Internal Crack on my 46" Panasonic Plasma? :(

Originally Posted by th3sp3ck

Last night I came home and there was a crack on my Panasonic P46S10 screen - not on the glass - the glass looks still looks flawless - but on the plasma panel behind the glass. To me it looks like there is a small space between the glass and the panel so I would think if something were to have struck the glass and broken the panel there would be a chip or mark on the glass and you would of really had to hit the glass rather hard. Since I unfortunately have to replace the TV, I didn't want to spend any money for a technician to take a look at it so I thought I'd check here for thoughts. Is it possible to break a plasma screen without damaging the glass? The Panasonic customer service rep while friendly, was not at all helpful. He claimed he'd never heard of something like this....

Originally Posted by th3sp3ck

Correct! However the lack of not even the slightest blemish on the glass makes me think it wasn't one of them, especially since they can't help but tell me every detail especially if it involves something the other one did. That is part of what I'm wondering - could something (or someone) damage the panel and not damage the glass?

Originally Posted by th3sp3ck

Yeah I hear ya and I grilled them pretty good... To my eye, it looks like there is a good quarter to half inch in between the glass and the panel itself - and when I pressed on the glass to see if the glass would bend I didn't even get close to touching the panel.

Originally Posted by th3sp3ck

Thanks - that helps confirm my suspicions. Even looking at the crack and the "impact" point, it looks to be almost bubbling outwards. Obviously its an older unit (well only just over 2 years) so its no longer under any kind of warranty, but I will send some emails/letters to Panasonic, needless to say I am feeling gun shy about purchasing another Panasonic.

Originally Posted by BrownRB

I had a 65" Panasonic delivered that had at least a dozen long cracks in it - some up to 18" long. All of them were internal - the outer glass was not cracked at all.

Originally Posted by Robert Bartolin 

Yes, I have the same problem. I bought a 50" panasonic from Costco on the 11-28-12, thee weks later I was watching tv and heard a pop and the tv went off and the screen on the inside shattered. Costco wouldn't talk to me and said the tv was damaged and told us to talk to Panasonic. So. I called Panasonic and they give me a case number. A few weeks later I called them and they said they couldn't help me . So don't what to do. Has anyone out there had the same problem with Panasonic. I have a new tv that I can;t watch.and paid cash for it. HELP Robert .

Originally Posted by RandyWalters 


Oh i certainly understand you being gun shy, but this sort of failure seems to be extremely rare on the Panasonics (i can only recall maybe 3 victims over the past several years). But spontaneous panel cracking was rampant on the Samsungs with several victims (there was even a big thread about it last year), and Samsung was refusing to repair or replace TVs that were under warranty. Panasonic on the other hand has stepped up and repaired or replaced the TVs. It's unfortunate that your failure happened out of warranty though.


This has more to do with the nature of these newer very thin TVs which now places circuit boards and the power supply right up against the backside of the plasma panel. Power supplies and circuit boards have been blowing on all brands of TVs for over twenty years (my 1990 Sony Triniton blew a board at 2 years then blew another one at 3 years - both fixed under extended warranty) and it's also been happening on LCD and Plasma Flat Panel TVs since their inception ten years ago, but those older TVs had more interior space and such failures didn't cause damage like they now do on these newer thinner TVs.