Customer Reviews

Philips 32FD9954 32-Inch Plasma Flat-Panel TV

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

I got this 32" Philips Plasma TV back in May 2004 as a gift. After I got it, I seldom used it and I believe I only used it for less than 100 hour before it went dead in June 2005. Since this is out of warranty based on the purchased date, I talked with Philips Customer Support Center several times but they refused to repair it. I also sent the complaint letter to Philips headquarter in July but so far there is no response. So I sent it to local Philips Authorized Service Center on August 02, and got the following result on August 29:

Defective part: CBA SCAVIO Module @ $1409.83
Defective part: Display (not available)

So based on this diagnosis report, my plasma screen was dead for less than 100 hour usage, and the worst part is that Philips did not do anything, not even try to reply my complaint.

I bought this display in May of 2004, with the E-box tuner, for a combined price of 3600$. This dislay was beautiful, 1080i was crisp and vibrant, and the E-box adjusted all inputs to fit the display, without any hassles. in June of 2006 the display would start clicking when you turned it on, sometimes taking 3~5 minutes to turn on. Something was wrong for sure. When it finally turned on, the picture was flawless, so I didn't turn it off for the next three months. We looked up our warantee to find out it was 90-days from purchase. Oh well, where do I get it fixed, Philips support found two authorized repair centers near me. I turned it off to take it get repaired, and sure enough it wouldn't respond to power at the repair shop. 670$ to repair a "power pre-conditioner circut on the power supply". Paid the bill, back onto the wall it goes. Four days later, display will not turn on, no power light. Back to the shop, no charge due to the shops 30day workmanship policy. Same part failed, was the answer. 2 days later I have a display again. 45 days later, dead again. Frustrated with the results of the first repair center, I took it to the second repair center, they charged 100$ to diagnose it as a bad power supply (estimated cost of 1900$ to replace). After some discussion with this repairman, I was told that "He had seen over 100 of these Model series Philips plasma's in for repair for almost the same issue, in the last year alone" and that it was common due to the heat generated by these dislpays, ( they literaly de-solder components off thier circut boards due to high heat and thermal expansion, and capacitors also dry up from overheating).

End of story: Philips Plasma 2500$ + repair#1 670$ + estimate#2 100$
Philips E-box HDTV tuner 1100$
Total Spent for 28 months of Philips FlatTV operation = 4370$
What I get = 1900$ repair estimate, dissapointment in Philips's engineering of this product, and a 70 pound dead display.

ps - I have a 32" Panasonic CRT from 1996 that still works great (690$).

I will do more homework before buying another plasma, I found customer reviews to be garbage. Talk to a repair center to find out what models and brands are worth thier money.

1 star, at least it worked for a couple of years. As I read more into blog sites, I find that I am definantly not the only one who has had bad dealings with a Philips plasma, most other people have gotten less than 1 year of operation, and Philips is doing nothing about it --Thanks.