Word of Warning about Dixons/Currys Dead pixel policy

Snake Plisken

Guys,

I did my research and decided to buy an Toshiba 32WL56 LCD TV on Thursday, I bought it and also took out the 4 year mastercare plan, but yesterday evening when I hooked up my Xbox 360 I noticed a dead Pixel in the top left hand side of the screen, Now as others have said on here once you notice it your eyes are drawn to it and its heard to forget about it, so I rang the Dixons branch and they told me to bring it back with all documentation, so did that this morning, what happens then is that the branch has to ring a support centre to get a write off code from this support centre. Anyway the sales guy puts me on to some bloke in the UK and I tell him about the dead pixel, and he goes off and talks to his Super and comes back to tell me that it is within the Manufacturers tolerence and can't be changed. The manager of the store took the call then and told them look the pixel is bad in the set its clearly a fault and the the store needs to give me a replacement, I was told to go have a coffee for 20 mins while he talked to the service centre anyway when I got back the Manager said they wouldn't budge in the call centre but he would give me a new set and put my returned one out on display, so I was lucky to deal with a decent store manager I am just praying that I don't get another dead pixel.

So if your going out to buy a set please bear in mind that Currys/Dixons group have tightened up their policy on Dead Pixels, the manager stated they have had a few lcd sets back with dead pixels but never had any issue with giving a new set under the masterplan policy.

Cheers

Snake

MarkR

You'll find the same with all of the lcd manufacturers I can think of. The retailler will normally just pass on the manufacturers guarantee. A single dead pixel would be considered within specification by the manufacturers...

pH

Some retailers offer a pixel-check, and some manufacturers are starting of offer zero pixel defect guarantees but needless to day it does cost more.

johnnyrotten

Its clearly faulty. You are entitled to a replacement or refund

Snake Plisken

Well I think its within the manufacturer's spec to have so many pixels out buy I thought by buying the Mastercare insurance I would be covered for everything but doesn't look like it, also this seems like a new rule being employed by Dixons that a lot of their store folks don't know about yet, so if they say yep dead pixels are covered just say no you know someone who was told it wasn't covered

Lump

It's normally about 2 - 3% have to be dead before they'll replace it. For LCDs anyway

John

leeroybrown

Snake Plisken wrote:

Well I think its within the manufacturer's spec to have so many pixels out buy I thought by buying the Mastercare insurance I would be covered for everything but doesn't look like it, also this seems like a new rule being employed by Dixons that a lot of their store folks don't know about yet, so if they say yep dead pixels are covered just say no you know someone who was told it wasn't covered

If they told you that the set was covered for dead pixels under the Mastercare insurance then they're guilty of false selling. If you asked about dead pixels on an LCD they should not have misled you into buying the insurance. In any event, you've struck lucky and won't have to press this point.

Typically I won't buy these insurance products as I believe that the cost of replacing faulty electronics over time will end up being less than the value of the extra cove provided. Unless they have drastically improved the value for money of these plans they're a well documented rip off.

Lump

Did the Op read the small print though? They normally only tell you the good stuff, and word things differently.

John

TempestSabre

johnnyrotten wrote:

Its clearly faulty. You are entitled to a replacement or refund

It clearly isn't, unless theres a zero bad pixels policy.

Boggles

Lump wrote:

It's normally about 2 - 3% have to be dead before they'll replace it. For LCDs anyway

John

Jaysus If I paid a couple of grand for a telly with 2-3% dead pixels and they wouldn't repair it, I think I'd go postal.

Lump

That's why you shouldn't pay that much. Wait till they come down in price.

John

johnnyrotten

TempestSabre wrote:

It clearly isn't, unless theres a zero bad pixels policy.

If it is not doing what its supposed to ( 1 dead pixel is a fault ) then its faulty and therefore entitles the owner to a replacment or refund - Fu€K their policy

Boggles

Lump wrote:

That's why you shouldn't pay that much. Wait till they come down in price.

John

12-18 months???

FranknFurter

If they are going to screw you, why not screw them?
Read that expensive policy you bought VERY carefully then have somthing else happen to it that *does* come under their "mastercare plan" and they will HAVE to replace it.
(I once had to do this after buying a 300 euro "everything covered" plan on a laptop from PC World (also is Dixons group)

I learnt my lesson about their "coverplans" then, I will never buy a "coverplan" from them again at that kinda price because the service you recieve from it turns out to be pretty much just what you are entitled to by consumer law in reality.

b

TempestSabre

Boggles wrote:

Jaysus If I paid a couple of grand for a telly with 2-3% dead pixels and they wouldn't repair it, I think I'd go postal.

You can't repair a dead pixel they are part of the manufacturing process.

johnnyrotten wrote:

If it is not doing what its supposed to ( 1 dead pixel is a fault ) then its faulty and therefore entitles the owner to a replacment or refund - Fu€K their policy

You can pay a premium for quarantee of 0% dead pixels/stuck pixels. However if you don't then thats your own look out for not reading the policy. Most of the manufacturers have a tolerence level which they accept or refuse. As the buyer its something you should be aware of when buying any TFT screen on a PDA/Laptop/Monitor/TV. They ALL suffer from it.

Blaster99

I bought a Samsung LCD TV from Komplett some time ago. Arrived with a dead pixel bang in the middle of the screen. I contacted Komplett's uninterested support rep and their response was "it's within tolerance". I called Samsung support and they told me that any problem at all within the first month should be dealt with by the shop I bought the TV from. I should get a replacement. I told Komplett this and they accepted it. I sent back the TV and got a new one back.

Moral of the story: contact the manufacturer to see what their policy is.

Another moral of the story, if buying an LCD TV in a shop demand to have it hooked up so you can inspect it before buying it. That'll cut out a lot of the BS further down the line.

TempestSabre

Blaster99 wrote:

...dead pixel bang in the middle of the screen...

Usually the pixels in the middle of the screen are deemed as failures. If its on the edge of the sceen they then not to replace it.

The Doktor

from what I can gather Class 2 LCDs are built to ISO 13406-2, which says:

Acceptable malfunctioning pixels by class & type per Million pixels:
2 complete pixels constantly illuminated (a white spot)
2 complete pixels not illuminated (a black spot)
5 sub pixels constantly on or off or intermittent fault. May blink or show a pixel as a base colour (Red, Blue, Green, Cyan, Magenta or yellow)
or, any 2 sub pixel faults within a 5 x 5 block of pixels
Also, the faults are cumulative, so if you have 1 white spot and 1 black spot per million pixels then this counts.

Snake Plisken

When i got the first set home I did check it from top to bottom and there were no dead pixels, but when I checked it 24 hours later the pixel in question had failed. I did check the replacement set in the store and it looked fine, and so far so good.
Also as has been pointed out on some of the other posts, Manufacturers cannot guarentee a dead pixel free set, so that is why I decided to take the policy out, not sure if I will cancel the policy or continue to keep it as I'm sure pixels will fail or some other issue might turn up in the set. Also the Mastercare plan does not kick in until after the manufacturers warrenty is up.

Anyway I posted just so that other Board members who might be thinking of investing in a screen and have been told by Dixons/Currys/PCWorld sales staff that dead pixels are covered by Mastercare,well its not.

Cheers

Snake

MarkR

Does it cover physical damage?

TempestSabre

Snake Plisken wrote:

....Anyway I posted just so that other Board members who might be thinking of investing in a screen and have been told by Dixons/Currys/PCWorld sales staff that dead pixels are covered by Mastercare,well its not...

I actually didn't realise they'd told you it was. Always distrust what you are told unless you see it writing.

TommyGun

Op,
I realise you frustration. Because of the technology there is inherent problems. Because it is so complex there has to be an acceptable few pixels defective or the manufacturing yields of the factory's would be failing alot more and this would be reflected in the selling price. The larger the panel the more pixels and the more likely to get a defect. As there is no way to repair this should the panel be scraped?

Anyway, the best of luck.

Giblet

Lump wrote:

It's normally about 2 - 3% have to be dead before they'll replace it. For LCDs anyway

John

If anything it'd be .003%

2-3% is around say 30,000 dead pixels

Snake Plisken

Just wondering if I should just forget about the mastercare plan and get my money back has anyone any experience of it? The T's and C's state that I can return it for full refund within 14 days. Also even though I have taken it for 4 years they said that the first year is covered my manufacturers warrenty.

Snake