. So, I scanned/emailed the docs, and am now waiting for the next step...

Vince

Johnin: Just got off the phone with CSR, and the exchange is now moving forward. I'm not sure what 'magic number' today's CSR referred to, but he gave me an RMA, had me fax the repair history and proof of purchase. I offered to scan/email the documents, and he indicated that would work. So, I scanned/emailed the docs, and am now waiting for the next step...

Vince

Good for you! Are you going to get another Zenith? Also, when did you buy the TV? I assume you are still in the 1 year warranty period.
People talk about the Panny Concierge program where you get a loaner TV, but the zenith exchange thing beats the heck out of it.

Good for you! Are you going to get another Zenith? Also, when did you buy the TV? I assume you are still in the 1 year warranty period.
People talk about the Panny Concierge program where you get a loaner TV, but the zenith exchange thing beats the heck out of it.

Well, I'm having to research HDTV's all over again...I'm hoping to stay with plasma technology, but haven't decided on a brand yet...
Panny's got a more strict repair window (3 days) and the Concierge program...so I may have to search the avsforum for reviews and such.
Set was purchased 11/06.

We'll see how this proceeds,

V

How about here:


That is a legit website and it is called "LG CS Academy Z50PX2D Resources"

Sound - are you talking about 1) buzzing or 2) how is the sound quaility from the Speakers?

1)The only buzzing I ever hear is when the Zenith is on and I have an AM radio tuned to 1090. The radio will put out a buzzing sound which is so loud that makes it sound like the speaker is going to blow.
I am serious about that. 1090 is a 10K Watt All Talk radio station.

This will also happen if I tune my Denon receiver to 1090 and turn on the TV

2) This past Football season made me very pleased that I did have an HDTV with it's own speakers.
I have a big UHF antenna outside and will often watch more than 1 football games that are being broadcast.

The Zenith's Favorite and Flashback features on the Remote allow one to quickly and easily switch back and forth between 2 channels and it does this MUCH better than my Directv Sat Receiver.

So, I watched most of the regular season while using the built in speakers on the Zenith. They sound decent,decent enough for sports and the 3D sound effect is not a gimic.
Thanks joe Q i was able to open that link. My sound issue is with anything with an S in it,my tv has a lisp! I wish my set would go ahead and fail now,as i hope it doesn't do it next year while im paying for sunday ticket. If i hadn't found this sight i would be fretting much less about my zenith. Kinda like knowing the day your going to die would, little dramatic but i now expect problems instead of great longevity!

Anyone still concerned about the red sparkles? Or found a reason why they exist?! Thanks!

Thanks joe Q i was able to open that link. My sound issue is with anything with an S in it,my tv has a lisp! I wish my set would go ahead and fail now,as i hope it doesn't do it next year while im paying for sunday ticket. If i hadn't found this sight i would be fretting much less about my zenith. Kinda like knowing the day your going to die would, little dramatic but i now expect problems instead of great longevity!



"If i hadn't found this sight i would be fretting much less about my zenith. Kinda like knowing the day your going to die would, little dramatic but i now expect problems instead of great longevity"

Please put this into the proper perspective and you can go back to blissful ignorance,like me:)

Think about it, except for the 'tweakers' such as myself,you will find that, in general, people will migrate to CE review sites such as this where they can complain.

Zenith sold a bunch of these sets and if you were to add up the number of negative reports versus the number of positive reports, I would bet you my house that the ratio would be in the 1-2 percentile range of Negative reports.

Course, it is a bet that you could never collect on because as I noted, you will be hard pressed to find a place where people post positive comments. They are busy watching their tv'S

It is not a knock at the folks in here but I am merely stating human nature.


Go back and look at my posts. They have nada to do with problems because I am in here looking for tweaks and have been successfull.

For example:
1) I now have 3 service menu's that I can get into and have defined an EXPERT mode which is listed on the user menu along with "Normal/Night/Sports/etc.

2) I have a Geforce PCi-E card with a DVI connector hooked to the HDMI port on the Zenith and displaying a better resolution that the 1024x768 on the RGB input.

3) The list goes on just as this rambling email

Unit was purchased in Nov. 06, and was working great up until today. All of my components are protected with a Tripp-Lite Isobar HT10DBS.

I was wondering if you have determined if the Tripp-lite HT10DBS played any role in your Plasma failure. I was interested in this model myself. The bottom line is, do you feel confident using it for your new TV?

I was wondering if you have determined if the Tripp-lite HT10DBS played any role in your Plasma failure. I was interested in this model myself. The bottom line is, do you feel confident using it for your new TV?

I don't believe the surge protector played a role in the failure--all of the other components connected to it are working just fine, and we didn't have a surge at the time of failure (I have a 1400va ups on my servers, and no brownout/surge was logged in powerchute). The surge protector circuit breaker didn't trip, either. The surge protector isolates certain components from each other (separate circuits), and I have been impressed with it so far.

V

Anyone still concerned about the red sparkles? Or found a reason why they exist?! Thanks!


still have them!! sevice tech replaced a board with no luck in removing sparkles.
next they tell me they are going to replace the display???
guess they are replacing the entire plasma screen?? :confused:
dmr

hey Joe, think we could tweek this out of this set??

still have them!! sevice tech replaced a board with no luck in removing sparkles.
next they tell me they are going to replace the display???
guess they are replacing the entire plasma screen?? :confused:
dmr

hey Joe, think we could tweek this out of this set??

As I had mentioned, I can get into the 3 service menus on the TV BUT my TV does not exhibit the 'sparklys' so I have no way to test.

Reminds me of a Cheech and Chong Skit :)
"This a*** is great. Look at all the lights man! Hey look at all the sparklys!"

Well it looks like my Tv has the buzzing and the virus red sparkly effect. I like to watch fire works outside not on a movie. lol. Any way I just got off the phone with Cat at ZENITH and she was SOOOO nice in giving me the service center and telling me I am out of warranty. Then I explained that I was told ablout the 2 year warranty from the CSR last Nov before I had to purchache my extended warranty from CC. She told me today (now getting pissy) that she could not authorize a repair and I have to wait untill monday to talk to a supervisor. I told them that I have PROOF from their website of the 2 year warranty. She really changed her tune and said a supervisor will contact me monday.
I also just sent a email to them via thier website and attached a copy of the capture of the 2 year warranty. We shall see what happens. Thanks to this board and people the have the forethought to capture such a thing.

my tv was fine untill last nite. uggghhh

Here is a screen capture from the site a few posts ago, figured if people start using this as ammunition LG/Zenith would kill that also.

Here is a screen capture from the site a few posts ago, figured if people start using this as ammunition LG/Zenith would kill that also.


Good idea.

Perhaps we should keep your screen snapshot together with the website url.

http://136.166.4.200/contents/Files/Displays/PDP/50/Z50PX2D.htm




I did just buy a 1 year extended warranty yesterday (Feb 23) so of course my TV will not go poof.

Joe

Since I have been putzing around with hooking a new HTPC that I built hooked to my Zenith, I have been 'visiting' the service menus that I have referred to.

I am using a DVI card from Nvidia that support HDTV standards and (via an HDMI switch) have been displaying a dramatically great looking windows desktop on the Zenith.

I have macro's assigned on my MX700 to get into them and here are screen phots of them if folks are interested.


EDIT:Ah heck - the forum says that they are too big.
What is the name of that website which lets you (for free) put pictures on their site and provide the required URL formats for inserting into a post?[

I used that a lot last year but aI am drawing a blank now.
I would think that those that have not given up on the TV would be interested in this Service Menu.

I really like the ability to make a new MODE called 'Expert' which is listed along with 'Normal','Daylight',etc. as I do NOT recall that Expert mode was available until I turned it on in the Service Menu 3.

Joe

I really like the ability to make a new MODE called 'Expert' which is listed along with 'Normal','Daylight',etc. as I do NOT recall that Expert mode was available until I turned it on in the Service Menu 3.

Joe
How did you "turn it on in the service menu 3" or how did you get into service menu 3

Here is a screen capture from the site a few posts ago, figured if people start using this as ammunition LG/Zenith would kill that also.

Good idea.
Perhaps we should keep your screen snapshot together with the website url.
http://136.166.4.200/contents/Files/Displays/PDP/50/Z50PX2D.htm
Joe

I've been out of the Z50 loop (thread) for some time and have just come back now that my Z50 is starting to make some "crackling" sounds every so often after a commerical break and noticed this "2yr warranty" portion of the tread... but am I misreading something?...It appears to me that both the screen capture and the .url are clearly for the LG Z50PX2D with CableCard, which does have a 2 year warranty, not the Zenith model we all have. (which leads me to believe that this was part of the reason behind the LG costing more)...

Joe Q...I noticed a page back that you mentioned getting an extended warranty from CC 3 months after your warranty expired...how did you accomplish this? My warranty expired the end of Jan...thinking that it will be cheaper to buy the ext. warranty than a new plasma...thanks!

I've been out of the Z50 loop (thread) for some time and have just come back now that my Z50 is starting to make some "crackling" sounds every so often after a commerical break and noticed this "2yr warranty" portion of the tread... but am I misreading something?...It appears to me that both the screen capture and the .url are clearly for the LG Z50PX2D with CableCard, which does have a 2 year warranty, not the Zenith model we all have. (which leads me to believe that this was part of the reason behind the LG costing more)...

Joe Q...I noticed a page back that you mentioned getting an extended warranty from CC 3 months after your warranty expired...how did you accomplish this? My warranty expired the end of Jan...thinking that it will be cheaper to buy the ext. warranty than a new plasma...thanks!


It does get VERY confusing. I followed the link to the spec sheet on the website I posted and the spec says "ONE year"

Check out:
http://www.zenith.com/sub_prod/downloads_pdf/Z50PX2D.pdf

Search the PDF file for 'warranty'



About my extended Warranty:
My 1 year ended on November 15,2006

I got a call from a lady at CC a few days ago trying to get me to buy an extended warranty on a laptop that I just bought from them.
"No thanks but can you get me one for my TV set?"

She put me on hold while she looked up my registration info and said that they could offer me a 1/2 or 3 year extended warranty. They may have gone longer but I cut her off.

I don't believe that avsforum wants prices listed in here so you will have to PM me for the 1 and 2 year pricing as that was all I wrote down.

I can also give you the name of the Lady and her phone number/extension - she knew all about avsforum,

I took out a 1 year and they have an initial down payment and then 3 equal payments of the balance for the next 3 months.

The warranty is transferrable to the new owner (I checked because this will end up on Ebay before the year is out) and each year, I can add another year or two or 3 if I want.

At the risk of being called names, I was obviously not talking to a Customer Service Center in India because I could understand what she said.
Understand both the words and what the words meant.

The warranty is a Pretty good deal and I am going to buy my next TV from CC because of that and I hear they have great in home service if the TV goes splatto.




I do NOT work for CC but I Gotta admit that I am finding that I buy more and more stuff from them.
Over a year ago, I read that they were getting nailed by Best Buy so they had to develop some innovative sales strategies since they could never beat them on price alone. They have done so.

I was in the Computer Department at the Annapolis CC recently and got to talking to one of the salespeople.

He was a College Student and was really into Computer stuff and told me that CC tries to hire people who are 'into' the areas that they will be selling in.


Joe

Can someone give me the number to call for Zenith support. My tv just started the white flashing and I need to get something done.

:eek: Maybe you all know this but slow me has stumbled upon something that I think is really cool.


In the 'old' days of HTPC's (like a year ago ) we had to go through all kinds of hoops to get custom timing's to work between our PC's and our HDTV's in order to get the Windows Desktop to display.
Remember Powerstrip and transcoders and what a PITA it all was?


I have been putting together a new HTPC and to my please surprise, I found that if one uses an Nvidia Graphics card with DVI on it, that is all a thing of the past.

Nvidia has a control panel that lets you configue the card to work with an HDTV.

The Geforce 6500 card detected the Zenith as a digital HDTV and It lets you select 1080,720,etc. for the TV.
Took all of 3 minutes with the Zenith to get the windows desktop to display perfectly. I used the 720P setting.

The Nvidia control panel also has a tool that lets you tweak the display for any over/under scan that may be present.


I really only stumbled upon this because I moved my 2 year old PCI-E Nvidia Geforce 6500 Graphics card into the HTPC I am bulding because I got a real hot shot card for the Vista machine that I am also building.

The Geforce 6500 has a DVI connection that I used for my LCD PC Monitor.
It is a very inexpensive card


The wildest thing is that the NVidia tool shows our Zenith TV as an 'LG TVPDP' as the Digital Display hooked to it.


I had been using the RGB input (fixed at a max of 1024x768,as you all know) so I could display photos and such to the family from my laptop but now I can use the Zenith as a full blown High Rez Windows monitor.

How many of you have messed with hooking your Zenith to your PC?

This may be old hat to most of you but I am psyched that I am not stuck at 1024x768 display on the Zenith and I have all the color tweaking that Nivida provides.

Joe

Well my Z50PX2D dies yet again today. It only lasted 4 months this time. The picture has black lines though out and is real dim. Customer service at Zenith was no help. Since the set is 1 year and 2 months, it is not in warranty. She stated that Zenith will not extend the warranty for any reason. Even if it was just repaired for the same reason 4 months ago. She said that the life of the set is 60,000 hours. I had no idea that time passed so quickly. All of the service centers near me have closed down to Zenith. The closest one is about 60 miles away, and I live in Phoenix AZ.
Now all it is good for is target practice.

Well my Z50PX2D dies yet again today. It only lasted 4 months this time. The picture has black lines though out and is real dim. Customer service at Zenith was no help. Since the set is 1 year and 2 months, it is not in warranty. She stated that Zenith will not extend the warranty for any reason. Even if it was just repaired for the same reason 4 months ago. She said that the life of the set is 60,000 hours. I had no idea that time passed so quickly. All of the service centers near me have closed down to Zenith. The closest one is about 60 miles away, and I live in Phoenix AZ.
Now all it is good for is target practice.

I see now we are talking about needing repairs to repairs.

Well I am now a member of that club. I had the tuner board replaced in Oct to fix the flashing issue which has now returned. I got an extended warranty and will not be going through Zenith for the second repair. I read the extended warranty and it has a lemon clause that basically states after three repairs it is considered a "LEMON" and will be replaced. I'm now hoping it keeps failing.

I had a DVD player before that failed and was repaired and failed again outside of the warranty. I replaced it and forgot about it. About two years later I received a letter stating that DVD player was the subject of a class action law suit and I had the option of sending it in for a new model replacement. I would have really been mad if I had thrown it out (or used it for target practice), but luckily I kept it and got something out of it.

On another note, I've seen this TV mentioned on various deal forums and inevitably someone searches AVS Forums and references this thread to discuss the "quality" aspect of this TV. After that, they don't seem to think it is such a good deal.

JellyBelly, I'm in the midst of getting the flashing repaired as well. The service center replaced the tuner, but it did nothing to fix the problem. Now, four weeks later, they *think* they have it fixed. They're going to test it for a couple of days and then bring the TV back. I'll try to get as much info as I can from the service center regarding the replacement parts.

I got my warranty extended. I called and they gave me a customer number and want me to call my local service folks. I also got a letter from LG after I faxed my reciept. I will update when they look at my tv.

I got my warranty extended. I called and they gave me a customer number and want me to call my local service folks. I also got a letter from LG after I faxed my reciept. I will update when they look at my tv.


How specifically did you get your warranty extended?

Tawanda, Brenda, and Neil seem to all have instantly changed their tune regarding warranties and polices. I hope that screen shot I posted earlier can be of value and help owners on this issue. Even 'Brenda' seemed to have a dose of McNasty for lunch.

Change that after my recent post ^ from 'could be' to 'this will be the last Zenith/LG product I purchase...'

Vince

I hope your screen shot of the 2-year warranty will save me. I bought my unit 12/3/05 and it POPPED 3/2/07 at 15 months. It really sucks to spend $3k on a TV that only lasts 15 months...and I didn't buy the extended warranty for an additional $400.

The local repair shop who does Zenith warranty work will not work on Zenith's outside of a warranty. They don't want to touch them. They say the parts take forever to come in and 4 out of 5 of them are bad.

I bought the unit at BB and they told me they stopped selling them because of the bad experiences customer have had with them. I really think this unit is a lemon.

I called Zenith yesterday and spoke with Cat and she was not the most helpful CSR. I asked her if there was a recall on this unit after reading all of the bad reviews of the POP problem. She said Zenith hasn't had a recall in 30 years and people say bad things about all products. She claims there isn't a problem. I really want my unit fixed FOC but not sure what my odds are. I hated to spend money to fix it and then have it die again several months later but I can't bare to throw away $3K either.

This forum is great and now armed with a 2-year warranty screen shot I'll try to get them to fix it again. If I am unsuccessful, what recourse do I have? I feel like Zenith should step up to the plate and fix their mess but I'm not sure how. Class Action Lawsuit or threat of one? Wonder how many of these units are failing?

One more question for you...when my unit POPPED the picture went extremely dim...so much so you really can't watch the unit. Any ideas which board needs replaced?

One more question for you...when my unit POPPED the picture went extremely dim...so much so you really can't watch the unit. Any ideas which board needs replaced?

For what it's worth, when my unit popped, it didnt dim, it just plain wouldnt turn on. Well, OK, it did turn on for a second and then turned right off.

sorry to hear of all our problems. Still, I bet it is just a small percentage of sets.
We tend to post the horror stories, not the good stuff.
Thanks to Joe Q for the excellent info about the Gforce 6500 card. Thats very useful info and I appreciate you sharing it. I am in the market for a new PC and will keep this in mind. But, I wonder juist how long my (now fixed) set will last. On the bright side, I bet the next one I buy will be 1/3 the price of this one.

Thanks to Joe Q for the excellent info about the Gforce 6500 card. Thats very useful info and I appreciate you sharing it. I am in the market for a new PC and will keep this in mind. But, I wonder juist how long my (now fixed) set will last. On the bright side, I bet the next one I buy will be 1/3 the price of this one.


It does not have to be a 6500 card.

All you need to buy is ANY card based upon the Nvidia GPU and that it has a DVI connector on it.
Nvidia has very recently provided a unified driver.



Look around on ebay for a cheapie card. Just be careful of the interface.
There are now AGP,PCI-E (Pci express) and PCI card interfaces.

The 6500 that I refer to is a very low end card (ie. low price) PCI Express card.

I did just buy a higher end card for my newly built Vista machine and got a PNY 7300GT. It is a card made by PNY that uses the Nvidia 7300GT GPU and it too works perfectly with the zenith.

I still think it is really cool that the graphics card can figure out that the device on the other end of the DVI cable is an " LG PDP", as that is what the Nvidia control panel says about our Zenith.
I would expect that with HDMI but I thought that DVI was only one way.
Oh well, simple pleasures for simple minds:)

It does not have to be a 6500 card.

All you need to buy is ANY card based upon the Nvidia GPU and that it has a DVI connector on it.
Nvidia has very recently provided a unified driver.




Just to be sure I understand the benefit....
I currently have my computer feeding the Zenith with an RGB connection. When I view a photo it is streched horizontally.
I am assuming that with the Nvidia card, the aspect ratio will be correct?
Is that right?
Also, I am currently using the HDMI port for the dvd player. I will also need an HDMI switch, which I guess could be had for reasonable $ at monoprice.

One more question for you...when my unit POPPED the picture went extremely dim...so much so you really can't watch the unit. Any ideas which board needs replaced?

I had the exact issue--I had audio for all inputs/tuners, but all images were super-dim. After two trips, the repair tech had no idea which boards were bad. They were looking for visual damage on the boards, but many of the boards are buried/layered, and you can't see the backside of them anyway. The tech replaced three boards on the left side of the set (facing the back of the set).

Zenith sent the package from the RMA dept to me and to Circuit City, so I'll hopefully be getting a new set soon.

Vince

I had the exact issue--I had audio for all inputs/tuners, but all images were super-dim. After two trips, the repair tech had no idea which boards were bad. They were looking for visual damage on the boards, but many of the boards are buried/layered, and you can't see the backside of them anyway. The tech replaced three boards on the left side of the set (facing the back of the set).

Zenith sent the package from the RMA dept to me and to Circuit City, so I'll hopefully be getting a new set soon.

Vince

My issue sounds exactly like yours! I can see and hear all inputs/tuners but picture is super-dim. I was looking for visual damage as well but couldn't see the "X" boards without really taking the thing a part as they are buried behind the I/O connections on the back. I think I would need to take it off the stand to be able to access the three "X" cards. I read somewhere of someone having the POP issue (not sure if the result was no pic or just dim) and they said they had to replace the "X-main" board TWICE. :( I'm only assuming they meant the middle "X" board. I was going to really tear it down and look at these "X" boards if I can't get it serviced under the extended warranty.

I did read a post somewhere by a CC employee that you can't lay these units down b/c of the plasma gases. Any truth to that? Just need to know if I take the stand off if I should be careful not to lay it down.

Vince - if you looked at a service manual with the exploded diagram view could you ID the cards that were replaced in your unit? Is it all 3 of the "Y" cards? After replacing all of those cards you still have the same problem? Is that why you are getting a new set? Does CC even carry this set anymore? BB had so many problems with it they dropped it.

I wish I knew what these "X" and "Y" cards controlled.

sorry to hear of all our problems. Still, I bet it is just a small percentage of sets.
We tend to post the horror stories, not the good stuff.


Does anyone know of another thread where there have been so many reported issues with a plasma TV?

Or a manufacturer that extends the warranty to 2 years then changes it back to 1 year? During this period they probably had the greatest number of sets with their 1 year warranty expiring and people believing they had no reason to worry about purchasing an extended warranty..

I did read a post somewhere by a CC employee that you can't lay these units down b/c of the plasma gases. Any truth to that? Just need to know if I take the stand off if I should be careful not to lay it down.

Vince - if you looked at a service manual with the exploded diagram view could you ID the cards that were replaced in your unit? Is it all 3 of the "Y" cards? After replacing all of those cards you still have the same problem? Is that why you are getting a new set? Does CC even carry this set anymore? BB had so many problems with it they dropped it.

I wish I knew what these "X" and "Y" cards controlled.

Buckeye_Fan:
The boards that were replaced were the 6871qyh039b, 6871qyh088a, 6871qyh089a. That didn't fix the issue. As a matter of fact, it was more dead than before--none of the cooling fans ever came on, and no image at all...

I know that you shouldn't lay the screen down horizontally, but I'm not sure of the specifics why.

CC doesn't carry the set anymore, so I'm going with a different brand.

Vince

Repair guys made a second attempt to fix flashing problem. No luck, though. It was flashing within 5 minutes of plugging it back in at home.

Service center left a lot to be desired. I gave them explicit instructions on how to trigger the flashing, and even gave them a video of the flashing. However, I have this gut feeling that they didn't try very hard to resolve the problem. I spoke to the tech twice on the phone about the TV, and in all honesty, he just didn't seem to take anything I said seriously. Kind of a "I'm the tech and you're just a dumb customer" type of attitude. When I spoke to him today (right before they brought the TV back), he said the only thing they did was replace the same board they replaced the first time (which didn't fix the problem). He then proceeded to tell me it probably wasn't an issue with the TV. Instead, I must have some electrical issue going on in my house. When I mentioned AVSForum and the fact that many others were having this same issue, he immediately cut me off and said that was all he could do.

So, in a nutshell, the service center failed to fix the problem the first time (in-home) with a new tuner board. They then took the TV for 6 weeks and replaced the replacement board with a new board that still didn't fix the problem. Then, they pretty much washed their hands of the issue and said it was my problem.

On top of that, I now noticed that i have the red sparklies mentioned previously in this thread...

Could it get any better than this??? :mad:

OK, thanks for letting me rant. I feel better now... :)

Repair guys made a second attempt to fix flashing problem. No luck, though. It was flashing within 5 minutes of plugging it back in at home.

Service center left a lot to be desired. I gave them explicit instructions on how to trigger the flashing, and even gave them a video of the flashing. However, I have this gut feeling that they didn't try very hard to resolve the problem. I spoke to the tech twice on the phone about the TV, and in all honesty, he just didn't seem to take anything I said seriously. Kind of a "I'm the tech and you're just a dumb customer" type of attitude. When I spoke to him today (right before they brought the TV back), he said the only thing they did was replace the same board they replaced the first time (which didn't fix the problem). He then proceeded to tell me it probably wasn't an issue with the TV. Instead, I must have some electrical issue going on in my house. When I mentioned AVSForum and the fact that many others were having this same issue, he immediately cut me off and said that was all he could do.

So, in a nutshell, the service center failed to fix the problem the first time (in-home) with a new tuner board. They then took the TV for 6 weeks and replaced the replacement board with a new board that still didn't fix the problem. Then, they pretty much washed their hands of the issue and said it was my problem.

On top of that, I now noticed that i have the red sparklies mentioned previously in this thread...

Could it get any better than this??? :mad:

OK, thanks for letting me rant. I feel better now... :)

So what are you going to do next? Anyone ever think about small claims court?

So what are you going to do next? Anyone ever think about small claims court?I haven't decided yet. My wife and I are tired of dealing with the situation, and since I don't normally use the OTA tuner, it's not a huge issue for me. I just wanted to get it fixed in case we used it more in the future. Regardless, I'm still pretty upset about the situation. And I'm convinced that I'm not going to purchase another LG / Zenith product any time in the near future.

As for court, I personally would try to work the situation out directly with Zenith before taking that step. I doubt that would be a pleasant experience, though. I don't know if I'm going to go that far with it right now.

I know that you shouldn't lay the screen down horizontally, but I'm not sure of the specifics why.



It doesn't have anything to do with the "plasma gas". It's more an issue with the glass strength and flex. Think about one of those glass replacement trucks. Why do you think they carry the glass vertically instead of horizontally? The glass has much more strength in the vertical position.

That said, laying the plasma down to work on it won't cause you any problems. Just make sure the face is supported evenly with a comforter or something.

Repair guys made a second attempt to fix flashing problem. No luck, though. It was flashing within 5 minutes of plugging it back in at home.


Seems to me that, if you're still under warranty, a call to Zenith might get you an RMA. Two unsuccessful attempts to fix it - Instead of being mad, I bet you may turn out to be very lucky.
(return it if you can as opposed to just waiting for it to POP like so many of us have experienced).
There are at least two people here who have been issued RMA's without much hassle. I myself came very close but they fixed it before the "waiting time" was exceeded.

I called the service center back today and spoke with a different tech. He indicated that the instructions he received to trigger the flashing said nothing about tuning to a digital OTA channel. Consequently, he just hooked the TV up to basic cable, flipped to a different input, and could never get it to happen. So he basically made an educated guess as to what the problem might be and replaced a couple of boards. He also suggested that it was possibly an incompatibility with my components. However, after further discussion, he was open to it being the TV again.

To my surprise, he said he's willing to look into it further, and even guaranteed me the next service would be "in-home" so we wouldn't go without the TV for another six weeks. The only condition is that I can reproduce the problem for him on demand (which should be relatively simple) so he can call LG from my house.

I have to give the guy credit. My conversation with the other tech led me to believe they didn't want anything more to do with the TV. However, this guy seems genuinely interested in solving the problem. So, I guess my options are:

1) Let them continue to work on the TV a third time to resolve the issue.
2) Call Zenith and say I've had enough, and see if they'll do anything.
3) Do nothing and live with the problem (which isn't as bad as it seems since I have a D* receiver that serves as my primary tuner).

What would you do in this situation?

I called the service center back today and spoke with a different tech. He indicated that the instructions he received to trigger the flashing said nothing about tuning to a digital OTA channel. Consequently, he just hooked the TV up to basic cable, flipped to a different input, and could never get it to happen. So he basically made an educated guess as to what the problem might be and replaced a couple of boards. He also suggested that it was possibly an incompatibility with my components. However, after further discussion, he was open to it being the TV again.

To my surprise, he said he's willing to look into it further, and even guaranteed me the next service would be "in-home" so we wouldn't go without the TV for another six weeks. The only condition is that I can reproduce the problem for him on demand (which should be relatively simple) so he can call LG from my house.

I have to give the guy credit. My conversation with the other tech led me to believe they didn't want anything more to do with the TV. However, this guy seems genuinely interested in solving the problem. So, I guess my options are:

1) Let them continue to work on the TV a third time to resolve the issue.
2) Call Zenith and say I've had enough, and see if they'll do anything.
3) Do nothing and live with the problem (which isn't as bad as it seems since I have a D* receiver that serves as my primary tuner).

What would you do in this situation?

I would take JohninTonawanda's advice.

On another note...God bless the internet, AVS Forum, and the good folks who post here like NCTS_Tech! I was able to get LG/Zenith to agree to fix my set under warranty. :) It looks like it will go into the shop next week. Unfortunately I'll have to watch March Madness on a 27" analog TV. :(

Put me down on the list of people who's TV has "popped"
Was watching TV the other night and it made a muted pop, screen went black. Before I could reach over and grab the remote to turn it off, the TV made another pop, this one was much louder than the first. The second pop also had a metallic ring to it. After the second pop, the TV turned itself off. TV would not turn back on for about 2hrs. When I finally got it started again, I had a very dim, red picture with many moving black patches and lines, but the sound still worked.

The repair center is supposed to pick it up this afternoon.

I enjoyed this TV since I bought it last April. I do hope that the part takes more than two weeks to come in, so I can get an RMA. I'm leery of this set now, especially since they will probably use refrubed parts. Will update as more information becomes available.

CC doesn't carry the set anymore, so I'm going with a different brand.

Vince

RMA package arrived Fri. Took the dead set back to Circuit City--they were very helpful on the issue. Picked up a Panny TH-50px60u (about a $150 difference in price). I really appreciate everyone's help on this thread to resolve the issue. It would have been much more of a challenge without this forum's resources.

Thanks again,

Vince

Well, I had the TV on today and was doing work back in my bedroom when I heard a loud "pop". When I came into my living room the sound on my tv was still working but the screen had gone black.

I bought the TV Nov. 2005 from CC. Great deal at the time, on sale and got a rebate too. It has been a pretty good tv, a couple of times the screen went completely pink on me. I just had to turn the TV on/off and it went away.

Looks like I should have paid for the extended warranty. I will probably by the 50' Panny and get the service plan this time. I do plan on trying to fight Zenith to get it repaired for free, but I do not think I will get very far.

Does anyone have an idea of what a repair on this TV will cost?

Well, i read this post 6 months ago, bought the 50" Z and all was well until today........POP. Now the tv is dead...try to turn it on green light flashes and it goes back red. Supposed to have a repair guy come out next week, but honestly im hoping it takes too long and i can just get a credit at cc. If not, i will for sure be buying an extended warranty, cause it is obvious to me this tv is a lemon. :(

For those of you (unlike myself) who still have a wee bit of time left on their existing warranty, I'm wondering if something like this would be more cost effective:

http://www.tedunlimited.com/Store/Tab.aspx?tabid=5&gclid=CJPd1cDf9ooCFR_wgAod73a9lQ

The CC warranty that I was presented with was WAY too expensive/poor value. But it seems that y'all (I don't want to jinx myself now) are dropping like flies!!!!


So, the price on this TV has dropped dramatically since *most* of us purchased them.

that is super cheap, the only reason i was thinking of going with CC is they are local and it would be handled faster than a 3rd party warranty, but who knows.

I have owned this plasma for 15 months and it hasn't popped yet!

BUT...

About a week ago, the TV stopped receiving the remote control commands. I normally use a Harmony Remote 880. So when it didn't work, I dug out the remote that came with the TV.

It too did not work even though the light on the remote's "TV" button turned green every time I pressed buttons on it.

Thus I deduced that it is a TV problem.

Interestingly enough all the buttons physically located on the TV work perfectly. There is nothing blocking the front sensor. I can't figure out.

So I called the Zenith Tech Support and they were CLUELESS. They gave me a local service agency that will charge me an arm and a leg to send someone out.

Before I call them, does anyone have any ideas of what I can do?

Is there some hidden "turn off the remote" command? I noticed there is an RS-232 command to turn off the remote sensor but it also turns off the front button on the TV so I don't think that's it.

Any ideas?

I have owned this plasma for 15 months and it hasn't popped yet!

BUT...

About a week ago, the TV stopped receiving the remote control commands. I normally use a Harmony Remote 880. So when it didn't work, I dug out the remote that came with the TV.

It too did not work even though the light on the remote's "TV" button turned green every time I pressed buttons on it.

Thus I deduced that it is a TV problem.

Interestingly enough all the buttons physically located on the TV work perfectly. There is nothing blocking the front sensor. I can't figure out.

So I called the Zenith Tech Support and they were CLUELESS. They gave me a local service agency that will charge me an arm and a leg to send someone out.

Before I call them, does anyone have any ideas of what I can do?

Is there some hidden "turn off the remote" command? I noticed there is an RS-232 command to turn off the remote sensor but it also turns off the front button on the TV so I don't think that's it.

Any ideas?

Have you checked to see if any other components in the room are able to be operated by their remote control? I only ask because I once had a situation with this TV and an HDTIVO whereby a remote control for a TOTALLY DIFFERENT UNIT was aimed at the TV---while I had something on top of it---and I was unable to operate either the TV/HDTIVO/DVD player by remote---UNTIL I realized that the remote for my old Hughes DirecTV receiver was "engaged" while aimed at the TV...TOTALLY interfering with the remote operation of the rest of the units. Had me thrown for a loop...until I figured out what was going on.

Just a thought...
:o

Is there some hidden "turn off the remote" command? I noticed there is an RS-232 command to turn off the remote sensor but it also turns off the front button on the TV so I don't think that's it.

Any ideas?
I believe ther is,i'll look for it.
How do you think you might have "turned it off"?
Do you have children that could have messed with the remote?

Yes, I have 9, 7 and 5 year old children. I've been thinking of boarding school since this happend!

I believe ther is,i'll look for it.
How do you think you might have "turned it off"?
Do you have children that could have messed with the remote?

Well mine popped after about a year. Covered under warranty, but when the local repair shop called LG, they did not have the boards in stock. They are sending a "substitute part" HMM, I wonder what that means. Any ideas?? This set failed at a year so my confidence in the longevity of future operation is not high. Any one have an idea of the out of pocket cost if it pops out of warranty?

Well mine popped after about a year. Covered under warranty, but when the local repair shop called LG, they did not have the boards in stock. They are sending a "substitute part" HMM, I wonder what that means. Any ideas?? This set failed at a year so my confidence in the longevity of future operation is not high. Any one have an idea of the out of pocket cost if it pops out of warranty?

This is strictly a guess but I'm betting you would pay $150+ just to diagnose the problem and that the digital boards that are replaced would be $200 - $400/ea. I'm not sure what you would end up paying in labor beyond the diagnostic fee.

Mine is in the shop right now awaiting YSUS and ZSUS boards which are both on backorder with no ETA so my guess is I'm looking at approx. $400-800 in parts alone. Do you know which board(s) you need? I'd be curious to know what a substitute part is as well.

I've been debating about buying someone's dead unit just for parts as I don't have great confidence in the longevity of this unit as well. My only hesitation is that it is probably the same parts that are failing in all of these units that POP and buying a dead unit for parts would buy me nothing more than 2 TVs with the same dead boards. :(

I wonder why you're getting an out of stock, and I'm getting the substitute board receive in 3-5 day story. I'll let you know what boards they are replacing. They were the two boards on the right side of the set if you're looking at the back if that helps. Hopefully the sub boards will be more reliable.

Has anyone else complained about the red sparkles?

Well my TV has been fixed. The repair guy replaced the y and z boards and a few others. He had some extra parts that he let me keep, a power supply board, a y board and a smaller board. He was really cool and told me a few decent places to get an extended warranty. He also told me the picture is better than the lg plasmas.
He claims the problem with these tvs was the boards were made in korea and assembled in mexico. Something about the altitude change makes the boards separate and fail. The new boards he put in he claims are made in mexico and do not have the same quality control issue.
Anyway, I will be purchasing an extended warranty on this tv, and the repair man said they will use parts that they order for repairs. This means they cant use my parts, so i would be willing to sell them fairly cheap to someone that go hosed on this tv.

Another popper here after 1 year and 5 months. I didn't purchase extended warranty. From my limited reading online, this is going out for bulk waste pickup. Please kindly let me know if someone knows better or have had experience in reasonable repair cost? Thanks.

Another popper here after 1 year and 5 months. I didn't purchase extended warranty. From my limited reading online, this is going out for bulk waste pickup. Please kindly let me know if someone knows better or have had experience in reasonable repair cost? Thanks.
Well, if it were me, I would call up Zenith customer service, speak to a manager and:
1. express my belief that the prevelance of "popping" of these Zenith's are a manufactures defect that should result in a recall.
2. point out the change in the manufactures warranty from 1 yr to 2 yr back to 1 yr as posted online (pdf screen captures elsewhere in this thread).

If you do put it out with Bulk trash, please PM me your address so I can grab some boards for when mine fails (again) and items 1 and 2 above dont work.
:)
good luck and please let us know how it goes.

Just an update: After my Zenith 50" went down, I decided not to have it repaired, because of the cost and over all quality of their tv's to begin with. I just bought the 50" Panny, got a really good deal. I paid the $400 for a 5 year warranty this time.

anyone want to sell me a busted zenith, i have all the parts and wouldnt mind another one around.

I recently purchased a 42" Samsung Plasma that I came across at an UNHEARD of price on Buy.com 2 weeks ago. Anyway, I've been reading up on the model here on AVS and came across this post WRT "Sparklies" on this particular model...and I seem to recall some folks here noticing the same issue on the Zenith:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10147307&&#post10147307

Not sure if those with the sparklies are using HDMI...but if you are it's a starting point....I guess ?!?!? :confused:

I would also be interested in buying a busted unit for parts if you are near Columbus, OH. PM me if interested. Thx.

I contacted LG. The guy on the phone said I should get someone to dianose the problem and fax them the repair estimate. This Gentle man was reasonable on the phone. It sounded like they may be willing to do something. Anyone had dealt with them in such cases yet? Thanks.

I contacted LG. The guy on the phone said I should get someone to dianose the problem and fax them the repair estimate. This Gentle man was reasonable on the phone. It sounded like they may be willing to do something. Anyone had dealt with them in such cases yet? Thanks.
Since you're out of the official warranty period this is a good sign for the rest of us.
Did you say anything special that triggered their cooperation?

Well, I had the TV on today and was doing work back in my bedroom when I heard a loud "pop". When I came into my living room the sound on my tv was still working but the screen had gone black.

I bought the TV Nov. 2005 from CC. Great deal at the time, on sale and got a rebate too. It has been a pretty good tv, a couple of times the screen went completely pink on me. I just had to turn the TV on/off and it went away.

Looks like I should have paid for the extended warranty. I will probably by the 50' Panny and get the service plan this time. I do plan on trying to fight Zenith to get it repaired for free, but I do not think I will get very far.

Does anyone have an idea of what a repair on this TV will cost?

Exactly the same thing happened to me today. Word for word except ours was purchased in Oct. 2005 from CC. Smell of fried electronics. Maybe there is something to that Korea/Mexico circuit board story.

I had the 2 loud pops and then the black screen with a faint picture. After looking through this thread, I called Zenith. When the CSR said I was responsible since it was out of warranty (owned it 16 months), I told him I had documantation of the 2 year warranty. He said if I faxed it to him, they would honor it. I faxed the LG warranty, the LG academy screen with 2 year, the screen shot of the Zenith web site showing the after 4/04 2 year, and the email response. All of these I got from prvious posts here. Thanks to all who linked and provided info.

This all happened today (Saturday), so I'll update as things progress.

Update: CSR had to run documentation past a supervisor. Repair tech called today (Tuesday) and will be out tomorrow.

Update: Tech came out, said there is a bulletin about popping, will order circuit boards, which he said will be better quality. Called CSR again and they said it is under a 2-year warranty. Thanks again to all who post here; without you I would be out a lot os $ and really pi*&* off.

Update: after daily check-up calls to CSR, i was told 1 part was on back order. The next day the tech called and said he had all parts and came out to fix it. 2 boards were wrong; he returned the next day with correct parts and complted repair. He said that these boards are much better quality than OEM boards. We will see. Repair completed on 4/27; 20 days w/o a TV. CSR had told me if the parts were not shipped by 5/1, they would start RMA process.

Thanks to all previous posters, especially those with links to documentation. I now have 7 months left on the warranty, as well as 2 years after that due to the Visa Platinum protection.

I had the 2 loud pops and then the black screen with a faint picture. After looking through this thread, I called Zenith. When the CSR said I was responsible since it was out of warranty (owned it 16 months), I told him I had documantation of the 2 year warranty. He said if I faxed it to him, they would honor it. I faxed the LG warranty, the LG academy screen with 2 year, the screen shot of the Zenithe web site showing the after 4/04 2 year, and the email response. All of these I got from prvious posts here. Thanks to all who linked and provided info.

This all happened today, so I'll update as things progress.

Same thing happened to me and thanks to this great site and the folks who contribute to it mine is now fixed. I took the same approach you did and was armed with the documenation from this site. It took a month to get it back from the shop and I missed March Madness but they covered it under the 2 year warranty (mine was 15 months old when the pop occured). My YSUS and ZSUS boards were replaced. I'm keeping my fingers crossed it will last longer than 15 months this time.

Just an FYI:

For those who bought the TV at CC at around the same time I did (Xmas season 2005)...I recently received a warranty extension mailer to extend the warranty...a full 4 months after the MFR 1 year warranty had expired. I bit the bullet and decided to call and take advantage of the 1 year warranty extension (for me, it would cost $278.09)...and I verified before I took it that it starts tomorrow and NOT on the date that my MFR's expired (12/17/06).

There was TOO MUCH of a heavy weighting of evidence IMHO of the "popping" for me to sit back and adhere to my (self-imposed) "No extended warranty policy" :o

For me, this particular TV purchase was one instance where a warranty made sense...and the reason I didn't go for the multi-year extension is: I usually turn my TV's over like I do my satellite boxes....once every 2-3 years!

For those who are interested, the extended warranty broke down as such:

1 year 278.09
2 years 527.35
3 years 754.98
4 years 944.50
5 years 1,140.20

That's a LOT of money for a multi year warranty...and IIRC, once the TV "goes" and you get a replacement in year 1,2,3 (etc) the warranty is "one and done"

YMMV

Here is an update on my 'pop' repair. Mine poped after 16 months. As I said in my earlier post, LG appeared quite reasonable on the phone without me raising the 2 year warranty issue. I got a repair estimate (Y, Z, power boards + labor and tax at $1130). I faxed LG the information and raised the two year warranty issue. I just called them and the nice lady on the phone said they will authorize an extended warranty to cover the repair cost.

Here is an update on my 'pop' repair. Mine poped after 16 months. As I said in my earlier post, LG appeared quite reasonable on the phone without me raising the 2 year warranty issue. I got a repair estimate (Y, Z, power boards + labor and tax at $1130). I faxed LG the information and raised the two year warranty issue. I just called them and the nice lady on the phone said they will authorize an extended warranty to cover the repair cost.
good for you!
good for Zenith to stand behind their product
and good for us that there is hope we will be similarly treated if in the same situation

Good luck to everyone with their Z50. After multiple (failed) attempts to fix the flashing problem, and a 7 week wait for one of the repairs, LG agreed to a return authorization on my TV.

Other than the flashing issue, I'd been really happy with the television -- so it's kind of bittersweet to let it go. However, in the long run, this is probably the best solution given some of the other concerns listed in this thread.

Anyway, may your Z give you years of enjoyment. And if not, I hope LG takes care of you. (They were actually pretty decent every time I spoke to them regarding my issues and the eventual RA.)

Just got my TV back yesterday. YSUS and ZSUS boards and a power supply were replaced. Good as new so far, but I can't help but expect the failure to return. Hopefully the replacement parts are more sturdy than the originals.

Just got my TV back yesterday. YSUS and ZSUS boards and a power supply were replaced. Good as new so far, but I can't help but expect the failure to return. Hopefully the replacement parts are more sturdy than the originals.

Out of curiosity, these parts that are being replaced as a result of board failures/"poppings".....are all of your original settings (i.e. picture, inputs, channel favorites, etc...) LOST as a result of these part replacements?

I only ask because I had my Z calibrated last year and would HATE to have to deal with adjusting picture quality on my own (again---which is why I went for the calibration $$$) IF the set reverts to factory settings after those boards are replaced.

It retained the settings I had when it popped. I don't know about the channel memory, as it's something I don't use.

Hey guys, I'm new here to the board. Well add me to the list of "poppers". Here's my story. We purchased the Zenith Z50PX2D from CC on 12-29-05 along with the extended warranty. I didn't know enough about the plasma technology to trust it. The set worked fine until about 3 months after owning it. One morning we got up and tried to turn on the set and nothing happened. I called CC to get someone to look at it and they said it would be a week before they could get a tech out to check it out. 5 days later, the repairman called to set up a visit. He asked me to try turning on the set again. I did and it worked. He said that sometimes the power supply trips and it takes a few days to reset itself. Weird but I said OK. Anyone else heard of that? So the TV worked great until 2-9-07. That night we were watching TV and heard a small pop followed by a really loud pop and the picture went blank. We could still hear it, just no picture. So I called CC the next day (2-10-07) to have someone come out and check it. A repair shop called and came out on the next week (2-14-07) to check it. The tech saw no visible signs of damage and wasn't getting any strange reading from his meter from any of the boards. So he called Zenith and they told him it was the power control board (PCB). He orders one and say's it should be in next week and scheduled another visit for the next Wednesday. Well, 4 weeks later (3-14-07) he's back with another PCB. After replacing it, the set still doesn't have a picture. He calls Zenith again and they recommend replacing a digital board. So he orders that. During the 4 weeks, I made many calls to CC and Zenith. Zenith claimed to not know of a popping problem and said there was nothing they could do because it happened 2 months after the original 12 months warranty. CC gave me a dozen different phone numbers to call and passed me around from department to department. I would finally get to someone who would tell me they would check on it and call me back. They never did. I always had to call them back and go through the whole story with a different person. I was told at first that if the part took longer than 10 days I would get a replacement set. After 10 days, the story was 30 days. After 30 days, it was 3 attempts to repair the set. OK so I have 2 more shots at getting this fixed before it's replaced. So on 3-28-07 the tech replaces the digital board. Well now the set has no picture AND no sound. The tech thinks that maybe the first PCB he replaced was bad, so he orders a new one. The next week (4-4-07) he's back and replaces the PCB once again. Still no sound or picture from the set. So great there's my third repair attempt. It's replacement time right? Not so fast. I call the CC extended warranty folks (who are actually GE Electronics employees. CC subs out the extended warranty contract) and I am told that the magic date is 60 days from when the problem was reported. Great, keep changing the rules on me. She said I would have to wait until 60 days was up before they would CONSIDER a replacement. I asked about Section 15 in the Terms and Conditions of the extended warranty contract: the No Lemon Guarantee. It states that during the term of the Contract, if your product is repaired twice and it fails a third time...we will replace it under our No Lemon Guarantee. She has the nerve to tell me "Sir, we haven't repaired you set the first time yet." Her name was "Mary" and she claimed to be a supervisor. She says that a set must be repaired and working for 30 days, fail a second time, be repaired and working for 30 more days and then fail a third time to be considered a lemon. What a joke! She says I must wait until my 60 days are up. On 4-6-07 I call the GE folks (aka CC) back to check on the status of my claim. She tells me the repair shop is waiting to hear back from Zenith. I say there's no way they can order a part and replace it before 4-10-07. She asks what happens on the 10th? I tell her my 60 days runs out and I should get a replacement. She tells me there's no 60 day limit on repairing something. I ask to speak to Mary and she tells me she is busy and can't help me. She tells me that they won't CONSIDER a replacement unless that repair shop deems it unrepairable. So I call the tech that's been working on it and he tells me he is that short of replacing nearly everything inside of the set, he is out of ideas, but if he says it's unrepairable, then GE won't pay him for all of his visits. Nice plan there. Tell the customer that if it can't be fixed, they'll replace it and tell the repair shop that if they don't fix it they won't get paid. I just told the tech that the outcome of this for me lies in his hands and left it at that. I called the GE people back on 4-12-07 and was told that it had been approved for the set to be replaced and that they had 7-10 days to find a replacement unit. If I refused the replacement I would get a store credit for the value of the replacement, not the amount that I paid for the set. This whole experience has been a rip off and this will be my last purchase of a Zenith/LG product and will be the last time a buy from CC. I would recommend to all of you who are considering buying the extended warranty from CC, read that fine print. Did you know that purchasing the extended warranty excludes you from joining or consolidating your claim with the claims of others or that you will not have the right to participate in a class action suit? Nice little addition right there, huh. Buyer beware does mean buyer beware for sure here.

I also took the time to complie a list of who's had what problem. Feel free to add to it or edit it.
flashing:
Byron Walter
BradClark
JellyBellyMD
ramsey_55
Chilli_Dog
jaypb
eddiwill

Popping:
benwilard
dane2525
pajer
RBG
elfedz
Lcars
JohninTonawanda
The Fly
drjonesn
newbeetle18t
NCTS_tech
Gonzoga
cet98
Buckeye_Fan
vetteboi88
Sammylow
trikflow77
surfvland
jjsf
magrathea
billferreirae
*Boomer*
WindTunnel
kcr6419
dizzyliz
R-U-Q-R-U
rwmccullough

Red Sparkles:
dmr3712
eddiwill
drjonesn
proteus69
bayouvette
Hoowahman
wildland1
Chilli_Dog
JellyBellyMD

Washed out picture:
90SPGred

All - I am new to this site. I found it on Saturday Feb 24th, while searching the web for information on my Zenith making the POP. It was 2 months out of warranty, and much like the stories I'm reading here from the other members, Zenith basically told me "sorry about your luck" when I called for help.

I just picked up the TV, after one heck of a long wait on Tuesday. The repair bill said the "E-Buffer Assembly" and the "Y-SUS PCP ASSY" were replaced. Total cost with labor ran me just under $1000. Frustrating, as it seems many of you already know. I did not have the extended warranty, as it seems ridiculous to have to pay $500 (Circuit City) to have a TV last more than 14 months. My parents still have a Panasonic color 13" set that they bought when they got married (in 1968). It works great. Sad state of affairs, isn't it?

Anyway, for what it is worth - I didn't read about anybody trying this - so I have filed a formal complaint with the Better Business Bureau. I'm skeptical that it will get me anywhere, however I did reference this website if they don't believe that many others are having this issue. It's pretty much impossible to believe that, though, given the number of phone calls I am sure they have received.

I will keep you updated on the progress of my claim...cross your fingers for me.

Interestingly enough, I also just recieved the offer to get a Circuit City warranty again, but the price is way too high, to me. If this TV blows up again, I think I'll be switching to LCD (with 1080p). I wonder if LG knows I was looking at buying a new refrigerator...I used to like one of their models, not so much anymore! I'm due for a "new every two" cell phone also...LG's off that list too! Maybe if they make things right through the BBB I'll reconsider.

Well...mine just went POP as well. It was purchased on 1/10/2006 and died on 4/15/2007. About 15 months from purchase.

I was watching a DVR recorded show and I looked down for a second. I heard a loud POP and thought something had fallen off the entertainment center. I then noticed that the screen was dark but sound was still coming from the AV receiver.

I turned it off and back on but I just get a really dim screen with almost like a snowy appearance.

I do have a 4 year extended warranty so I will be calling tomorrow to see what needs to be done to get this repaired.

I was just telling my fater-in-law about a week ago what a good TV it has been. The TV is usually on about 10-15 hours per day since I work from home a lot so I've used it a lot in those 15 months. I haven't checked the hours since a couple months after I got it so I'm interested to see what it shows now. I guess I won't know until it's fixed.

I'm thinking about getting a Panasonic as a replacement and putting this one in the bedroom once it's fixed.

Sorry to see that you guys are also in the same boat as the rest of the "poppers". I added your names to the list. I hope you have better luck than I have so far. When I called Zenith they acted like I was making up the story of my TV popping. I'm calling them back tomorrow just to see what they have to say now. There are probably many more people out there who are dealing with this same mess right now.

I also took the time to compile a list of who's had what problem. Feel free to add to it or edit it.


Thanks for taking the time to do this.
I dont suppose you noted how many unique posts there were or if anyone knows an easy way to figure that out. It would give us a rough idea of failure rate.
It would be interesting to see if, for example, 24 out of 100 (or 500?) owners experienced popping.
I know this wouldnt be an exact sample as some have posted here only after experiencing the pop. But it would give us an idea of just how common the problem is.

I also took the time to complie a list of who's had what problem. Feel free to add to it or edit it.
flashing:
Byron Walter
BradClark
JellyBellyMD
ramsey_55
Chilli_Dog


In addition to the red sparklies, I also had the "flashing". It "went away" when I got a Harmony remote and no longer had to cycle through inputs. That's what caused it every time for me.

You can add me to the list for flashing....and hopefully not popping..... :eek:

I had the red sparkles as well.

Any difference as to sparklies on various connections? I notice them most on my DVD player via component. I need to make sure I have them on HDMI as well. Typically they go away after the set is on for an hour or so.

I too have experienced the flashing. I don't use the internal tuner much but back when my cable box was having problems with low signal for football sunday I switched to the internal tuner which was showing no problems with the signal. After the football game I switched back to the component input and it started flashing. I can reproduce it every time by cycling to the internal tuner and back.

I also have the red sparkles. I can only see them in black images If I'm about 2 ft from the screen or closer. You can't see them unless you are that close.

I contacted BB for service in regards to the POP and they were quick and friendly and had no problem looking up my info and finding the nearest service center...2 hours from my house! The service center has not yet called me. I'm showing a service center in Charlotte not to far from my house so I'm not sure why they are sending this to one 2 hours away.

We'll see what happens.

It is on both my inputs, now that I check again. :-(

Add me to the pop list as well, we bought a zenith 52" in feb 2006 same thing last month loud pop....picture gone. The service tech came out and alledgedly fixed it. said they replaced 3 boards, dunno which ones...last week "POP" lost it again, waiting on the tech to pick it up. SOoooooo, do I make the "Double Popper" list now. :p
Also when we got it back we noticed the red sparkles which we didn't have before

Let's see what happens

You can add me to list of red sparklies also. For what its worth, I slammed this TV and LG/Zenith in the annual Consumer Reports Survey. I also mentioned the monkey business with the 2yr then 1yr warranty posting on the Zenith site and cited this forum as a source to verify the many issues regarding this set.

Hey guys, I updated the list. Here's what's happened with my nightmare so far this week. CC finally offers to replace the TV. They offered me the Panasonic TH50PX60U. I don't know much about the set other than the value is way below what I spent on the Zenith. Maybe I am expecting too much but I think I should get at least somewhere near what I paid in store credit. So I called LG to see if there was something they could do. I explained my entire sitution to "Richard" who tells me to send him a copy of my receipt and the work history on the repairs done so far. He says he thinks he can help me out. That was on Monday. I call Tuesday to check to see if he got the stuff I faxed to him. Well I'm told he's not there and will be out for the rest of the week. They lady asked me to send the info to her because she doesn't have access to Richard's stuff. So I do. I called back to ask if she got it and guess what, she just went home. So the next girl looks up my case and see's my receipt. Oh no, this was past the original warranty (BY 2 MONTHS). We can't help you. I thought they didn't have access to the other's stuff. By now I'm fuming! I called back later and ask to speak to a supervisor. She's busy, I'll have her call you. Yeah right. No call of course. So it looks like we are dealing with a really shady bunch here. I guess my only alternative now is to load the set up in the back of my truck and take it down to the CC where I bought it and try to deal with the store manager. I think I may even put a big sign on it so that customers going in and out can see some of the details of what is going on. Maybe even talk to a few people who are shopping and let them know what to expect. Short of that or just accepting their offer, I don't know what else to do. Maybe file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. But it would take all of us doing that to even have a chance of doing any good at all. What do you guys think?

By the way, there's another thread on here where someone is praising how great LG is and how they were treated. They claimed to get the full purchase price as a store credit and even got another few hundred dollars credit on top of that. I don't think they are talking about the same LG I've been dealing with. Probably an LG employee here posting great things trying to counter all of the bad reports they are getting so far. I think we all should find every web site that lets you review products and slam this set along with LG.

Also, I questioned the deal with the warranty being extended from 1 year to 2 years for all sets sold after 4/2004 and was told that that was only good for the week that it was up on their website. You had to call that week or it was no good. She said it was an error and shouldn't have been added to their website. What a joke.

Boomer, read my article above. I filed a formal complaint with the BBB and am awaiting the reply. I filed it Thursday April 12. According to their website, they forward the complain to Zenith within 2 days, and give Zenith 14 days to respond. If they get no response, they make another attempt. After that, I'm not sure what happens. Anyway, I'll keep you posted when I hear back.

I just bought th z50px2d on friday. CC goin out of business was sellin it for 1650 so I just had to buy it. I got the extended warranty but after perusing this forum I am in fear of what I may experience with this television. Have they fixed the problematic parts in the newer models of the tv or can I expect the same fate as the many gone before me? Thanks.

Jon

1650, for a new one I hope.

We have an open box at the CC I work at for $1000.

6th Avenue Electronics here in NJ has been running ads for the Zenith for under $1400 for around 3 months now.

Hey guys, I updated the list. Here's what's happened with my nightmare so far this week. CC finally offers to replace the TV. They offered me the Panasonic TH50PX60U. I don't know much about the set other than the value is way below what I spent on the Zenith. Maybe I am expecting too much but I think I should get at least somewhere near what I paid in store credit.

Boomer: If you can't get more credit on your Zenith, take the Panny Th60px60u---the price has dropped considerably. As for the difference in original purchase price on the sets, maybe you can get some extra gear out of the store...dvd, home theater stuff, etc...

Good luck,

Vince

Add me to the poppers. Just happened today. The TV is about 15 months old, and out of warranty unless I can work the 2-year thing.

I noticed that a few of the poppers were those with few posts. Did you guys JUST find this thread by searching on Google....or have you been long time lurkers who just signed up to start posting??

Just curious..... :confused:

I noticed that a few of the poppers were those with few posts. Did you guys JUST find this thread by searching on Google....or have you been long time lurkers who just signed up to start posting??

Just curious..... :confused:

I haven't been a long-time member (since Nov. 06), but I researched the site (along with a few others) for a while before I purchased my Zenith. I don't believe I started posting until my Zenith went pop (Jan. 07).

V.

yah 1650 was for brand new.. Would be interesting to see just what percentage of consumers have had these problems with the zenith's..

I noticed that a few of the poppers were those with few posts. Did you guys JUST find this thread by searching on Google....or have you been long time lurkers who just signed up to start posting??

Just curious..... :confused:

I found this site after my TV went POP. Did a serach using Google and this site came up.

To update my situation, I spoke to the manager of the CC where I purchased the Zenith and explained to him that we were unhappy with the way were treated and with the offer of the replacement set. He asked that my wife and I come in and he would show us the Plasma sets they have now and we would work something out. I have to say, he has been trying harder to work this out than anyone else I have spoken to. We'll see how it goes.

My advise to those of you who's set just popped and you didn't have the CC extended warranty, stay away from it. Try to work out something with LG directly. LG tells me that since I bought the extended warranty from CC, there is nothing they will do for me. Apparently, LG will finally offer you the amount on your receipt for your replacement. With CC, you're stuck with taking whatever amount the replacement they offer is worth, according to them.

As many of these that are going bad, I think a year from now we'll all get letters from some law office asking if we want to be a part of a class action lawsuit. It's just a matter of time before someone with ties to a law office (lawyer or someone who works for one) has the big pop happen to them, and they'll tear into LG.

Here's an update to the current list of problems:
flashing:
Byron Walter
BradClark
JellyBellyMD
ramsey_55
Chilli_Dog
jaypb
eddiwill
LawrenceJ
ropergilson
cgeek

Popping:
benwilard
dane2525
pajer
RBG
elfedz
Lcars
JohninTonawanda x2
The Fly
drjonesn
newbeetle18t
NCTS_tech
Gonzoga
cet98
Buckeye_Fan
vetteboi88
Sammylow
trikflow77
surfvland
jjsf
magrathea
billferreirae
*Boomer*
WindTunnel x2
kcr6419
dizzyliz
R-U-Q-R-U
rwmccullough
cloudstrife
DucS2R
daivd_t_36582 x2
bman1369
schwailer
Ken F
DontBuyZenithLG
Pbsniper88
andyf0722
Covman7 x2
rjones3636
lorenzep
rhodges
rvfanatic
groovin_griff
gby
knockerjoe
thebombs12
hukila
amisaid
BAPlasmaGuy
bigoly
master44
matsukane
jmc165
lausy
Rickplas
lvfd404
npklee x2
pddorman x2
elspankdog
lillianorilando
richiek45
proteus69
RyanBoone
NoZenith
StealthBravo
jslavens
gworkman x2
tpsc3crt x2
Eagles Dare
killians
Brad O
Lick
dude345 x2
aseetpatel x2
konnaluck
robertcas
cgoldens
dvnelson72
milguy912
doublez
delawaredude
bankbuster
2mmom
chestervip

Red Sparkles:
dmr3712
eddiwill
drjonesn
proteus69
bayouvette
Hoowahman
wildland1
Chilli_Dog
JellyBellyMD
bman1369
ropergilson
fergiej
ncage
jmc165
yeafmm
munciefan
gworkman
lilcasino
Cee9
cgeek
Lick

Green Sparkles:
eddiwill

Washed out picture:
90SPGred

I noticed that a few of the poppers were those with few posts. Did you guys JUST find this thread by searching on Google....or have you been long time lurkers who just signed up to start posting??


As you can see, I joined in January of 2006. I followed this thread while I was considering purchasing the set, and later on for calibration information. I did rediscover the thread through google after my set popped.

Add me to the popper list as well. Purchased about 17 Months ago. Have had the red squiggles for a few months now. This morning heard a pop then a second louder pop. Came down to see that while there was still sound there is no picture what so ever.

Well add me to the flashing issue also :(


But I did in my case find a way to make it go away, switch the set into low power mode. I guess the power supplies in these things suck, but after putting it in low power mode the flashes haven't been back in about 4 days now.

Add me to the list of pop too.

I brought this TV on 1/21/06 after reading about it from this forum before all the problems emerge for everyone here and it died today 4/2207.

My brother was watching the NBA playoff and all of a suddenly it popped and smoke came out of the right vent (facing the TV). Definitely something burned because it really smell. It's definitely a defect since so many people on this forum have their TV popped and died on them.

I called Zenith support and they give me a local repair number and told me to call and get it diagnose and fax them the diagnose result and receipt. I asked them if I have to pay for the service and they told that since I m out of warranty, I will have to. As for the repair, it's up to their supervisor to determine based on the diagnose result, but they don't know. I would have to pay for the diagnose service.

I went back to this forums and found out many people have their tv popped. Anyway I told about the 2 year warranty thing and they told me it was a mistake for about 2 weeks. I called both Zenith and LG and they don't seem to care much. I told them how many electronic product and tv I owned over the years from many brands and never have one died within 13 months, let alone blew up on me. They basically told me it's electronic and they don't give a sh1t.

Now, I don't know what to do since I didn't buy extended warranty from BB. Any advice? Is there any class action lawsuit? I don't want to pay several hundred for the diagnose and they going to tell it's not cover since my warranty expired. What are my options? Small claim court? Just give it up and use it as a paper weight?

Well guys,
I was on the phone after dinner tonight watching the TV, which I've had back for less than 2 weeks after being fixed for popping, and it popped again. I think I'm going to POP now.

Need some advice....

Fortunately, my Zenith has not "popped". However, it was in the shop back in March and the Y-board was replaced. I posted in this forum a few months back explaining the problem....the short of it is that I had vertical lines in the middle of the screen. The shop said the Y-board would fix it but I noticed the lines (albeit, far lighter than before the replacement) as soon as I got it back and plugged it in. They've gotten more noticeable in the last few weeks and last Wednesday night there was a series of loud clicks (I'd say maybe 10 or so). I changed the channel and the clicking stopped, then went back to the original channel and it was fine. I'm not sure if this is a precursor to the "Pop" or not, but it's definitely got me nervous.

I'm just about 1 month away from my manufacturers warranty expiring. I want to call Zenith about the line issue still being there, but honestly I'd like to get away from the TV all together. Is there some sort of rule about having the same issue twice or anything that I can bring up when I call to see if I can skip putting in the shop again? If it goes in the shop now, I won't get it back until the 1 year warranty is just about up.....and I really don't want to lay out several hundred bucks for the CC extension.

Advice?

thanks,
m.h.

Well, it sounds to me like many people here with CC and BB warranties are just as unhappy with those of us dealing with Zenith. After dropping $1000 and now having a freshly re-exploded TV, I guess it makes sense to me to buy the warranty and hope for the best. I'm going to try and get as much money as I can out of Zenith, and ditch this TV altogether.

pocketmike , I remember our set making a few clicking sounds from time to time before clicking one night and then popping and going dead.

Here's an update to my situation. Went to see the CC manager on Saturday. He showed us the Panasonic they are offering as a replacement (Panasonic TH50PX60U). Neither of us liked the set. It just looks really cheap to me. So I made a counter offer. We would agree to take a Panasonic TH50PX75U as our replacement set and call it even. He wasn't sure they would agree to give up a new model but said he would check on it and call me back on Monday afternoon. Monday afternoon rolls around and no call. After placing 4 calls to the store and being transfered and put on hold until the line goes busy and hangs up on me, I finally get to talk to him. He said that he was waiting to hear back from his boss to see if he could give us the set we wanted. Great, so call some one and let them know already. Does anyone at LG or CC return calls to customers? Apparently not. He says that one of the sticking points is that according to the computer, we have already accepted the Panasonic they offered and it is waiting to schedule a delivery time. I told him that I hadn't called anyone back and accepted anything. I also told him that the extended warranty allowed me to refuse the replacement and take the store credit. He said, yeah I could probably take the $1600 value of the replacement as store credit. I asked him what happened to the $1800 value of the TV? "George" at CC who called and made the offer of the replacement set said it had a value of $1800. At this rate, by the time this is settled, I'll owe them money. I called "George" back and left a message for him to call me ASAP and of course he hasn't yet.

Bottom line is we are dealing with several not so honest companies who will do or say anything to keep from making this right for all of us. It's obvious there is a defect with this set and still no one is willing to step up to the plate and make it right for us all. I'm am running out of ideas on what to do and have long since used up all of my patience with this whole matter.

The CC store manager was supposed to call me yesterday and let me know something. He failed to do that and when I called asking for him, I was told they would have him call me and of course he didn't. In the end I hold the store ultimately responsible for all of this because they sold me 2 bad products: a defective plasma tv and an extended warranty that has failed to work in my case. 11 weeks is way too long for this to go on.

So what are the rest of you poppers doing about this? Who have you called?

Has anyone corrected the issue with red sparkles yet? repaired? Thanks.

Everybody needs to file a complaint at the BBB. I still don't have a response on mine yet, but it can't hurt for EVERYONE to do it. At least then the BBB may be able to give LG some bad press if LG doesn't do anything about it.

In the mean time, I just dropped my TV back off at the store that improperly repaired it, leading to the second pop.

Does anybody know anyone who is considering finding a class-action attorney. I know that the recent tort reform legislation has modified the rules on how class-action is pursued, but I'm not sure what the ramifications are.

Hi everybody. I am a new member to this forum, but I figured I should register and share my experience.

I got one of these Zeniths from a friend about a week ago. The display "popped" and was not working. His display was out of warrantee of course, and it looked like the local repair shops were going to charge him an arm and a leg just to look at it. So he moved on and got a new LCD tv. I'm an electrical engineer so he figured that if anything I could scavenge it for parts.

Basically as his story goes the tv was on, the person watching it left the room, heard 2 loud pops and came back to find the tv no longer working. They could hear sound and only see a VERY faint picture.

When I got the tv I naturally tore it apart and was hoping to find something obviously wrong. From the top, all of the boards looked good. I tested the power supply and verified it was working. I pulled the Y SUS and the Z SUS board and discovered some burn marks on the Z SUS board. This made sense to me since the display was displaying the picture except the Z voltage wasn't sufficient to make a bright plasma. I ordered a new Z SUS board, got it today and installed it. Turned the TV on and it worked great. The part was $200 plus about $39 for shipping. So essentially I got myself a nice Hi-Def plasma for about $250. I'm going to wait a couple of weeks to verify that it doesn't break again before I call it truly fixed.

I share this information for those people who have witnessed the pops and are left with a faint display. If you are sure you're screwed with the warrantee you may try a self repair. Though I caution, if you DO NOT know what you're doing and cannot be safe around electrical circuitry with potentially dangerous voltages then do not attempt this repair.

If anyone wants more details on this repair, feel free to PM me. Good luck to everyone else out there.

Hi everybody. I am a new member to this forum, but I figured I should register and share my experience.

I got one of these Zeniths from a friend about a week ago. The display "popped" and was not working. His display was out of warrantee of course, and it looked like the local repair shops were going to charge him an arm and a leg just to look at it. So he moved on and got a new LCD tv. I'm an electrical engineer so he figured that if anything I could scavenge it for parts.

Basically as his story goes the tv was on, the person watching it left the room, heard 2 loud pops and came back to find the tv no longer working. They could hear sound and only see a VERY faint picture.

When I got the tv I naturally tore it apart and was hoping to find something obviously wrong. From the top, all of the boards looked good. I tested the power supply and verified it was working. I pulled the Y SUS and the Z SUS board and discovered some burn marks on the Z SUS board. This made sense to me since the display was displaying the picture except the Z voltage wasn't sufficient to make a bright plasma. I ordered a new Z SUS board, got it today and installed it. Turned the TV on and it worked great. The part was $200 plus about $39 for shipping. So essentially I got myself a nice Hi-Def plasma for about $250. I'm going to wait a couple of weeks to verify that it doesn't break again before I call it truly fixed.

I share this information for those people who have witnessed the pops and are left with a faint display. If you are sure you're screwed with the warrantee you may try a self repair. Though I caution, if you DO NOT know what you're doing and cannot be safe around electrical circuitry with potentially dangerous voltages then do not attempt this repair.

If anyone wants more details on this repair, feel free to PM me. Good luck to everyone else out there.


Hah nice! I wouldn't have minded getting this set for 250 you are the man =D

tenpartsmitchell, At least you will only be out $250 when this set pops again.

WindTunnel is right. We all need to file complaints with the BBB but I don't know if it will do any good. I guess it can't hurt.

My last couple of days of dealing with this crap has been bad. The store manager was no help. He has pawned me off to one of his assitants. They are basically telling me to take the Panasonic TH50PX60U or get lost.

you guys do file with the BBB, could you mention it here. I'm just curious to see who really goes through with it. It'll take about 1/2 hr on their web site.

I have been quietly followin updates to this forum ever since I purchased my Zenith in January of 2006. I have read most of the posts reguarding the popping and flashing and thought that I must have been lucky to get a good set since I have not had any problems...... Until tonight!! :mad: I was watching the TV and heard a very loud "pop" and then a "sizzle" as I watched to picture go from normal to washed out, grainy and low lit. I was very disappointed. So I made the call to CC Advantage customer service ( I bought the extended plan like many others) and they are supposed to have a technician out to me on May 3rd. I'm sure I'll have to same story as everyone else on this forum and get the same run around. I guess I just wanted to vent. Wish me luck.

Class Action Lawsuit? (someone starts one and I'm in)

BBB? (never heard how this worked out)

Small Claims Court? Your claim amount and court costs vary by jurisdiction but I was definitely favoring this route if Zenith didn't step up to the plate. The court costs are relatively low so I figured what do I have to lose...and I was angry enough to see it through.

I was one of the lucky ones who got Zenith to repair it under the '2 year warranty'. Now I'm crossing my fingers that I didn't jinx myself and will become...dare I say it...a 2 time popper.

If anyone takes any of these options, please share your outcome with all.

DucS2R, sorry to hear you are one of the group now. I hope you have better luck with the CC extened warranty than me. Here are a few things to make sure things go smoother for you:
1. Write down notes of who you talked to, when you talked to them, what was said and what they told you was going to happen. You will find that the list of names and phone numbers will end up being very long.
2. Get a copy from the repairman of his service visit ticket after each visit. Make sure he closes out a ticket and opens a new one for each visit. This is very important. It will help you verify your 3 repair attempts before replacment. Our store manager swears that the official policy is 3 repair attempts before replacement, but the CC (aka GE) people will tell you otherwise. I asked that he report them to his bosses, so maybe they'll be forced to stick to it.

I hope it works out for you and things happen faster for you than for me. Yesterday was 11 weeks since the TV died. We finally went in to the store last night and got the manager out on the sales floor and my wife and I let him have it right there in front of customers. I hate that it had to come to that but it worked. We got our replacement value up to $2000 and opted to get the Panasonic TH50PX75U. They had it on sale for $2250 so we paid the difference and made him throw in free delivery. It should be here Monday. They also would not transfer our extended warranty, but that's OK with me seeing how it doesn't work that great anyway. They are supposed to refund the remaining money which should be over half anyway. I'm going to take that money and purchase one from somewhere else. I will still continue to watch this thread though to see what happens to the rest of us. I just don't know how a company can just sell such a faulty product and wash their hands of it.

Thanks Boomer. I've got my fingers crossed for a quick resolution, but I'm not holding my breath! :eek:

I posted last week about my vertical lines issue and how it had already been in the shop once for the same thing. I called Zenith and explained the problem, and also my concern that my 1 year warranty will most likely be expired by the time I get the TV back. The lady I spoke with told me that if I had a repair done under warranty and had the same problem again, even if my warranty had expired, Zenith would pick up the bill. The last time a technician looked at the TV he was pretty sure the panel would have to be replaced. They ended up only replacing the y-board which obviously didn't resolve the issue. It's my sincerest hope that this time it will be a panel replacement being that the panels seem awfully hard to come by (hopefully resulting in a credit towards something new). My TV has made loud clicking sounds several times with no "pop" and I fear that I will be joining you guys in the 14 month lifespan if I don't get rid of this thing.

I will update with any info that might be helpful as this process rolls on.

m.h.

Well, add me to the list. Mine was on last night and suddenly there was a loud POP, followed a few seconds later with an even louder POP!! I now have audio with no picture. I bought mine on January 16, 2006, so the 14 to 15 month lifespan for these things that others have reported holds true.

Later today, I plan to talk to customer service, armed with warranty that is 3 months out of date and a screen shot of the "2 year warranty" that appeared and quickly disappeared from their site. This page appeared about the time I got a notice to buy the extended warranty and influenced my decision to NOT purchase the extension.

I know I am a new member but I have been visiting this site for since before I got my Zenith. I want to thank all of the people for the info and (sorry I can't remember your name) whoever took the screen shot of the warranty page.

Wish me luck! I will let you know what happens. For this many similar failures, there should be something that Zenith (LG) will do to provide a solution.

I guess we need to remember what Ben Franklin said to the founding fathers -- "If we don't hang together, they will hang us seperately."

Maybe there will be strength in numbers if enough people make noise.

Thanks, Guys (and gals?) for everything so far and I'll type at you later.
Dave T

Well, I talked to "Ben" (evidently Neil and Tawanda were off. LOL) and explained about the $2500 paperweight that USED to ba a tv. He was cordial and told me that unfortunately my warranty (1 year) was up. I politely told him that when I received paperwork to buy an extended warranty around Jan 4, 2007 I checked their site and it said I had a 2-year warranty. He said let me check with my supervisor and put me on hold. As I listened to the music and commercial (hum something appropriately boring) I said a quick prayer that Tawanda and Neil weren't in the building.

When he came back, he said he had explained the situation to his supervisor and she (Tawanda??) gave approval to extend my warranty.
:eek:
What! Wait, I didn't have to whine, threaten, cajole, or cry???

He gave me a case number and a shop nearby (which I really wanted them to do the work anyway) and said give them a call. I called them and they are coming out tomorrow afternoon. The repair guy said they had upgraded the PS boards on the Plasmas to be more durable now. I hope that is so. When I looked for the Z SUS board on the web, The original # 6871QZH044A , is replaced by #6871QZH044C

Wish me luck! :rolleyes:

Type at ya later!
Dave T

Dave,
Sorry to hear your plasma broke also. How many have to go bad before they admit there's a problem with their product? I hope this works out for you. But others have had their set repaired only to have them pop again.

Mine has not popped yet, bought mine august 2006. You can add me to the red sparkles and white flash problem. Can anyone recommend a good extended warranty thats not from CC?

I've had red sparkles since people started mentioning it on the board. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to calling Zenith when the 2yr warranty info came out. At least mine works and the sparkles go away after a while. I'd be more concerned that something worse would start to occur if techs are just replacing various boards on a whim.

I will politely inform the CS rep of the 2 yr info I read about, but I can't see any justification to be upset with Zenith or CC (if you didn't buy the extended warranty). The question of whether to buy the extended warranty was discussed at length on this very board and numerous people argued that it was a rip-off since TV's don't just pop. Well, electronics do pop and this has for a number of people. It's well past the manufacturer's warranty that we were all aware of when we originally bought the set.

The extra year on the warranty was a mistake that might be a bonus for a lucky few, it's not an obligation of Zenith to honor. It's certainly not an indication that either company wants to rip their customers off. It's far more likely that a parent company (LG) and one of it's subsidiaries (Zenith) miscommunicated rather than a conspiracy that would end in millions of lost revenue.

The only legitimate complaint in my opinion is that some of us, myself included, opted not to buy the extended warranty from CC because we were under the impression we had an extra year of repair from the manufacturer. But the reality is that many of those people weren't intending to buy a warranty until they had an issue, or they would have done so in the beginning since the extended coverage doesn't begin until the end of the manufacturer warranty.

Some of you may be legitimately upset that our sets didn't last very long...but that's a quality issue, not a scam/legal issue. There is no court in the US that is going to rule in favor of people who opt not to buy insurance until after they need it. I didn't post this to be mean-spirited, but rather to question what many of you seem to think the basis for a lawsuit would be.

while I understand where you are coming from, when purchasing an extended warranty, you're hoping that you will be saving yourself money on a major repair a long way down the road. Face it, after 14 months, no $3000 product should explode. I chose not to spend $500 on an extended warranty because I figured the likelihood was low of a MAJOR repair needing to be made. If the on/off switch fails, the remote quits, or a fuse blows...ok fine, I'll pay for it. After reading about the hassles most of the CC customers seem to be having with their warranties, I hardly regret it despite my crappy situation. Seems they haven't gotten much value out of their warranties. If Zenith offered their own extended warranty - with no bullcrap, you might have something.

I do believe there are legal precedents under laws of implied warranty - that being that the manufacturers of these products (televisions) as a whole aim to make a product that lasts 6-10 yrs trouble-free (or virtually so). By that means, any repair that costs a significant portion of the purchase price should be covered by the manufacturer.

The fact of the matter is that this is not a problem that's happened to a precious few. It's happening to alot of people - and that's just based on the people who have found this web site. This is not some miscellaneous freak failure - it is either a design or a manufacturing flaw. LG/Zenith should do what's right, and back their product.

As a side note...LG/Zenith has failed to even respond to my BBB complaint. Clearly they have absolutely no intention of addressing the matter. I believe the BBB is now attempting to re-contact them. I haven't even gotten word yet on the second repair of this TV. I'm almost at 3 months now since this all started. That said, it'd still be nice for everyone with problems to file a complaint.

Add me to the pop list... Happened saturday 5/5/07 and since i purchased this baby on 1/15/06 looks like I will be footing the bill for this fix. Anybody had any luck with LG/Zenith helping out?

I contacted manufacture they gave me the name of an approved repair location in my area. The approved agreed to look at it free of charge. Seemed like a nice place heard of similar problems. I am going to also give him the information that "tenpartsmitchell" posted here... and this forum address. We'll see what happens.

If anyone has had any luck with a repair for the pop, could you post that here.

You guys must be lucky to get LG/Zenith to cover your popped tv under the 2 year warranty rule. They refused to fix my tv regardless. I was polite and calm explaining the situation to them.

tenparts: Where did you order your board? Could you provide the link? I might have to try to fix it myself if it's under $500. I'm graduated with an Electrical degree, but been working primary in the software industry, but my brother is an electrical technician so he knows.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have a rough idea of the hours their tv was used when it blew?

The repairman came on Monday and replaced the Y and Z boards. Originally he suggested me to replace the power source board (or something like that). But nowthat LG is picking up the tab, he said he is only authorized to do Y and Z. So far so good, but I am nervous watching TV now. Who knows when it may pop again.

Anyone have the instructions for entering the service menu for calibration, and also a list of some settings used etc?

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have a rough idea of the hours their tv was used when it blew?

Mine poped after 1970 hours.

Hello everyone. I had circuit city repair my television yesterday. They, also, replaced the Y and the Z boards. The Z board was the updated version (part number with the C at the end instead of the A. Everything is up and running after only one week without my television. Let's see how long it lasts.

Well, you can add me to the list of those with "popped" sets.

I bought it at BB in Nov 2005 so that puts me at 16 months. I had faith in LG so I did not buy the extended warranty.

Not sure of my next step. Pressure LG to step up due to an obvious common problem? Try and buy the parts and fix it myself?

Right now, I'm not sure.

Hi everybody. I am a new member to this forum, but I figured I should register and share my experience.

I got one of these Zeniths from a friend about a week ago. The display "popped" and was not working. His display was out of warrantee of course, and it looked like the local repair shops were going to charge him an arm and a leg just to look at it. So he moved on and got a new LCD tv. I'm an electrical engineer so he figured that if anything I could scavenge it for parts.

Basically as his story goes the tv was on, the person watching it left the room, heard 2 loud pops and came back to find the tv no longer working. They could hear sound and only see a VERY faint picture.

When I got the tv I naturally tore it apart and was hoping to find something obviously wrong. From the top, all of the boards looked good. I tested the power supply and verified it was working. I pulled the Y SUS and the Z SUS board and discovered some burn marks on the Z SUS board. This made sense to me since the display was displaying the picture except the Z voltage wasn't sufficient to make a bright plasma. I ordered a new Z SUS board, got it today and installed it. Turned the TV on and it worked great. The part was $200 plus about $39 for shipping. So essentially I got myself a nice Hi-Def plasma for about $250. I'm going to wait a couple of weeks to verify that it doesn't break again before I call it truly fixed.

I share this information for those people who have witnessed the pops and are left with a faint display. If you are sure you're screwed with the warrantee you may try a self repair. Though I caution, if you DO NOT know what you're doing and cannot be safe around electrical circuitry with potentially dangerous voltages then do not attempt this repair.

If anyone wants more details on this repair, feel free to PM me. Good luck to everyone else out there.

OK, so my next step was to PM "tenpartsmitchell", who posted the above.

I still plan to pursue LG, as this certainly seems to be an out of the ordinary failure happening to a lot of people.

OK, so my next step was to PM "tenpartsmitchell", who posted the above.

I still plan to pursue LG, as this certainly seems to be an out of the ordinary failure happening to a lot of people.


Yeah, should pursue LG. Prepare yourself well, and quite a few of us were able to get LG to pay for the repair with little hassell even when the unit is a few months out of warranty.

jjsf,

Have you listed the part numbers that were replaced on your set?


Were they 6871qyh039a (preplaced by 6871qyh039b) and 6871qh044a (replaced by 6871qh044c)?


People are referring to the ysus and zsus boards. I am wondering how acurate this is.

A post by NCTS_tech on 3-5-07 stated three boards were replaced, but the problem wasn't corrected. The part numbers he listed are the ysus, top y drive and bottom y drive. I wonder if his zsus board was bad as well.

Ken.

jjsf,

Have you listed the part numbers that were replaced on your set?


Were they 6871qyh039a (preplaced by 6871qyh039b) and 6871qh044a (replaced by 6871qh044c)?


People are referring to the ysus and zsus boards. I am wondering how acurate this is.

A post by NCTS_tech on 3-5-07 stated three boards were replaced, but the problem wasn't corrected. The part numbers he listed are the ysus, top y drive and bottom y drive. I wonder if his zsus board was bad as well.

Ken.

I cannot find the paper that I wrote the numbers on, but as I can remember, both new boards have higher alphabetic letter in the last position comparing to the old ones.

Good luck to those of you trying to get LG to pay up. I had none. I Just got mine back from the second repair. We'll see how long it lasts this time.

WindTunnel,

What did they do on the second repair?

It would be helpful if everyone provided part numbers associated with their repairs.

I work with a company that does board repair. They don't manufacture from scratch. Their business is based in RE-manufacturing product that has failed in the field. They have over (500) Y SUS boards and (500) Z SUS boards in stock. If that isn't proof of a faulty product, I'll eat my hat.

Keeping a log of what parts failed and how many failed may be benificial in recouping costs.

I am leaning towards fixing this myself, then recouping expenses from LG. Keeping a log of failed components would be very helpful in a class action.

- Ken

Ken,
I think you may have a better chance for LG to pick up the tab if you let them handle the fix. Here is what happenen to me:
1. Set popped after 14 month.
2. Called LG to report the problem, and was told to get an estimate and fax in the info.
3. Called around service providers listed on LG site (ranging from $50-100 for initial diagnositc service, I used one that allows me to apply the amount to the final repair labor cost).
4. Collect the 2 year warranty information, and fax everything to LG.
5. Called LG, the lady said her surpervisor authorized the warranty extension and they are sending the authorization to the service center that I used.
6. Called the service center to verify that LG have authorized warranty extension and schedule for actual repair.
7. They came to replace the Y and Z board, and refunded me $100 that I paid for the diagnostic service.

Add me to the Zenith popping PROBLEM!!! I must be lucky, mine lasted 20 months. I am covered by BB extended warranty. Hopefully they will replace it with a different brand. Funny thing is, I just called Zenith to complain about this problem. They said they have no information on any problems with this TV. I laughed and asked her if she had a computer in front of her and told her to do a google search. Told her if they have had no reported problems with this set, either they are in denial or have their blinders on. A co-worker bought the same TV and the same thing happened to it. Coincidence? Highly unlikely. Anyway, I told the CS rep that this needs to be brought up their chain of command. Maybe a flurry of calls from the rest of you with this problem might light a fire under someones a$$.

Like I said earlier, it's no coincidence that the board repair shop has 500 sets of ZSUS and YSUS boards in stock. (However, these are part numbers that end in A and B. They don't have any that end in C, so they probably are not the latest level.)

LG also sell an "LG" brand of this model. I also don't believe it is a coincidence that we are only seeing the failures on the Zenith version with the shorter warranty.

Ken F,
All they did this time was replazed the Z board. The first time it was the Y and Z. I have absolutely no confidence that this is going to last very long.

On another wonderful side note, it has now been a month since I filed my BBB complaint. The result....absolutely no response from Zenith, so the case is now closed. Zenith's rating went from a "BB" to a "CC" because of this. I bet they're just crying a river. I feel like a teenage rape victim must feel over this issue.

I've written the BBB to see if there's anything else they can do, but I honestly doubt it will be anything. According to their records, which date back 36 months, I am the only person who has contacted the BBB over anything with Zenith Electronics. I guess nobody else in this forum is interested in trying.

I'm going to be traveling for the next 2 weeks, but when i get back I may begin seeking legal representation, but, I'm beginningto think that nobody even on these websites is serious about getting organized, and as a result, wouldn't be able to establish any real form of class-action suit.

Trust me, I will pursue the BBB. I also plan to write the Michigan Attorney General.

This evening, I tried to approach customer service once again. There is NO WAY they are going to bend. I was told that the pop sound was a picture tube and it is normal wear. I said "Normal wear?? You must be kidding me!! Are you saying $1200.00 repairs every 16 months is normal??" and the person said yes.

I didn't even tell the person who I was. They knew by caller ID and immediately had records from my call the other day.

Once again, customer service said this is to be expected! This is normal wear!

I have NEVER been so disapointed in a company as I am with LG and Zenith.

Soooooo, now that I am certain I am on my own, I figured I would pull it down for a look see. I removed the rear cover and the Z SUS board, but I didn't see anything that looks bad. The Y SUS board is tougher to get to, and it has some small, delicate cableing. I don't want to chance causing any damage, so I am leaning towards taking it somewhere and paying the diagnostic fee. I was hoping I would see an obvious "popped" component, but it isn't going to be that easy. So I believe the diagnostic money will be money well spent.

This isn't over.

Ken.

Where are you in Michigan? I live in West Bloomfield and was told by Zenith to take it to "High Tech Tv/Video" in Shelby twp. They came to my house once to tell me my TV was screwed, then i took it to them, where they made the first repair that didn't last. Then I took it back the second time. Luckily their repairs are under a 90 day warranty. Is this something you think is in the area of Mike Cox to deal with (Michigan Attorney General)?

Here is one of the emails I got from the now famous "Niel":

Thank you for inquiring of Zenith Electronics. We sincerely regret that you have experienced difficulties with your Zenith Product. All electronic equipment requires maintenance from time to time despite the most exacting quality control standards at the factory. While we constantly strive for better ways of keeping maintenance to a minimum, occasional failures can occur. The manufacturer’s limited warranty is designed to take care of any failures in the early life of the unit. Once this warranty has expired however, the consumer becomes responsible for any repair. Regretfully, we are unable to assist you with any of the expense of this repair due the expiration of the manufacturer’s warranty. Thank you again for contacting LG Electronics. Neil E-mail Administrator Customer Interactive Center LGEAI

What? "Maintenance"? Was I supposed to change the oil??? Grease the Zirk fittings?? If this is true, maybe somebody really didn't inhale either.

Ken,
Go to http://www.michigan.gov/ag/0,1607,7-164-17331-42077--,00.html to get to where you need to go to file a consumer complaint. Great idea man. I hope it gets us somewhere. I'll file one tonight.

Here is a link to another website with more people that are experiencing the same thing.

http://www.fixya.com/support/t135555-picture_black_sound_ok

And yet another calling for a recall of these troublesome LG tv's

http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:Zenith%20Z50PX2D%20Television:1993157144:page=user-reviews

Hello again...

I just wanted to give everyone my story, since my last post.

You may or may not know but my TV popped on 5/5 and I wasn’t sure what to do.

I contacted LG/Zenith to find an authorized repair shop (5/7). Figuring that this all I would be contacting them because the TV was out of warranty.

I took the TV set in to get fixed (5/9), I was lucky to find a place that didn’t charge for the evaluation even if I didn’t get it fixed there.

They called me a few days later (5/11) to tell me that the Y-sustain board had failed cost around $400 and labor was $225, a $625 dollar fix. I tried to haggle with there marked up price for the board but no luck there he told me that they usually only mark up 10/15 percent on replacement parts and couldn’t knock that off because I didn’t buy the TV there and that there labor was a standard $225 no matter how quick the fix (not that this is an easy fix because I have no idea). So reluctantly I authorized them to continue with the fix.

They called Wednesday (5/16) and told me that I could pick it up anytime and was working beautifully.

I nervously called Zenith late last night (5/16) 1-877-9zenith(1-877-993-6484) to talk to about the warranty, because I saw someone else here had a little luck with this. Even though my Zenith TV is out of the 1 year warranty, I told them, that they had told me, they were going to cover it under the LG 2 year warranty. Even though they never said this in the previous call, he could only find a record that I had called. I told them about the other people who had the same problem who had theirs covered and had posted on web that LG/Zenith covered it even though it was out of Zenith warranty date. After they put me on hold for a long time, he came back with a contact and a fax number for them to send in the paper work so they could look at it.

I contacted the repair shop (5/17) and told them that Zenith was going to cover it under the LG (2 year) warranty and he thought that this made sense because they are the same. I gave him the contact information and he made a few calls to the warranty department or the company that covers the warranties for LG or Zenith (I am not sure about this part of it). He couldn’t get a hold of the exact contact that I gave him because it was only a first name and fax number but he did get a hold of someone else that could help. He told me that they were going to cover the parts under the LG warranty but they weren’t sure about the labor and they were going to call him back. He also told me that I shouldn’t pick it up or do anything until this was settled and that he would call me back. He told me this because he didn’t want me to pay for anything; he has heard that it is very hard for consumers to get reimbursed after the fact for warranty work. I was fine with this since I couldn’t pick it up until tomorrow anyway. He called about a half hour later and told me that they were going to cover both parts and labor for this. He also told me that some of the repairs done on other earlier TVs might have been done before the new revision of boards and that might be why they were having the same problem again but wasn’t completely sure about that. He just wanted to offer his conclusion to why the problem might be happening again.

Well take from my story what you will, but I figured that I would just post it for everyone to read. And maybe this will help someone else…

-jkt

schwailer,

Congratulations on getting LG to step up. I have a couple questions.

1) When did you purchase the TV? I am curious how far out of warranty you were.

2) What city and state are you in?

3) Do you have the part number(s) of the item(s) changed.

Again, congratulations and good luck.

Ken.

I am one of the few that have red sparkles on the darker areas of scenes. It looks like a snowy red sparkle affect and I've concluded it is because of temperature in my apartment affecting it somewhat. However it has gotten worse over the last year. I do believe it has something to do with voltage settings and they need to be tweaked by a professional. Luckily I bought a circuit city 3 year warrenty, pricey as hell but I am going to take full advantage of it and they are sending a repairman to my place shortly to help me adjust these voltage settings. My tv has been running for 2500 hrs so far and this is the only problem I've had. I am scared that my TV will pop after my 3 years is up though. I wonder if circuit citys protection advantage plan is for 3 years after manufactor warrenty or if it starts the day i purchased it? Anyone know? I will update with my results when the repair happens and will try to watch the technician closely on what he does to fix it so I can report back here if people want to tweak voltage themselves.

Thanks,
Hoowahman

schwailer,

Congratulations on getting LG to step up. I have a couple questions.

1) When did you purchase the TV? I am curious how far out of warranty you were.

2) What city and state are you in?

3) Do you have the part number(s) of the item(s) changed.

Again, congratulations and good luck.

Ken.

Ken,

I purchased the TV in early January 06. (So 4 months out of warranty date)

It was repaired in West Bend WI which is Norhtern Metro-Milwaukee area and was purchased at a Best Buy in Milwaukee.

I don't have the part numbers but will get those and post them back here.

-jkt

I submitted a complaint to the BBB a couple of days ago about this T.V. It was relatively quick and painless. I suggest everyone, whether you are past the manufacturers warranty or not, do the same. This is the only way I can see anything getting done with this problem. If the BBB forwards enough complaints to Zenith/LG, maybe they will pull their heads out of their a$$es.

I need some help on a basic problem with my Zenith 50PX2D. My kid was playing with remote and cinema zoomed all the way up to 16. When I zoomed back down, the Picture is still zoomed in some. I cannot figure out any way to get the picture back to a normal unzoomed picture. I have tried "set by program", 4:3, 16:9, Zoom1, Zoom2. They all work as they are meant to but they are working on the already zoomed image.

Anybody have any ideas?

By the way. I have had my Zenith for about 9 months with no problems so far. I'm getting a little nervous reading the thread that is evolving here.

Thanks in advance for any help I get

Stu

StuAustinTx -

I know there is a way to re-set the zoom. If my junk would turn on I would go through it. Maybe I'll be able to help in a few days.

As for as the nine months and counting . . . it may be a good idea to the buy an extended warranty if possible.

I took the back off mine hoping to see an obvious fried component. Unfortunately I didn't see anything obvious. I was ready to roll the dice and simply swap out the Y and Z sus boards, but they are attached to some pretty delicate cableing. The one thing I am sure of is that I don't want to make matters worse.

Today, I talked to a local repair shop that concurred the Y and Z sustain boards have been problematic and that the replacement parts are believed to be more durable. I think I am going to give this guy a shot. If only one of the two are bad, I'm gonna change them both to the newer levels.

Hey Everyone,

Guess what? My Z50 also "popped" but this happened a couple weeks ago. I bought this back in October of '05, so I guess I was lucky with the 17 months of use. I was almost positive when I bought this set back in October, It came with a 2 year, thus I didn't buy the extended. I normally like to stay on top of technology so I figured I would buy a new TV after 2 years and keep the Z50 as a less used backup for another room. No it never works out that way does it? It pops and Zenith says they can't do anything since its out of warranty. I was about to toss it out until I decided to search one last time for a solution or replacement parts. Luckily I found this site and gave me new hope in getting this set repaired. I will keep everyone posted on what the outcome is and will be complaining to BBB once I have been placed on hold with Zenith.

Regards!

Greetings all.

I thought I would update / summarize what I have learned to this point.

It would appear the most prevalent failure is that of the Y Sustain and Z Sustain boards. The original part numbers were 6871QTH039A and 6871QZH044A respectively.

Check out this link. http://www.tristatemodule.com/html/modules_in_stock.html It will take you to a website that sells these boards. This page shows current quantity in stock. Scroll down until you see these part numbers. What do you think? Does it imply a high failure rate? Why else would they stock 500 of each?

Now, it is my understanding that these are not the latest part numbers. It is my understanding that changes have been made that make these components more durable. I believe the latest numbers are 6871QTH039B and 6871QZH044C. When I last checked, Tri State does not have any of these boards in stock.

I still have not taken my TV in for diagnostics because, A) I haven’t had the time and, B) I am still thinking of taking a gamble and simply replacing these boards through other means. I have a friend that is a retired TV repair guy. He should be more than capable of swapping the boards.

I will update when I finally do something.

Ken.

Well...The repair guy just left and I still have a dead TV.

He replaced the Y Sustain and Z Sustain as well as the power supply.

The picture is brighter now but still nothing but vertical lines and it powers off after about 5 seconds which it didn't do when it originally died.

They had the parts in about 3 weeks ago but didn't have an open appointment until today.

Now he's going to try replacing some digital modulator board or something.

I just got the repair guy in to check out the red sparklies. He noted certain aspects to the problem after hooking up this diagnostic device to the component inputs. It did different patterns and we saw the red sparklies only on darker areas. He concluded it was a image processing board that will have to be replaced and no voltage change was needed because the red sparkles are not everywhere on the screen. They dont specialize in LG based products so he said he had to do some research and get some info on what part to get. I hope i just didn't open a bag of frusterations because of this.

Hoowahman

Hoowahman,

I have several months left on my extended warrenty-- I am at around 2,600 hours and have had the sparklies a long time. I would be interested in your outcome as I have ben reluctant to call anyone to look at it. Based on this forum, I'm just glad I "may" get 3k hours out of it! Let us know how it shakes it.

Mine popped today. Purchased 12/2005. So that just over 17 months, which seems more than a lot of you 14-15 monthers.

There was just a single pop, not two like some have reported. TV shut off, but still has power. The power light is red. When I hit the power button the light goes from red to blinking green then back to red. No picture or sound of any kind.

I hadn't purchased an extended warranty. I'll try my luck with Zenith about the one year to two year and back to one year warranty issue, to see if I can get them to extend the warranty to cover this. Seems some of you had luck with this and some not. It may be like any customer service, it depends on the luck of the draw as to who answers your call.

I am curious if there are any owners of this set for more than say 18 months that haven't had theirs pop. Will they all pop in time or is it just a select group of us?

Any poppers out there from NH that had any experience with service centers in the area? Seems to be only one authorized service center in state.

Hoowahman,

I have several months left on my extended warrenty-- I am at around 2,600 hours and have had the sparklies a long time. I would be interested in your outcome as I have ben reluctant to call anyone to look at it. Based on this forum, I'm just glad I "may" get 3k hours out of it! Let us know how it shakes it.

Repair guy just called me back saying that he doesn't have authorization to install new firmwares to the tv if that might be the problem. After more research I guess the image processor is basically on the main board and consists of many different boards. He told me I should call Zenith now to either get him access to more information since he is not a Zenith authorized repair guy. *shrug* That probably is a bad thing for me but circuit city sent me to this guy. I am going to call Zenith tonight and explain my issue maybe a firmware upgrade will solve the problem. I am not at my TV now but the repair guy said on the phone that the most current version according to a service manual is pdp 2.00.1v and the previous version is 2168. If Zenith can't help me I will call circuit city to get another dealer I think.

Red Sparklies Suck!!!

Hoowahman

Thanks Hoowahman! I didn't know anything about a potential firmware fix-- I'll definitely watch the forum to see what happens to you!

One other thing-- looks like 17 month sis our champ-- does ANYONE have this set that's had it (working) for 24 months? (If it's even that old).

Well all, it's not perfect, but, I do have some good news to report.

At the suggestion of Ken F, I wrote a letter about my POPping issue to the Consumer Complaint division of the Michigan Attorney General's office (Mike Cox). I mailed that letter along with their required paperwork on May 18 to the state. I noted LG/Zenith's lack of reply to a BBB complaint also.

Well, today while at work, my phone rang. It was a very nice lady at LG. They had already recieved my complaint from the Attorney General. She informed me that LG will reimburse me for the cost of the parts (about $500), but not the labor (about $500 more). While it's not all i wanted, at least it was something. Additionally however, they will send me a new 1 year warranty that will cover both parts and labor on future repairs. I figure that since the second POP of my tv was fixed by replacing one of the same boards that was replaced after the first POP, that I will most likely be taking advantage of the new warranty soon!

Anyway, for what it's worth to all those who feel lost, the Michigan Attorney General's (Mike Cox (R) ) office of consumer affairs obviously wrote a pretty good letter. I recommend you try it in your own state.

Thanks Hoowahman! I didn't know anything about a potential firmware fix-- I'll definitely watch the forum to see what happens to you!

One other thing-- looks like 17 month sis our champ-- does ANYONE have this set that's had it (working) for 24 months? (If it's even that old).

I am on Month 17 currently with the set and it has been on for about 2702 hrs according to the service menu. That's about 20% of the time i've had it! I have a few roommates who live with me so they use it a lot as well. So far the only problem I have is those damn sparklies. I am currently back to square one and getting CC to give me an authorized zenith repair guy this time. They didn't have one on file so they are having the service location team find one in my area and hopefully will get back to me soon.

Well guys, I called Zenith a couple weeks ago like I said I would and after about an hour on the phone with the first level of support, I asked for a manager. I gave them my story and with the help of the screen shots provided earlier, I was able to back it up. After faxing in the screen shot, I called back a day later to find out the status. They told me that the 2 year warranty will be applied to my set and gave me a few places in my area to repair it. I still haven't received it back from the repairs, but once I get it back, I'm going to put it on a higher end surge protector and try to get circuit city to extend my 2 year warranty that LG gave me. Good luck to the rest of you, I hope everyone else is able to get LG/Zenith to back their faulty product!!

Regards!

Hey Hoowahman,

Any updates on your set?
There is another thread on here dealing with "red sparkles" on an LG plasma... which is of course, also what we are dealing with. According to several posters there, it is a matter of too much voltage. Simply lowering the settings takes care of the problem. I am going to be SURE To share this with the tech i end up with. I don't want to go through all kinds of replacements for nothing!

My zenith popped about a month ago. I had it for 16 months when it happened. I had local tv repair shop that was a zenith service center pick it up and diagnostic it for $130. They then say its gonna cost 1200 to repair Y boards and some other stuff. I called lg customer service and 1st time get a no and 2nd time they say they will cover parts and labor after showing them the 2 yr warranty file. I call back a week later asking if they'll cover the diagnostic and delivery fee. 1st they say no then lady says supervisor ok'd it if the repair shop will send fax of paperwork showing diagnostic work and my credit card purchase. I call repair shop guy yells at me saying i should be happy to god that i don't have to pay 1600 and how he's worked so hard and he will not do this. I say its under warranty they should pay for it. I then ask him if he doesn't get paid if lg covers it because I assume that could be his only motive. Anyone know if this is true. He kind of changes his tune saying once i sign the warranty papers that i get once i get my tv delivered he'll call lg and work it out. I don't believe him at all. I'm happy I'm getting most of the cost covered but I figured the hard part would be lg to ok the diagnostic fee...turns out the repair shop guys are shady and rude.

Hey Hoowahman,

Any updates on your set?
There is another thread on here dealing with "red sparkles" on an LG plasma... which is of course, also what we are dealing with. According to several posters there, it is a matter of too much voltage. Simply lowering the settings takes care of the problem. I am going to be SURE To share this with the tech i end up with. I don't want to go through all kinds of replacements for nothing!

No not yet I had to switch repair guys and he ordered a part after hearing my sympton which should be here today or tomorrow. I asked the other repair guy if he thought it was voltage and he didn't think so. I'll be sure to ask this guy if he's sure its not voltage.

Update, just got my t.v. back. We turn it on and theres a huge black bar at the bottm and a small thin black line in the middle of t.v. I had to take the tv back down the stairs of my 2nd floor apt and he said he doesn't know whats wrong with it. Should i start hassling lg for a new set now or wait till it fails again? This is a real pain in the ass.

Update, just got my t.v. back. We turn it on and theres a huge black bar at the bottm and a small thin black line in the middle of t.v. I had to take the tv back down the stairs of my 2nd floor apt and he said he doesn't know whats wrong with it. Should i start hassling lg for a new set now or wait till it fails again? This is a real pain in the ass.

Sounds like the repair guys are pissed? That would really suck. Good luck.

You guys are lucky, at least you have people in your area that know how to (or claim) they know how to make the repairs on this set. Almost every repair shop in my area seems to believe that Plasma's are "non repairable". Regardless, my area is behind in the technology loop and I actually live in Philly (where I bought it) and the TV is at my parents house, out in the middle of no where. I had to get a repair shop from LG directly. And when I called them, they didn't even think they wouldn't be able to fix it and said they might have to call LG to have them get a walk though... So even tho it's getting fixed... I have a feeling it's going to be gone a very long time...

Add me to the list of popper's. Bought in 11/05, died 7/07. Are any of the other brands of plasmas popping like these? Since these are made by LG there would have to be but I don't see them being reported. No add on warranty, so I'll more than likely throw it out and attempt to find a 50" that will last at least 3 years. (If there is such a thing!)

All,

Background:
My friend purchased an open box in Jan '07 at CC. It was a great deal, so I searched this site to see if was a deal. Learned that it was and also learned and warned him about the issues.

April 1, really, he struck the same deal again and I bought it. It popped 6/14 while BIL was babysitting. Loud enough for son 1 to come downstairs and check it out. No picture, but sound. Called LG 6/15 and appointment was this morning. Over the phone, he said he replaced everything because it was warranty. When pressed, everything included the X, Y, and D boards. Haven't been home yet, but my Mom said it was working fine.

Just my experience, I'll post again if the picture is less than what it was.

Thanks for all the information,

Peter

Maybe I spoke to soon. After 20 minutes of use, the screen had a 5 second problem. Looked like a set does when the analog signal is temporarily interrupted. Confusing because the signal is digital fios. Another 5 minutes and the screen is covered in red-orange vertical lines. Thought this might be the red sparkles issue, but this is not subtle or only evident at certain distances at all. Sound is audible, but a little scratchy. Anyone hear of this?

They are coming back Thursday 6/21.

Peter
Kensington, MD

Mine popped today. Purchased 12/2005. So that just over 17 months, which seems more than a lot of you 14-15 monthers.

There was just a single pop, not two like some have reported. TV shut off, but still has power. The power light is red. When I hit the power button the light goes from red to blinking green then back to red. No picture or sound of any kind.

I hadn't purchased an extended warranty. I'll try my luck with Zenith about the one year to two year and back to one year warranty issue, to see if I can get them to extend the warranty to cover this. Seems some of you had luck with this and some not. It may be like any customer service, it depends on the luck of the draw as to who answers your call.

I am curious if there are any owners of this set for more than say 18 months that haven't had theirs pop. Will they all pop in time or is it just a select group of us?

Any poppers out there from NH that had any experience with service centers in the area? Seems to be only one authorized service center in state.

Just an update. My TV is working again. LG service gave extended warranty without much pushing from me. Getting them to follow through was much more difficult. First LG said they didn't get my faxes with the receipt, which I sent twice. The repair shop didn't get anything from LG. Called LG repeatedly and the said they were going to send warranty and work authorization to service shop, but they got nothing.
The service shop was very helpful and said they work help me out despite LGs lack of follow through. They ordered parts and were at my house the next day. They replaced the ZSUS board and I was back in business with no charge to me.

Now I can tell that it had 3060 hours on it. Lets hope it keeps working.

The service guy came out again Thursday 6/21 and replaced another board. I think he ordered the wrong board because he couldn't figure out why it looked different then the board he was trying to replace.

The new board didn't work. Luckily he got to the house early enough that the warranty company and the company he contracts trough were still open.

They declared my TV unrepairable and told me Best Buy would be contacting me within the next couple of days with replacement authorization. 5 minutes later, I get a call...It's the Best Buy warranty company calling to tell me I was authorized to return my TV for a new one! Now that's some service!

I haven't talked anyone at the Best Buy store yet to see what their comparable set will be but I can tell you I won't be going with an LG ever again.

I'm leaning toward the Samsung HP-T5054...with an extended service contract, of course. I was originally looking at a Pioneer but the one I was looking at has received many complaints and Best Buy is clearancing it so I don't think that's a good choice. The other choice I'm considering is the Panasonic TH-50PX75U.

The service guy was telling me before the Plasma and LCD's came out, he rarely got calls to fix TVs. He mostly fixed smaller device and a lot of LP players. With the LCD and Plasma tv's we have now, he totally stopped repairing everything but the Plasma and LCDs. He's so busy making money on repairs that he'll be out until 9-10PM fixing TVs. They didn't have an opening for me for almost a month after they received the part.

I took the Zenith to the local BB Saturday and the sales guy tells me I can pick anything I want up to the original purchse price or I could pay the difference on any model that's higher priced. I go straight to the Pioneer Plasmas.

The 5071HD is clearanced and all he has is the floor unit. He tells me he has the newest model in stock that will be the floor model but I could buy it. I decide to go for it. So they ring me up and I decide to use my Reward Zone 12% off coupon thinking It will deduct from the difference. It deducts 12% from the full price of the Pioneer!

At this point I'm getting really excited to get the TV home to watch. The guy in the warehouse comes out and says he needs to double check my receipt because that TV isn't even released yet. At this point, I've already paid for it so I'm ready to do whatever I need to do to get this thing in my truck and back home.

He checks with the bosses and comes back with a big grin on his face and tells me they say it's OK and I'm going to absolutely love the picture.

I'm still not home free yet. I still have to get the TV out the door and to my truck.

Luckily I was able to get out with no more problems.

The picture is absolutely awesome. I tried to calibrate it with my Avia DVD and only had to adjust one setting by 1 bar out of the box.

It's only 1080i but will accept a 1080p siginal and display it at 1080i.

And most importantly, I did purchase a service plan for this TV.

Add me to the list of poppers.

Unfortunately I do not have the original receipt, but I purchased it with a Circuit City credit card, so I can probably get them to give me a copy.

The purchase date was around Jan 1, 06 and it popped Jun 24th, 07. I did not have an extended warranty.

I've skimmed some pages in this thread (will read more later) but I see some people are having luck getting it covered under LG's 2 year warranty. How did you go about doing that? What phone number should I attempt to reach them at?

Thanks!

Randell

Hey Hoowahman,

Any updates on your set?
There is another thread on here dealing with "red sparkles" on an LG plasma... which is of course, also what we are dealing with. According to several posters there, it is a matter of too much voltage. Simply lowering the settings takes care of the problem. I am going to be SURE To share this with the tech i end up with. I don't want to go through all kinds of replacements for nothing!

Well my plasma went to the shop over a week ago and the guy didn't even attempt to look at the sympton I was explaining with the red sparklies. He got a new Y-Sustain board and then called LG about fine tuning the settings...voltage and some other setting (wave?). I kept asking the guy if he has seen the sympton and he's like well I've had it running now for a day and it looks fine. I asked him if I could take a look at it with his test pattern displayer and he told me he didnt have time for that. I told him I wanted to see it before taking it out of the shop so I didn't have to call CC again and put it back in his shop for a 2nd time. Next day he calls saying he can see the sparklies and they are hard to see in the day light..he saw these when his shop lights were out I guess. So he calls LG and and gets 2 boards that two sub boards to the Y-SUS board and waiting for that to come in now. He's going on vacation for a bit then said hed work on my tv as soon as he gets back cause the boards will take 10 days to come. So hopefully I'll have more to update on around July 10th around the time he gets back. I am not too hopeful about this fixing the problem. Seems these guys are not very knowledgable on these things. I was hoping that LG was going to have him tweak the voltage like the other thread said, but I guess he didn't *shrug*

Well my plasma went to the shop over a week ago and the guy didn't even attempt to look at the sympton I was explaining with the red sparklies. He got a new Y-Sustain board and then called LG about fine tuning the settings...voltage and some other setting (wave?). I kept asking the guy if he has seen the sympton and he's like well I've had it running now for a day and it looks fine. I asked him if I could take a look at it with his test pattern displayer and he told me he didnt have time for that. I told him I wanted to see it before taking it out of the shop so I didn't have to call CC again and put it back in his shop for a 2nd time. Next day he calls saying he can see the sparklies and they are hard to see in the day light..he saw these when his shop lights were out I guess. So he calls LG and and gets 2 boards that two sub boards to the Y-SUS board and waiting for that to come in now. He's going on vacation for a bit then said hed work on my tv as soon as he gets back cause the boards will take 10 days to come. So hopefully I'll have more to update on around July 10th around the time he gets back. I am not too hopeful about this fixing the problem. Seems these guys are not very knowledgable on these things. I was hoping that LG was going to have him tweak the voltage like the other thread said, but I guess he didn't *shrug*

Please keep us posted. Mine popped after 14 months back in March and LG fixed it after I pressed them on the 2 year warranty fiasco. Now I noticed red sparklies the other night. Since I got them to fix it one time out of warranty I'm doubting they'll do it again. This TV is a POS! :mad:

If your set is still working, please put it in low power mode and report back.

If your set is still working, please put it in low power mode and report back.

Low power mode what is that? Can you explain and how is that suppose to help?

Hey buckeye fan, mine did the exact same thing. Fixed then I noticed red sparkles when I used my xbox and now I notice it on all channels. I called LG and apparently the repair shop hasn't sent them a fax on all the work they've done. They said they would sent the info to return authization dept. to see if they'd accept it. I talk to another lady and she said i had to email her the 2 yr warranty doc again so looks like they might be trying to back out of fixing it again...we'll see. Repair guys are real lazy/arrogant so the hardest part may be getting them to actually fax the work orders to lg.

Low power mode what is that? Can you explain and how is that suppose to help?



Hit menu on your remote, then go to options.

If your set is flashing, it goes away, I dont have the red specks or anything either, just had flashing and now its gone, ( 3 months now)

Well my plasma went to the shop over a week ago and the guy didn't even attempt to look at the sympton I was explaining with the red sparklies. He got a new Y-Sustain board and then called LG about fine tuning the settings...voltage and some other setting (wave?). I kept asking the guy if he has seen the sympton and he's like well I've had it running now for a day and it looks fine. I asked him if I could take a look at it with his test pattern displayer and he told me he didnt have time for that. I told him I wanted to see it before taking it out of the shop so I didn't have to call CC again and put it back in his shop for a 2nd time. Next day he calls saying he can see the sparklies and they are hard to see in the day light..he saw these when his shop lights were out I guess. So he calls LG and and gets 2 boards that two sub boards to the Y-SUS board and waiting for that to come in now. He's going on vacation for a bit then said hed work on my tv as soon as he gets back cause the boards will take 10 days to come. So hopefully I'll have more to update on around July 10th around the time he gets back. I am not too hopeful about this fixing the problem. Seems these guys are not very knowledgable on these things. I was hoping that LG was going to have him tweak the voltage like the other thread said, but I guess he didn't *shrug*

The red sparkle issue can be fixed by replace the X & Y Sustain boards along with the logic board. The 42" version of this set has a kit which all three of these boards come in. There are ways to adjust out the sparkles by tweaking the Y SUS voltage, V set & VA controls but it's only a temporary fix. They'll be back before long.

The red sparkle issue can be fixed by replace the X & Y Sustain boards along with the logic board. The 42" version of this set has a kit which all three of these boards come in. There are ways to adjust out the sparkles by tweaking the Y SUS voltage, V set & VA controls but it's only a temporary fix. They'll be back before long.

oh man your kidding...you think there is no way to fix this issue? I will keep pressing CC until this issue is fixed else I'll probably demand a new TV. I expect after paying $2600 and a $500 warranty that I get something that is perfect. That is too much money to not get something the way you want. I'm sure many here would agree.

Here's the reply LG gave on my BBB complaint. An expected and generic response at best from them..
This customer's complaint has been received and carefully reviewed. We sincerely regret that this customer is experiencing difficulties with the Zenith plasma display panel. All electronic equipment requires maintenance from time to time despite the most exacting quality control standards at the factory. While we constantly strive for better ways of keeping maintenance to a minimum, occasional failures can occur. The manufacturer's limited warranty is designed to take care of any failures in the early life of the unit by repairing or replacing the unit with the same model. Once this warranty has expired however, the consumer becomes responsible for any repair. This customer's unit is now approximately seven months out of the manufacturer's warranty. Regretfully, due to the expiration of the manufacturer's warranty, we are unable to help recover any of the expense for this repair, replace the unit, or compensate the customer in any way.

Best Buy came out and replaced both boards on 5/29/07. Although I didn't get the pop again, on 6/20/07 the picture went out. 2nd repair in one month. One more repair and I get a completely new TV from Best Buy using their lemon policy.....I can only hope for another pop. This thing is definitely a lemon!!!

P.S. Don't forget to tell your friends to not buy Zenith/LG products!!!!!!!!!!

Count me in on the red sparkles problem. Sort of. Mine are a little strange. I noticed them alot last week for the first time while watching a DVD on the PC. I could not see them at all from the TiVo s3. Same HDMI input through a switch. Over the weekend I upgraded my video card from a 7950 GT to a 8600 GTS and no matter how hard I look, I can not see the sparkles.

After reading more of this thread, I am a bit concerned about it, but can anyone explain why a different video card would make such a difference? Or if I am just plain crazy? (likely...;))

I'm going to look again very hard when I get home tonight and will let you know what I see. But I did not see any sparkles yesterday at all with the same DVD.

edit: OK, they are still there and on the TiVo, too, but whereas before they looked like a blizzard of red, now it's barely flurries. I had to get real close and pause on black to even see them. But it was really bad with the other video card. Now they are both about the same, almost nonexistent.

Jerry, if you could be so kind could you put you set in low power mode to see if the red sparkles go away? I am just curious.

Thanks

No difference. And I guess I did speak too soon. It is pretty bad. I have to be on the darkest scenes and be right up against it, but it IS there. It really seems to have no effect on the quality of the picture, but it is worrisome. And, I was right before, it still is not as bad as it was with the other video card.

Anyone, based on your experience with the sparklies, is it just there or can I expect it to get worse? If this is all I can expect, I really don't feel the need to get service involved.

thanks

I dont get the red sparkles, I have green ones on dark backgrounds, but only until the set warms up. I do also get on certain white images (like clouds on a blue background towards the top) red bleeding in. Anyone had this happen yet?

No difference. And I guess I did speak too soon. It is pretty bad. I have to be on the darkest scenes and be right up against it, but it IS there. It really seems to have no effect on the quality of the picture, but it is worrisome. And, I was right before, it still is not as bad as it was with the other video card.

Anyone, based on your experience with the sparklies, is it just there or can I expect it to get worse? If this is all I can expect, I really don't feel the need to get service involved.

thanks

I noticed my sparklies were getting worse overtime. I think at one point they were only there til the set warmed up then eventually were there all the time. I might be wrong though. I felt it was needed to be serviced only cause they bother me a lot when watching HD-DVDs and you get these pesky red sparklies all over the place...I also sit like 6 1/2 ft from the tv in my small room.

Hoowahman

Yes, my sparklies were/are the same. Use to "clear-up" somewhat after the set was running for awhile. Now, not as much. I also notice many, many more of them (though the largest concentration is bottom-center).

I will bite the bullet soon and have a tech come out. Hopefully, won't make it worse!

Side note: in addition to steering away from Zenith/LG anyone who will listen, when it came time for my cell phone upgrade, I switched from LG to another brand. Just doing my part to keep as much as I can from going into their coffers. Doesn't amount to much, but I feel better! :-)

Well last Monday (25June2007) my TV popped twice and the picture went dead. Purchased 02Feb2006, so about 17 months. Called customer service and was told no dice, out of warranty. I said what about the 2 year warranty on line? must be a mistake, Have you heard of this problem before? No first time. They reccomended a local shop so I took it there to get an estimate (free estimates). They want $1,107.54 to fix it. It needs 4 boards; Y-Sustain #6871QYH039B, Z-Sustain #6871QZH044C, Y Drive Top #6871QDH088A, Y Drive Bottom #6871QDH089A. Too much so I bought a Samsung HP-T4254 yesterday. Last week I filled complaints with the BBB & Florida Attorney General. I got a call today from Erica at LG. She said they got my BBB complaint and since there is a discrepancy in the warranty time, they are going to honor the 2 year warranty. They will call the local shop and authorize the work and I have a warranty until February 2008.
Be sure to mention the 2 web pages that show the 2 year warranty. One is gone, but one is still up.

Good luck

I have not had mine repaired yet (have a date scheduled for the 10th) but I had no problem (once I spoke to someone who actually did some work) getting them to extend the warranty.

1st call - Agent asked me to fax in receipt and serial number. I didn't have them handy (had to go back to Circuit City to get a printout) so it took me a few days before I faxed to the number they provided. She said she had to collect that and give it to her supervisor who would give the final decision about covering it under the LG warranty.

2nd call - (Called a few hours after I sent the fax) The first agent was out. When they looked me up by phone number, they had no record of the first call. I told them who the first person was and they said she'd be back the next day and they'd give her the fax.

3rd call - The original agent was still not around. I asked the agent I was talking to if she could enter everything in the system. (They still had my fax). Not only did she enter the ticket, she scheduled a date with a LG service rep in my area for an in home repair and said everything would be covered un the LG warranty. I would have NO out of pocket expense.

Hopefully I did not jinx myself. We'll see after the 10th.

When you guys talk about turning the 'low power' setting on, were you able to re-adjust the picture settings to make it picture look normal?

I just called Zenith/LG to get some clarification on their response to my BBB complaint. I got the same generic response from them on the phone as with the BBB complaint. I asked him, "So basically if you purchase this product you can expect to pay $600-$800 on repairs every 16-19 months?" He kept repeating, we can't know when an electronic product will break. I told him I could do a Google search and crunch some numbers and give him a good idea of when this particular set will break. Also, I asked if they've had other complaints about this set and he said no. That's when I really got pissed. Guess I'm the only one complaining about it....NOT!!! F#$%ing liars! Guess all I can do is spread the word about these Aholes.

POP goes the weasel and the weasel goes pop. Just got back from my long 4th of july holiday unpacked the truck then sat in front of my tv to catch sportscenter and after about 30 minutes POP! Black screen, no sound. Just great, add me to the pop list:(
I purchased mine in Sept 2005. I'm so proud mine lasted until it's 22 monthsery.
I have 1-877-9Zenith for Zenith's customer support number. Is their a more recent one for LG ? I would like to call and see if I can slide under the 2 year plan.

Quick search for the "durable" part numbers I found an a site that has them in stock for a total of $665.64. See attached for detailed info.

Interesting. That's where I bought my set. Also where purchased a 3 year extended warranty. I hope I don't "need" it and I sure hope these guys offer decent service if do.

Well i haven't been so unfortunate as a lot of people on this thread in that my TV has popped but i had a TERRIBLE red sparkle/dot problem. They were all over the screen. They never went away and i could see them from 9 feet back. I got LG to honor the 2 year warranty with a screen shot of their web site when it set there was a 2 year warranty on these television. Well my local Zenith authorized repair shop called me today and told me they are going to replace the PDP Panel (which i think is the main part of the plasma tv but im not sure). Have any of you had problems after they replaced the PDP Panel? I would hope the newest pdp panel would solve the design flaws apparently this tv has. I still owe on the tv because i got an awesome financing deal through BB for 36 months. I am almost inclinded to just sell it for what i have left to owe on it locally and either get a panasonic or pioneer plasma.

Ncage

Man am I ticked
I bought this set Dec 05. It popped Dec 06. Zenith fixed it as it had a few weeks left "in warranty"
the damn thing just now popped again. What a piece of garbage.

Going to take a deep breath and call Zenith in the morning.

Hey guys, I haven't checked in here in a long time. I see this piece of garbage that LG calls a plasma TV is still popping. What a shame. I sure don't miss the piece of crap. I took time to update the list of problems. Here goes:

Flashing:
Byron Walter
BradClark
JellyBellyMD
ramsey_55
Chilli_Dog
jaypb
eddiwill
LawrenceJ
ropergilson

Popping:
benwilard
dane2525
pajer
RBG
elfedz
Lcars
JohninTonawanda - 2X
The Fly
drjonesn
newbeetle18t
NCTS_tech
Gonzoga
cet98
Buckeye_Fan
vetteboi88
Sammylow
trikflow77
surfvland
jjsf
magrathea
billferreirae
*Boomer*
WindTunnel - 2X
kcr6419
dizzyliz
R-U-Q-R-U
rwmccullough
bman1369
cloudstrife
DucS2R
daivd_t_36582
tenpartsmitchell
schwailer
Ken F
DontBuyZenithLG
Pbsniper88
andyf0722
Covman7 - 2X
rjones3636
lorenzep
rhodges
rvfanatic
groovin_griff
gby
knockerjoe

Red Sparkles:
dmr3712
eddiwill
drjonesn
proteus69
bayouvette
Hoowahman
wildland1
Chilli_Dog
JellyBellyMD
bman1369
ropergilson
mope54
Buckeye_Fan
fergiej
ncage
Covman7

Washed out picture:
90SPGred

Follow up......I called the Zenith number in my manual and spoke to CS and told them I need service on my tv and they asked if it was still under warranty I said proudly yes. I figured this would put him in the return mode and he started asking me for my info. When he got to the date of purchase question, I said Sept 2005 and he replied this tv has only a 1 year warranty. I mentioned that I didn't buy this extended warranty because I noticed online it came with a two year warranty. I was put on hold for about 15mins and when the CS came back he said that they did at one time offer a two year warranty so they will honor it and forward an extended warranty authorization to a service provider near me.
My experience was pretty easy after having all the info from this forum first. If not they for sure would of told me to pound sand. Thanks guys for all your help. I just hope nothing else goes wrong with this lemon.

OK, i took a deep breath and waited till the afternoon to call (after experiencing my 2nd pop).

The customer service agent put me on hold and talked to her supervisor who agreed to extend my warranty to cover the failure.

I didnt have to mention the (briefly posted) 2 year warranty (linked on an earlier page in this thread).

Their faxing the authorization to my repair guy and things are looking good. Hopefully the part will be both the "new revision" and available without much delay.

Well, I probably shouldn't post this but my Zenith is still doing fine . . . (knock, knock).

Glad LG seems to be honoring the 2 year warranty I stumbled upon. Looks like it's saved quite a few of you guys.

I hope I don't have to find out if they'll honor it for me. I have a doubled warranty through VISA platinum anyway. I wonder if VISA would accept the screenshots, and double me to 4 years total?

Pipe dream, I know.

Thank you Eagles Dare and others here. Had it not been for this forum, I may never had pursued the repair as i was past my 1 year date.
I also would not have known just how many others are experiencing problems which, in a way, emboldened me to seek warranty service after it was officially expired.
Would be nice to see LG do a recall though or give us a credit on a better set.
I have no faith in the longevity of this unit having had 1 last 11 months and then the next repair last another 6. We'll see how this one does.

Add me to the list of poppers. Came home from work tonight and my 4 year proudly told me that the TV was broken. He said it made a loud pop and now there is no picture and only sound. Wanted to know when I could have it fixed.

Bought 11/20/05 and popped 7/11/07 or just shy of 20 months.

So, here I go. Do I get it fixed or do I give up and buy a new, more reliable one. I guess I'll start with calling Zenith and asking for the 2 year warranty I thought I had.

gby

Thank you Eagles Dare and others here. Had it not been for this forum, I may never had pursued the repair as i was past my 1 year date.
I also would not have known just how many others are experiencing problems which, in a way, emboldened me to seek warranty service after it was officially expired.
Would be nice to see LG do a recall though or give us a credit on a better set.
I have no faith in the longevity of this unit having had 1 last 11 months and then the next repair last another 6. We'll see how this one does.

I wonder if they are covering me because it originally failed within the 12 month warranty period and the second failure occurred within 1 year of the fix. Just a guess, but for me, the phone call to LG went very easy with no arguing or pleading. She just spoke to her supervisor and then offered to repair it on their dime.

Yes, my sparklies were/are the same. Use to "clear-up" somewhat after the set was running for awhile. Now, not as much. I also notice many, many more of them (though the largest concentration is bottom-center).

I will bite the bullet soon and have a tech come out. Hopefully, won't make it worse!

Side note: in addition to steering away from Zenith/LG anyone who will listen, when it came time for my cell phone upgrade, I switched from LG to another brand. Just doing my part to keep as much as I can from going into their coffers. Doesn't amount to much, but I feel better! :-)

Ok finally after a month in the shop I call the guy and he just got my TV back together after getting the 2 boards that connect the Y-SUS board. I don't know much of the technical details of these boards but he said these boards he replaced had liquid coming out of the chips on them! Could be some kind of cooling issue which is why ive seen the red sparklies get worse over time. He says he definitely does not see them now. I am bringing it home tomorrow at 7:30am so I will update with what I see and I hope to god its fixed that would be great. So it seems everyone with this problem might have this leaky chip issue and hopefully these new boards don't have it he said the chips look all nice and clean. Praying it wont happen again. As for tuning the voltage he said the default that came with these boards seem to be at the right settings.

Hello first time popper I mean poster here!
Ok so I am upstairs in my house and I here 2 loud pops followed by my wife screaming.
No it was not a home invasion robbery, it was my Z50 blowing up. Pretty much same story as everyone else 15 months old and out of warranty.
After reading up on this forum I promptly called up LG customer service the next day and talked to a CSA named Kat. I told her of my situation and she reminded me that Zenith only carries a 1 year warranty. Ithen told her of the LG web site that shows a 2 year warranty. She said "that was a mistake" (i'm thinking that was a mistake buying this TV!) I then explained to her about the stories of dozens of other people Z50 popping on this site and others and she told me "don't believe the internet". So after a little coaxing she said she would try to get the warranty extended for me and told me to fax the receipt and serial number. 2 days later i called back and they said they would fix the set "one time only" I think that is BS but I will fight that the next time it breaks. She gave me a list of repair places and on the second try a repair guy was at my house in 30 minutes and took it in to the shop for repair.
To make a long story short after 16 days the set came back today and is on my wall working. I noticed that the manual on/off switch on the left side is not working but I figure I will not complain.
On my repair order it says that the Narda 01905is6 was replaced. Does anyone know what this is?
Anyway I am very paranoid that this set will die again and not sure if I will pursue I warranty or not.
Good luck to all the other Z50 owners!
Update: Repair place confirms that the Z sustain board was replaced.

I got my TV back this morning as I thought. Some of the sparklies still exist! but it is a lot better than it was before. I'm just glad to have my TV back and in working order. Movies that had sparkly issues I don't see them anymore. I still see them at certain greyscale levels maybe when mixing with a certain color but the range where I see them is a lot less. I think its back to the range where it was when I originally bought it so that's good. It'll probably deteriorate overtime as the chips get used on the new Y boards. There is probably another board that has the same issue as the old Y boards and that is causing the current sparkly issue. Worth taking the time to move it and put in a shop for a month? I think so just to figure this whole ordeal out. If they come back in the next 6-8 months I'm going to demand a new set or at least try with my 3 year CC warrenty. I do not have much trust in the quality of LG at the moment.

Mines been fixed twice for the popping and then a black bar in the middle of my tv. I get it back after a month then i see these red sparkles. LG says to fax in receipt and paperwork from tv repair guys to send in for return authorizatino request. I've faxed my receipt 5 times and tv repair guys have told me they've sent in like 4 different times. Anyone else have this problem with lg not getting faxes? i think they're trying to see if I'll go away but this getting ridiculous and I know pretty soon the tv repair guys are going to get pissed at having to send in the fax. They were already pissed when they found out my set was under warranty since I think they were trying to rip mee off.

Hello first time popper I mean poster here!
Ok so I am upstairs in my house and I here 2 loud pops followed by my wife screaming.
No it was not a home invasion robbery, it was my Z50 blowing up. Pretty much same story as everyone else 15 months old and out of warranty.
After reading up on this forum I promptly called up LG customer service the next day and talked to a CSA named Kat. I told her of my situation and she reminded me that Zenith only carries a 1 year warranty. Ithen told her of the LG web site that shows a 2 year warranty. She said "that was a mistake" (i'm thinking that was a mistake buying this TV!) I then explained to her about the stories of dozens of other people Z50 popping on this site and others and she told me "don't believe the internet". So after a little coaxing she said she would try to get the warranty extended for me and told me to fax the receipt and serial number. 2 days later i called back and they said they would fix the set "one time only" I think that is BS but I will fight that the next time it breaks. She gave me a list of repair places and on the second try a repair guy was at my house in 30 minutes and took it in to the shop for repair.
To make a long story short after 16 days the set came back today and is on my wall working. I noticed that the manual on/off switch on the left side is not working but I figure I will not complain.
On my repair order it says that the Narda 01905is6 was replaced. Does anyone know what this is?
Anyway I am very paranoid that this set will die again and not sure if I will pursue I warranty or not.
Good luck to all the other Z50 owners!

Narda is the industry standard for warranty repair forms and standards. That number you listed is merely the Narda form number they returned to LG to be reimbursed for their repair. Not sure why that was put on there as the repair unless LG instructed them to do so.

I'm just curious about this... Would someone call their customer service(use *69 so they dont get your phone number) and complain about your set and ask if they've had complaints about this set before? I know what their answer will be since I've spoken to them 3 times and always ask that question and always get the same response. I'm going to start calling them every other day and complain. I figure, if I waste enough of their time tying up one of their phones and customer service agents, somehow, it's got to cost them money. I'm also going to start a chain email to all my friends and family to not buy Zenith/LG products. I'm on a mission now!

Well the TV repair place called me today. They said my set is done. They are going to deliver it Wednesday afternoon. I will let everyone know how things go once i had a chance to test out the set Wednesday night. At this point im just so happy to be getting it back. I had to move my 27 CRT from my bedroom to my family room while it was in the shop. Once you get used to a 50 inch tv dealing with a 27 inch it torture and have just got a new HD-DVD player and having three movies from netflix at my house that i can't even really use.

Ncage

Ok i promised to update everyone so here goes. I got my tv tonight. It is like a brand new tv. All sparkles are gone and picture is excellent. Other than not tightening one screw on back and a few finger prints on the screen it looks like they did a good job. I went to look at the invoice on how much it would have cost if i would have to had paid for it myself and you will be floored. Some people have reported $1000 repair bills but this go well beyond this so here goes:

Part: PDP
Part Number: 6348Q-C043M
Price $1797.96

Labor $140.00

Total: $1937.96

Can you believe this almost the same cost as a brand new tv? I asked this before and i never got a response so i will ask again. I think the PDP is the main part of the plasma. Since they probably replaced the PDP and i would assume the firmware is on this do you think i should feel relatively safe that this thing isn't going to break down on me? Howfully they also fixed the bugs with this new pdp. I am concerding whether to keep it or try to sell it. I know one thing i sure won't be footing a $2000.00 repair bill.

Ncage

I've been monitoring this thread for quite a while now. Put me on this list too. I purchased my plasma tv on 1/22/06 and a few months later I started to see some flicker in the video. The display would disappear for a few seconds, a few green specs would appear on the screen and then it would come back again. It's starting to happen more often now and we heard a loud POP so I decided to give LG a call. I couldn't get them to repair the TV on the first try and got a little pissed off. Then I gave them another call and sent them proof that there was a 2 year warranty and the guy sent a service request over to the repair service. We'll see how this goes... *fingers crossed*

OK, Just got my set back after the second pop (first pop at 11 months, 2nd pop at 19 months).
Zenith covered the repair. The work order said "YSUB" board was replaced.
Took about 1 week.

Anyone have an opinion on this set or is it to new?
I was all set to get the commercial Panasonic 50" when a previous TV I had took a dump and now I have a fair amount of store credit at one of the super stores. They sell the 50" consumer Panny and this Zenith which is actually a few dollars less than the Panny. Now I guess I need to rethink what TV I am getting as the commercial model is out of the question.
Stay away from this t.v. after about 15 months the picture went out. It seem's to be a manufacturers defect. I had to be tough with Zenith for them to extend my 1 year warranty and get it fixed for free. Zenith is not saying anything about this defect. Recommend staying away from this product.

The technician just left a few hours ago. He replaced 3 circuit boards and I had a chance to inspect them. All of them looked fine to me, no blown capacitors or anything, but you never know... Well I'm happy that LGE extended my warranty. The complaint letter that I diligently prepared goes into the trash. :) I'm happy.

First of all I would like to thank everyone on this forum for providing a wealth of good information. This thread, especially has been extremely informative. I have a few questions myself but let me give you my situation first. I apologize for the length of the post.

I want to add myself to the list of "poppers" with regards to this television. At exactly 17 months (to the day) we turned the television on and after about 15 minutes we heard a loud pop. The screen went grey and had a very washed out video. The audio was fine. After 30 seconds the picture went out completely. I turned the television off and when I turned it back on a few minutes later it wouldn't come on at all. I'd get the green power light flashing for a few seconds and than back to red. Basically this seems to be the same problem and issues that tens of people have documented throughout this thread.

I did not purchase the extended warranty through Circuit City. However, I did make sure to purchase this television on my American Express card. American Express automatically doubles the manufacturers warranty up to 5 years on anything that you purchase on their card. That essentially gives me a 2 year warranty that doesn't expire until February of 2008.

Just out of curiosity I called Circuit City's extended warranty number to find out if I could still purchase the extended warranty. I had received an offer in the mail at around my 1 year purchase anniversary so I thought I would see if it was still available. As it turns out the deadline for purchasing an extended warranty is 16 months after the purchase. So I just missed being able to retroactively purchase the extended warranty.

In any case, I contacted American Express and they put me in touch with a case worker in their extended warranty program. He couldn't have been nicer. He said that I was covered and that I would need to go ahead and contact any television repairman and get a repair quote. American Express would also pay for the service call for them to come to my home or even if I took the tv to the shop.

American Express said at that point they would either authorize and pay for the repair or if the repair price was too high that they would go ahead and credit the original purchase price of the television onto my American Express card so that I could purchase another set. He said that many times the repair costs are so high and with the cost of television sets going down it is in American Express and the customers best interest just to allow them to replace the TV with something new rather than try to fix the problem.

I asked what would happen if they fixed the problem and it happened again after February 2008 (when my American Express warranty runs out). He said that after February that I am on my own as they do not extend the warranty on any repairs made to the television. He did say that if the same problem occurred before February that he could almost guarantee that they would replace the tv all together at that point.

Ok, so obviously I would like to get out from under this particular television since we can't seem to be sure it will be working for more than a few months. It sounds that I can have this tv replaced if my repair quote comes in too high (but how high?). Reading this thread i've seen repair costs ranging from $700 to $2000 for this problem. I only paid $3000 for this tv brand new.

Does anyone have a guess as to what kind of quote would be needed for American Express to decide that we should just replace the TV? My fear is that the quote comes in around $1000 and that American Express decides just to fix it. Than the same problem happens to me again (like it has happened repeatedly for many of you) after the warranty expires in February and i'll be on my own.

Any tips on how to get the highest possible quote from a repairman so that AE will have no choice but to just replace it?

Anyone know a repairman who wants to make a few extra $$$ for writing me a high repair quote? ;)

Anyone else deal with American Express or any of the other credit card companies extended warranty programs?

If you haven't already, could you list what you were quoted or told that the repair price would be to fix this problem?

Feel free to post here or email me.

Thanks for reading and i'll keep everyone informed of my story as we move forward.

I was in the same boat as you and I decided to go with the LG repair instead of going with my mastercard platinum. Let us know what you decide on.

I joined the "Poppers" Club on Saturday. Since I've been following this thread, I knew exactly what it was when it happened, though I was surprised at how loud it was. I bought mine in late January 2006, so it lasted a year and a half.

I didn't purchase an extended warranty, so I was prepared for a battle with Zenith. I armed myself with the two-year warranty screenshot and called them yesterday evening.

I was pleasantly surprised that they were very helpful and authorized a repair without incident. I've already received an authorization number and have contacted the local repair shop. I just hope it's repaired by Football Season.

So far so good.

I fought with Zenith/LG and they would not authorize my television for repair. I used everything I learned on this thread (2yr screen shot, Neil, Kat, Tawanda, etc) I purchased mine in February of 2006 and joined the poppers on this past Friday. Fortunately my TV is still covered by my American Express warranty. The repairman is coming on Thursday and i'm hoping that he comes in with a very high quote. American Express said that they will authorize a replacement TV if the repair quote is high. I fear that just repairing the problem is a temporary band-aid. I'd like to get away from this set all together if possible.

Well, the repair shop finally called me back and they are scheduled to come out and look at my popped zenith on Tuesday afternoon. I hope they can fix it and don't have to order some part that will take weeks to get.

Football is coming and I'll be a bit grumpy if it isn't fixed by then.

The repairmen came out yesterday and as expected it turns out that the YSUS module was shorted out. The cost for repair is $875 plus the $75 service call. I assume this price will be low enough that AE will agree to repair it instead of replacing the entire television. Now I fear that the other module will blow out after my warranty expires. In any case, I will submit the paperwork to AE and should have my answer within a couple of days. The repairman said it should only take a week from the time I get authorization until he finishes the repair and returns the television. I'll let you know how it all works out. He did tell me that they've seen a lot of the Zenith models go bad. Unscientifically, he did say that they rarely get service calls for Panasonic and Sharp televisions.

Repair guy came today, and as others here have reported, four circuit boards need to be replaced. They will be ordered and should arrive in 7 - 10 days. Fortunately LG is doing the repair. The guy was nice enough, but clumsy as an ox. He scratched the hell out of my entertainment center and nearly dropped the plasma on the ground!

Hi everyone im new here. I found this site because i too own a zenith z50px2d bought in jan. 2006. That went pop and picture went out. took tv to repair shop. Repair man calls me back and says after finding 3 boards bad on a tv only a 1.5 years old he called the zenith tech line and was told it was a common problem and that he would have to replace 5 boards. He said i would be looking at roughly $1200 in parts alone! & that i could propably replace the tv cheaper. He also said that if he was me he would call zenith because it seams to be a common problem for them & mabye even the better business bureu. well just got of the phone with zenith and they could care less about my problems. and was informed that they know of no problems with that model. well i googled z50px2d problems and found this site. holy cow looks like the difinitly know about this. any suggestions on what to do next?

well i downloaded the 2 warranty screenshots and will try that route tomarow & see where that gets me.

Well mine just went pop as well. Bought it from Best Buy in 2/2006, so only lasted 19 months. Thankfully I purchased the 4 year extended warranty, but I have to wait 10 days for someone just to come look at it.

Well before the repair guy started his repair he discovered a couple of more blown boards. The original repair quote was $875 is now up to $1400. American Express has credited my account for $1400. However, I think I am going to just take that money and put it towards purchasing a new TV. I'm looking at the Panasonic TH-50PX77U. I can purchase it new with a 4 year warranty for $2000 so i'm out the extra $600 but I think it is worth it for a better quality TV with no known defects and the security of a 4 year warranty. I guess i'll see if the repair man wants to buy my broken Zenith for a few hundred $$$. If anyone else is interested in the busted Zenith feel free to contact me. Thanks to everyone for the great info. I certainly won't be buying Zenith or LG ever again though :)

I purchased this particular set 1/1/2006...no problems yet. I did notice red dots on the screen over 7 months ago, which have since gone. I'm heading on month 20, should I be worried?