Bad Mitsubishi TV
November 6, 2008 7:23 AM Subscribe
Need advice on Mitsubushi DLPs. Been burned twice, being offered WD-73835 as a replacement for my current 73" Mitsu DLP. Is it a good TV?
We bought a Mistubishi 62" DLP in 2005 and had nothing but problems, with 3 optical engines replaced thanks to Best Buy's Service Plan. Best Buy sent us a gift card for the full purchase price of the TV so we could get another.
Thinking we had gotten just a bunk TV, we added some of our own funds to the gift card and purchased a Mitsubishi Diamond 73" DLP from Best Buy's Magnolia shop in November of 07. A few months later we started noticing bright spots on the TV, some as big as 4". They looked like lens flaring. We called Best Buy's plan and it was picked up for service by a local shop, just like our last one, but since we'd had the TV less than a year it was under Mitsubishi's warranty, not Best Buy's, and Mitsubishi said there was nothing wrong with the TV. The local shop agreed the TV had a problem, but did not know how to fix it, and Mitsubishi refused to do anything under the warranty.
We persisted as the spots were noticable, but Mitsubishi said this was "normal". We started to persue options through Best Buy's Magnolia department as we had their Service Plan, and then we started getting harassing calls from a guy named Rico at Mitsubishi on both of our cell phones. The person we dealt with at Best Buy told us Rico should not be calling us, but he continued to call and be very nasty on the phone with us telling us that there is nothing wrong with our TV, they're not going to fix it, and we should just deal with it. He also said the repair shop told him nothing was wrong, even though the repair shop said there WAS something wrong but he didn't know what would fix it.
The local Best Buy employees were very helpful and finally took the TV themselves to a St. Louis service center for repair. They saw the spots but also did not know how to fix them, and claimed that their diagnostics showed no problems. They tried a calibration but the spots persisted. Even though they could see these bright spots themselves, since the diagnostics showed no problem they wanted to return it to us unfixed.
With Best Buy having our TV for six weeks, we finally contacted the Magnolia CEO. We got a response the same day, Best Buy is replacing our 73" Mitsubishi with a new one. We were given the option of the current Mitsubishi 73", which is the 2008 model year, vs our 2007.
This would seem like a great solution; however, after having 2 Mitsubishi DLPs go bad repeatedly, being harassed on the phone by Rico from Mitsubishi, and the problems with getting this TV repaired, we are nervous about getting a 3rd Mitsubishi DLP. However, the Best Buy employees tell us that they'd never seen a problem like this before and sell a lot of the Mitsubishis. The Best Buy manager then offered us a Samsung 67" DLP if we'd prefer, but that is still DLP technology and is also worth about $1,000 less than our TV that still resides in Best Buy's repair shop.
We've been given no other options at this point, but in looking at other TVs at Best Buy, getting a smaller DLP or LCD would have us losing over a thousand dollars by getting a smaller, cheaper TV. 65" plasma televisions cost thousands more than our current TV, and even if we were given the option to pay the difference out of our own pockets it's more than we wanted to spend, which is why we went with what we did.
Our "best" option seems to be to go with a 3rd Mitsubishi DLP, but I was hoping you or one of your readers might be able to offer some advice.
We bought a Mistubishi 62" DLP in 2005 and had nothing but problems, with 3 optical engines replaced thanks to Best Buy's Service Plan. Best Buy sent us a gift card for the full purchase price of the TV so we could get another.
Thinking we had gotten just a bunk TV, we added some of our own funds to the gift card and purchased a Mitsubishi Diamond 73" DLP from Best Buy's Magnolia shop in November of 07. A few months later we started noticing bright spots on the TV, some as big as 4". They looked like lens flaring. We called Best Buy's plan and it was picked up for service by a local shop, just like our last one, but since we'd had the TV less than a year it was under Mitsubishi's warranty, not Best Buy's, and Mitsubishi said there was nothing wrong with the TV. The local shop agreed the TV had a problem, but did not know how to fix it, and Mitsubishi refused to do anything under the warranty.
We persisted as the spots were noticable, but Mitsubishi said this was "normal". We started to persue options through Best Buy's Magnolia department as we had their Service Plan, and then we started getting harassing calls from a guy named Rico at Mitsubishi on both of our cell phones. The person we dealt with at Best Buy told us Rico should not be calling us, but he continued to call and be very nasty on the phone with us telling us that there is nothing wrong with our TV, they're not going to fix it, and we should just deal with it. He also said the repair shop told him nothing was wrong, even though the repair shop said there WAS something wrong but he didn't know what would fix it.
The local Best Buy employees were very helpful and finally took the TV themselves to a St. Louis service center for repair. They saw the spots but also did not know how to fix them, and claimed that their diagnostics showed no problems. They tried a calibration but the spots persisted. Even though they could see these bright spots themselves, since the diagnostics showed no problem they wanted to return it to us unfixed.
With Best Buy having our TV for six weeks, we finally contacted the Magnolia CEO. We got a response the same day, Best Buy is replacing our 73" Mitsubishi with a new one. We were given the option of the current Mitsubishi 73", which is the 2008 model year, vs our 2007.
This would seem like a great solution; however, after having 2 Mitsubishi DLPs go bad repeatedly, being harassed on the phone by Rico from Mitsubishi, and the problems with getting this TV repaired, we are nervous about getting a 3rd Mitsubishi DLP. However, the Best Buy employees tell us that they'd never seen a problem like this before and sell a lot of the Mitsubishis. The Best Buy manager then offered us a Samsung 67" DLP if we'd prefer, but that is still DLP technology and is also worth about $1,000 less than our TV that still resides in Best Buy's repair shop.
We've been given no other options at this point, but in looking at other TVs at Best Buy, getting a smaller DLP or LCD would have us losing over a thousand dollars by getting a smaller, cheaper TV. 65" plasma televisions cost thousands more than our current TV, and even if we were given the option to pay the difference out of our own pockets it's more than we wanted to spend, which is why we went with what we did.
Our "best" option seems to be to go with a 3rd Mitsubishi DLP, but I was hoping you or one of your readers might be able to offer some advice.
I don't think there's anything wrong with DLP per se.
If you can, take a look at the Mits 73" and Samsung 67" in the store and compare. I'd say if you really think the Mits looks better, go with that. But given their poor customer service, if there isn't much difference, I'd take the Samsung.
As far as the money issue, I think the main thing at this point is that you get a set that isn't going to break.
posted by Ultra Laser at 9:27 AM on November 6, 2008
If you can, take a look at the Mits 73" and Samsung 67" in the store and compare. I'd say if you really think the Mits looks better, go with that. But given their poor customer service, if there isn't much difference, I'd take the Samsung.
As far as the money issue, I think the main thing at this point is that you get a set that isn't going to break.
posted by Ultra Laser at 9:27 AM on November 6, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
But I think you'd be fine going with the Mitsubishi - it sounds like this problem you're having now is a freak thing and you didn't have much hassle getting it fixed the first time.
And you're really not "losing money." It's already been spent and there's no way to get it back, so just get whatever TV will make you happiest independent of the money you've already spent.
posted by PFL at 7:40 AM on November 6, 2008