I'm gonna buy! Protection plan? Is it worth it?

[sfast]

Best buy has a great deal on the 32 Sony KDL-32XBR9. But should I get the $80 2 year protection plan? Does anyone know any major disadvantages of this plan or is ith worth the money?

[tokenuser]

It saved my ass on a $4500 Hitachi Rear Projection TV.
If you get dead pixels, it will be replaced.

I dont normally go for them, but laptops and LCD TVs are expensive to fix.

[cheapbastardhd]

What's the warranty on it? I generally don't go for them unless I'm getting a refurbished item that has no warranty or a limited(3 months or less) warranty.

Also, check on the quality of the company's policy. A protection plan is only as good as what it covers, and whether or not they actually honor it when the shit hits the fan. Generally a fw quick Google searches can show you people either happy with or angry at the company for their handling of the situation.

[nav13eh]

I wouldn't buy it, only because usually if electronics last the first year, there going to last forever. Its the the moving or lighting parts that will fail.


It saved my ass on a $4500 Hitachi Rear Projection TV.
If you get dead pixels, it will be replaced.

I dont normally go for them, but laptops and LCD TVs are expensive to fix.

There better now a days.

[tokenuser]

Extended service plans (for RTP sets) also cover bulb replacements ... and those puppies are expensive.

Definitely worth it ... but as I said, I only consider it for laptops and TVs.
Just bought several thousand dollars worth of appliances, and stayed with standard warranty. As you said, if it breaks, its likely within the warranty period.

But having said that, I wont buy without doing the research first. I dont look for 5/5 reviews or positive ones, I look for the negative ones, and see what people have complained about.

[masherscf]

It all come down the money and odds. If you would not be able to replace or repair the TV if it failed in a manner that is not covered the original manufacturers warranty, I might not be a bad idea.

However, if money was no object, extended warranties and service plans are almost never a good idea.

For example, Radio Shack will sell you a replacement warranty on a $15 set of headphones for $5. This is preposterous. Over one in three of the headphones would have the fail from you to get a positive expectation. The math is clear because money is no object and you can afford to self-insure.

However, with at $4500 flat-panel TV, money becomes an issue and you can't afford to self insure.

Here's another scenario. Say you run a luxury hotel and you are to buy 200 of these $4500 flat panels. The cost of the replacement plan for the entire order would be $16,000 which is way more than the cost of outright replacing the displays that go bad. Remember that the predominance of failures will be covered by the original manufacture's warranty already. For this deal to make sense, almost 2% of the displays would have to fail in a manner converge by the extended warranty. Which, IMO, is a huge rate of failure.

So, what's you piece-of-mind worth. $80? maybe.

Of course, projection TVs are an exception. A projector will fail within 3-year almost 50% of the time because of the lifetime of the bulb. Since replacing a single bulb is usually more than the extended warranty. It's almost always a good idea to get the warrenties on projection TVS.

[mikec]

How are you paying for the TV? Cash? Check? Credit Card? If using a credit card, not a debit card, check and see if they extend the warranty. I think AmEx used to do this, but this was before the great financial meltdown. Not sure if any do that now.


As for extended coverage, I had it on a car and it was a life saver. This particular car had a serious flaw in the design of the air conditioning system. The shop kept fixing it and giving me free loaners.

On the other hand a friend bought the extended coverage on a Dell desktop many years back and it was a waste of $$. It didn't cover a hard drive failure six years after purchase. Yeah, Dell's basic plan was 1 year and she bought 3 additional years. I do not expect a computer company to warranty a machine for six years except maybe a mainframe.

I think masherscf nailed it.

[tim]

It really depends. I often refrain from getting them, and I almost did in the case of buying my HDTV. But the salesman basically sold me the 3 year warrant for about $80 more than I would have paid on the TV after tax, so I decided that it was worth it at that price. The coverage is transferable too, which is something you might ask about. I bought a TV used from a couple who got the TV and warranty from this same company years ago and it saved my bacon on getting the damaged screen replaced. I paid for the part, which was $80 or so, but the service call to the house was free because it was under warranty. It depends on the warranty coverage and the cost versus the item. A 32" HDTV these days is under $500 so I wouldn't spend much on one.

[davidbix]

I'm pretty sure that most regular Mastercard and Visa credit cards will double the warranty.