Quote:
Originally Posted by
nic66718 
Tech was in and out in 45 minutes. Said he has changed 100's of these in the past four years and said for the past year, hes never replaced one twice unless it was defective out of the box. Claims Sony greatly improved product after earlier problems. I'll certainly watch it close as my extended warranty thru CC still has 18 mos. on it. He also does the CC warranty work and one of the last posters is right. CC dealt thru a third party and there is no problem getting these fixed. He kind of doubted that changing the bulb led to this and said that having it on the Vivid setting all the time was the likely cause(the wife notices a BIG difference and ...to keep peace....)
Techs have been telling customers for many years that Sony has improved the optical blocks, and that they never have to replace them a second time. That's what the tech told me when he replaced my first optical block. But, about two years later, it failed the same way the first one did. Leading up to my lawsuit, Sony acknowledged that no redesign had been done when it was replaced, nor had any redesign been done since then.
Sony claimed that they fixed the problem before the 2006 models came out. Yet, 2006 models and replacement optical blocks for earlier models installed after that have been failing with the same problems. And the 2007 models are also failing with the same problems. Then Sony stopped producing them. Have they really done any effective re-engineering since then? Highly unlikely. Particularly since they are encouraging all of their customers to buy new Sony flat panel LCDs rather than trying to repair their projection TVs.
We customers should be able to rely on statements by techs, but I would suggest that, while generally well-meaning, they probably have no idea what they are talking about on this topic. They have no need for any knowledge about the interior of the optical blocks or any changes Sony has allegedly made to them. They simply remove the old one and plug in the new one. So, I encourage you to ask the tech to detail what changes were made. And, if he is unable to provide any details, I encourage you to ask about the basis for the claim. For example, does he have a written document from Sony specifying changes? I would love to have some reliable information backing this up, but I fear it does not exist.
Beyond the optical block design, I doubt that any electronic picture settings on the TV, like "Vivid", have any effect on longevity. I highly doubt that these settings have much, if any, effect on the amount of heat, UV radiation, etc. that the parts are subjected to.
