Should I repair my television?

October 6, 2010 4:51 PM

My flatscreen has given me a good 5 years of use, but may have finally reached its demise. What do I do?

I am stuck between getting the television fixed, and just buying a new one. Here's the issue if I went the repair route: it's a 42 inch television, and weighs about 70 lbs...so getting this to a repair shop would not be a easy task, as I live in Manhattan.

I would need some form of transportation rented to send it to a repair shop. Obviously it's out of warrantee at this point, so I'm concerned the cost outweighs the benefit in this situation. At the same time I am curious if there is a simple, cheap fix for it. This sounds silly, but do TV repair guys make "outcalls"? Any other suggestions are welcome.

posted by helios410 to Technology (9 answers total)

Yup, they make housecalls for tv repair. I can't make a recommendation in your area, but Google can get you started.
posted by ella wren at 4:56 PM on October 6, 2010

There might be a simple cheap fix, there might not be. What are the symptoms and what's the specific model?
posted by Mister Fabulous at 5:12 PM on October 6, 2010

We just had a TV repair man fix our LCD TV last week! Turns out it was a blown fuse and the whole repair was under $100. The Samsung people recommended him. I guess he was one of their authorized repair guys. The house call was $68 (we asked before he came out) and the part and labor were around $30. He was here for about 30-45 minutes.

I'm still stunned it was so easy to fix.
posted by cooker girl at 5:28 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oh, also, our TV was out-of-warranty as well and the googling I did based on the symptoms did not make me feel good. I was seeing things like "blown motherboard" and "$800 to repair." I'm glad we called Samsung.
posted by cooker girl at 5:29 PM on October 6, 2010

Yeah, depends on what kind of TV it is. if it's plasma, you may be SOL; those things are super finicky. If it's an LCD, on the other hand, it could be a blown fuse or time for a new lightbulb or something similar.
posted by Madamina at 8:03 PM on October 6, 2010

Response by poster: The TV is a Samsung plasma, I don't know the model # though...
posted by helios410 at 9:06 PM on October 6, 2010

Response by poster: The symptoms range from flickering, to seeing half the picture, to the whole picture going black. It happens intermittently.
posted by helios410 at 9:07 PM on October 6, 2010

Plasmas should last much longer than that. My Panasonic has a 7 year warranty on it. I would as least call Samsung to see what options you have.
posted by wongcorgi at 2:30 AM on October 7, 2010

I would definitely look in the marketplace and see what the cost of replacement would be, and then get someone out to give you an estimate and decide from there.
posted by gjc at 5:04 AM on October 7, 2010