Sony KDL-52W5500 faulty but Sony won’t replace – please help

[derek901]

Hi,

I wonder if anyone can help me escape call centre and procedure hell…

A few weeks ago my KDL-52W5500 (under Sony warrantee) developed this problem which was reproducible every time it was turned on from cold (distorted colours, lots of horizontal red lines and fuzzyness whether something connected or not):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aU8m00i4og (recorded with my iPod)

The set was taken away and returned a week later ‘fixed’.  Around a week later this started happening intermittently (vertical red lines and multi-coloured shimmering lines):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhHwqfYIG6Q (recorded with my iPod)

The problem happened with either an Xbox 360 or Sony Blu-ray player, both with HDMI connections.  We don’t watch broadcast TV so I don’t know if it happens with that or not.

The set was taken away, but as I dreaded with an intermittent problem the service centre still can’t reproduce it after nearly two weeks.  Dealing with Sony support has been a very disheartening and stressful experience.  They eventually escalated the issue internally and after several days (!) are now telling me that I have to take the set back and try different HDMI leads (one for each device) as that can be the only cause.  I’m then supposed to wait to see if it reoccurs.

When the problem shows up, no doubt right in the middle of a film, the service centre aren’t going to come to visit right there and then to see for themselves.  So I will be left to making another video and calling them out again, leaving me right where I am now.

I’m deeply saddened that this is basically a matter of my word verses theirs even though I took video evidence to prevent this happening.  A complete failure of customer service.

If anyone can help get me out of this I would be very grateful.

Thank you in advance,

Derek.

[Bravia55HX]

Hi,

the first thing you should have done before escalating this with Sony or on here is to try and see if it does it on terrestrial tv to rule out HDMI or x-box and blu ray faults,

if it does the same on normal channels then its the tv, otherwise it will be connected equipment, please try your tv channels first and report back.

[derek901]

Hi,

We don't watch terrestrial TV (no TV licence) so that wasn't possible.

Please note that for it to be the connected equipement it would have to be the same fault with two different devices and their two different HDMI cables.

Thanks,

Derek

[Bravia55HX]

Derek,

understood, just conveying a simple process of elimination!, the best guy for this is StartTheCar but he's currently out of the office till next week!

[derek901]

That's OK.  At this rate it will still be going on by next week, so fingers crossed he may be able to point me in the right direction.

I'm just so glad I filmed it with my iPod, I was hoping that it would help the engineers (I'm a software developer so I know how helpful it can be to have evidence of bugs) not be my only proof.

Derek

[Bravia55HX]

Derek901,

just dawned on me that you say the tv is under warranty, your first port of call should have been your dealer who you purchased the tv from.

your dealer still has a duty of care whether you have 12 months or 5 years on it, so they should deal with it.

[derek901]

The TV is under a 3-year Sony warranty (strange number I know) and is 2 years old.

I'm not sure if the dealer (Amazon in this case) does have responsibility after 12-months.  I'll look into it.

I had a call on Thursday from Sony in the UK to confirm details about the videos and which ones related to which problem.  No progress so far on any action being taken though.

The main issue, other than the fault being intermitent seems to be that the two problems are not associated in the support system as they have two different reference numbers.  Everytime I speak to someone I have to point out that this is not the first problem and refer them to the first.

Message was edited by: derek901

Message was edited by: derek901

[derek901]

Received a text from the service centre to say that have order a new part.

No word from Sony support about what is happening.  Unless they have managed to reproduce the fault, I can only presume they are changing something in the hope it works.

[derek901]

Update:

After four weeks and more calls to customer service than should have been necessary, the TV is back and 'repaired'.  As the engineers could not reproduce the problem, the T-Con board has been replaced as the likely cause of the problem.  Given that this is what was replaced with the first problem, I'm not really sure how to feel, confident I'm not.

Fingers crosssed this is the end of it as I don't really want to play the customer service call cente lottery again (and again).