Panasonic Repairs? The ONLY place for warranty or out-of-warranty service! - Page 3

This may not help those who need a repair now but it might be helpful for the future.
While the selection of electronics is limited, Sam's Club should be considered if they have the product that you are looking for.
With the exception of computers and a couple of other products, they offer a lifetime return policy on any purchase.
I have a DMR- ES46V for couple of years and I know that I can return it, if it ever fails, for a full refund.

If Panasonic is indeed just playing the swap game with non HDD DVDRs I'm sure that's just what what they'd do, a ES-46v for a EZ-48, NOT!
Digado I agree with you, the ES-45/6 is probably the best combo Panasonic made, especially if upconverting is high on your list. If you don't care about upconverting I'd say the '05 dual display ES-30v is tops. Just avoid the interim ES-40v, it was a sign of things to come

My Panasonic TV manu warranty is about to expire and I got an offer for a Customer Care Plan from what could be Panasonic. The paper is so plain , with just one "Panasonic" text in the top left in big bold lettering. I dont want to give some 3rd party some cash only to find they are not Panasonic affliliated and my repairs are expensive, or 'not covered'. Ph num is 8007188770, and they are located in 220 Highway 121 STE 105, Bedford TX. Any ideas if they are legit?

Anybody got a phone number for the service ctr in Texas.

Ok, now I'm a tad confused, isn't that the regular Panasonic phone number. I thought (or was hoping) the Service Ctr would have their own number.

McAllen Service Ctr
4900 George McVay Drive
Suite B Door 12
McAllen Texas 78503

I just got off the phone with a Panny rep who was pretty hard to understand. I dropped my trusty E85 the other day, breaking the front corner of the case, smashing in the Power button, but the real issue is that now it won't respond to the remote.

I reset the machine and I get the TVGOS setup screen, but w/o the remote I can't get any further. The display on the front of the unit looks OK for that stage as well - it has the channel as 1, the blue light is on for the hdd, and GUIDE is showing.

I was all set to send it to Panny in Illinois like in the past, but the rep today said it has to go to Texas as someone else posted here. When I asked about the Illinois repair facility, he told me they do Blu-Ray and dvd recorders are done in Texas.

Does this match with what others have been doing recently with their broken Panny recorders? I haven't had one break in a couple of years so I realize things might have changed.

He said the base fee was $140 but could be different. In the past I was always quoted the $130 plus shipping, so I guess it's the same, IF the $140 is the final price.

BTW, this is the first time I wasn't offered a return label to use to ship it at their expense.

I don't believe anybody knows what's happening in Texas as I've had a reply up for a couple days. This shipping units off I think is a flip of the coin. 3 yrs ago I shipped one to a Bloomington IL repair ctr and had to send a 48.00 diagnostic fee, 6 mths later I had not received unit or 48.00, finally Panasonic rep got a hold of the people and I received my un-repaired unit back and my 48.00. I'm stuck as I use the ram discs etc but I don't refer people to Panasonic at all, my conscience won't allow it. I did just ship a ES-25 off to Texas yesterday and I will report back if anything happens but it could be a long wait. That's why I bought the es-28 as a backup unit because I may never get the es-25 back. Good Luck

The number I was given for the McAllen center was 956-683-2930. I was (incorrectly) told to call this number to give my payment details. I don't know exactly what department that # is to, but perhaps you can get them to transfer you without having to wait on hold using the 800#. However, I did end up having to directly call the Elgin, IL center to pay, 847-468-5543, as they physically had my unit. Again, I was told that DVD recorders w/ HDD's were being sent to the Elgin center. I was billed last week, $130, so I should have my unit by the end of this week and can comment on the quality of repairs then.

I've sent several units to Panny in Illinois over the years and they have all come back working just great.

That's why I am a little apprehensive about sending one to this Texas facility since people on these boards are still using Elgin.

I'm going to call again and maybe get a rep who speaks English this time.

I just called the Elk Grove Village facility and spoke with a nice woman there. I explained the confusion about where to send my machine (Texas or Illinois) and she gave me a very reasonable explanation.

This is what she said:

1. The Texas facility is an EXCHANGE facility. They DO NOT repair dvd recorders there. So if you have a newer model and you send yours there, they swap it out for another (where THEY come from I have no idea, but I'm guessing refurbs).

2. If you ship an older model to Texas and they can't swap it out (I'm looking at needing to get an E85, an Eh55 and possibly an E500 repaired, so I don't think they have replacements sitting around for those models) Texas ships them to Illinois to be repaired. This might explain what another poster encountered when he said he shipped his unit to Texas only to find it was shipped from there to Elk Grove. TEXAS DOES NOT REPAIR MACHINES.

3. If you have one of these classic hard drive units the woman said we are welcomed to simply ship them to Elk Grove with the usual description of the problem and contact info along with a check for $130, which includes return shipping. The flat repair fee for out of warranty repairs has not changed.

So, THAT'S what I'm going to do. Straight to Elk Grove like I have been doing in the past (except it looks like I now have to pay for shipping to them since the woman there wasn't sure if they were still using the Panasonic Corporate UPS Account for shipping to them).

I even told her about this site and how people are confused over the Texas facility and how they fit in, and she said I should post what I did and to give their phone # and address. So...

Panasonic Camera & Digital Service Center
1590 Touhy Ave
Elk Grove Village, Illinois 60007
Tel: 888-439-2676

This is good news indeed. Thanks. I truely hope it pans out and is correct. Sometimes I think even Panasonic doesn't know what is happening.

I agree, it appears that the Texas facility does not repair machines, it merely swaps out machines with refurbs from the Mexican plant.

I surely wouldn't worry too much as you can only do "what you can do" It's like a Chinese fire drill. I told the support person I would like my es-25 repaired and he told me it had to be shipped to Texas. Then I read posts here that said the Elk grove place was finished and done. Now it's alive and kicking so I have always said this electronic stuff is a flip of the coin. You got to have a sense of humor or you'll go wacko.

For the time being!

Well, looks like my bad luck is starting up again. The UPS carrier delivered my deck a short while ago. I unboxed it and set it up. Everything seemed to start fine. I go into the HDD->Direct Navigator and all my recordings are still there. Yeah! I then grab a disc to test the new RAM drive. I press the open/close button and nothing happens. I then press the drive select button and nothing happens. I use the remote, and I can change to DVD/VHS/SD etc, but the front panel doesn't seem to work. I then notice that in the lower right corner, a piece of the display cover is missing. This is the piece that looks like the fold-down display cover that runs along the bottom, but this one is fixed in place and covers the IR sensor. There is a crack in the plastic starting at the IR sensor, a crack along the top right of the fascia and along the bottom where it 'clips on' to the metal chassis. It appears that the unit was dropped or mishandled at this area. I guess it broke whatever cables/boards attach the front display to the rest of the unit. The actual display itself works fine. As of now, the only buttons on the unit that work are Power, Channel Up, FF, Play and VHS->DVD copy. All the functions on the remote appear to work. But since there is no eject button, I cannot open the RAM tray, nor can I eject a VHS tape to see if the VCR works.

This is really disheartening. I'm fairly certain that the unit was not damaged in transit back to me because the missing piece of front display cover is nowhere to be found. I placed my unit inside a large cloth bag, wrapped it in bubble wrap, placed it inside a Panasonic VCR box (not the original DMR-EH75V box, though) and placed that box inside a larger cardboard box for shipping. But I don't know how the unit could have been fixed if it was damaged somewhere along the line before servicing. Perhaps after it was finished but before it was packed? In any event, I was not notified that the unit was damaged when it was recived and no notice of such damage was given on the invoice/receipt. The double (outer) box that the unit was returned to me in was not the one I sent it in. It was larger in size, but the cardboard was thinner. They did send it 3 day instead of ground though.

I'm going to call the service center tomorrow and see about them sending me a return shipping label so I can get this thing fixed once and for all.

As for the details, both boxes had a green sticker on them with my Work Order #, unit name (DMR-EH75V), bar code and "NON EXCHANGE" in large letters. Both the shipping label and my invoice had the Elgin address on it, not the Elk Grove address.

Well, I said I would post again to report my results. As I said in my earlier post (#54). I sent it to the Elk Grove address with a letter and a check for $130. After I called on 6/30, I still didn't hear anything and called again on 7/10. I talked with the same person who said that the part came in, but the tech had to order another part.

The UPS guy showed up with it on Monday, July 20. The invoice says "REPLACED DVD DRIVE" and listed Part Number RFKNEH75VP with a description of "RAM/DIGITAL PCB MODULE." $130 paid in full.

Everything seems to work good. It took awhile, but I'm very happy to get my DVD recorder back.

Thanks for all your help - hope you have good luck also.

OK, so I heard back from the Pansonic Digital Service Center this morning. They said one of the boards was damaged and when they replaced it and powered on the unit, it prompted for a HDD format. It was nice of them to call me before they went through with it (I asked them to do so in the letter I included with the unit), but there's not much I could do. It was either have them fix it and format it, or send it back to me and I wouldn't be able to burn anything to disc. So I told them to go ahead and format it. There was only about 30 min or so of 'irreplaceable' material, but the remainder (nearly 16 hours in XP) was short snippets here and there from 60+ VHS tapes. I really don't want to have to comb through them all again. Does anyone know for certain if the formatting is a true 'low level' format that erases everything or just a 'quick format' allowing me to possibly recover most or all of the data by removing the HDD and using data recovery software? If the latter, is the file structure FAT32 or NTFS?

thanks

Ok as stated above I sent my DMR-ES25 to Mcallen Texas and today I got letter back saying they will replace unit with a DMR-EZ18 (not even sure of unit number as it was scribbled badly) I can't even Google for specs on this unit so I have no idea what it does. The cost of refurb is 140.00 plus 15.00 shpg. If I'm going to pay 155.00 for unit I would like to know something about it. When I'm done here I will try search on this forum, any help appreciated.

Thanks for quick reply but I could not get that link to load so I am back to Google to see what I can find. It is weird the scribbling looks like this (DMR EZ) that's pretty clear, then it follows with either L18 S or 218 S So I don't have a clue.

More interesting news, Amazon has a brand new DMR-EA18K for 169.98 with free shipping. The DMR-EZ28 I believe was 253.98. I would think it will be the EA18k that they would ship but I will call tomorrow to find out. Not a big deal but I thought I should get it out here, I will post more after I talk tomorrow.

The EA-18 isn't a bad DVDR, although unless you need it's IR blaster (to control a STB) IMO the ES-25 is a more full featured machine and more stable.
$155 for a referbed machine that has a retail value of $179 sounds a little steep though.
Do you get your ES-25 back then, or do they keep it?
Another source for referbished Panasonics is wegotbetterdeals.com, I can't seen to get their webpage to open right now or I'd give you a link. I think they've had the EA-18 referbed for <$120.

I have 15 days to make a decision on the refurb and if I don't accept they will send my unit back. I'm sure if I accept they will keep old unit. If it is the DMR-EA18 I probably will purchase the unit new from Amazon. The extra 14.00 is worth it to get the extra 9 mths warranty. Is the wegotbetterdeals.com a legitimate place? I thought I read somewhere on forum that it was kinda flaky.

I've never ordered from WGBDs but I think Digado said he had a while back and his order was OK. Someone else posted they don't have a very good online rating but I don't think he had actually ordered from them either. The only reason I mentioned them is because they seem to have a steady supply of Panasonic referbs. If you can get a good deal on a new EA-18 at Amazon I agree the extra 11 months warranty may well be worth it.
Truthfully with any newer DVDR buying B&M even if it costs a bit more would be worth it(IMO) but DVDRs, especially the EA-18 is very hard to find B&M. Target stores used to sell the EA-18 B&M but I think they dropped the EA-18 and only carry the Panasonic EZ-48v now.
edit: If wegotbetterdeals website is any indication of the company it's not a good sign. Try as I may I just can't get a good connection. It worked for one page but then hangs on a clock, all other sites are OK so it must be something with theirs

When my es25 died I purchased a DMR-EZ28, Now my dilemma is I can pick up the EA18 for 114.95 from WGBD this will be my backup recorder, which could sit in closet for 5 or 6 years. Or purchase a new one 169.00 and it could sit in closet hopefully for 5 or 6 years.

You would think that both machines will be beyond any warranty by the time I would need them. Can you see how I confuse myself with these endless problems that I build in my mind.

Are there any other name brand recorders that will record to DVD-Ram?

Next Chapter, well what I thought was a DMR-EZ L 18 S, in reality is a DMR-EZ 485 I have not the slightest info about this unit except it's a VCR/DVD recorder Does it even have an HDMI input. Oh well back to search.