Are extended warranties necessary on plasmas?

Ok, hear it from someone who actually owns a plasma.

My NEC VP4 failed after 2 years and probably less than 200 hours total, vertical driver failed and lots of missing columns. NEC only offered 1 year warranty at that time, but they are nice enough to fix mine for free :)

My friend's Pioneer Elite 50" failed 2 times during 3 years of ownership, power supply failed. First time was under warranty period, but Pioneer blamed it on bad incoming power and would not honor warranty. They paid $1500 to fix each time.

My college friend's JVC failed after 3 years with very little hour (was in his vacation home oversea), similar problem as mine. JVC told him he is better off buying a new one as it was the glass that went bad.

My mom's Samsung failed after a few months, no idea what went wrong. Good thing it was bought from my sister's company and they took care of it right away.

So far, I only know a couple others who own plasma for over a year without problem. But then plasma are very commonly used in airport and other public display. If fail rate is so high, I bet they will replace plasma with something else right away. My theory is plasma does not like power fluctuation and power cycle.

Semi, it seems if the failure rate is that high, all plasmas are lemons and not worth having anyway.

That's kind of a weird salesl pitch from salespeople, telling you you need an extended warrantee because the item is sure to need it....doesn't say much for the reliability or build quality of the item.

By the way, in fairness to the salesperson, he didn't pitch the warranty when I was inquiring about the lcd's and dlp models.

Mitch4t, I am not in the position to state whether plasma have high fail rate in general but just stating some known facts. My CRT TV is still going strong after almost 20 years of service.

NEC plasma is the 2nd biggest plasma house on earth and manufacture their own glass. Mine was made in Japan, the land of rising sun with tight QC, but still failed prematurely. NEC did not offer any explanation why it failed so quickly, but they are confident their products are well built and offer 3 year warranty on their newer plasma.

Rear projection is not any better. My Sony GW-IV RP went from 3 dead pixel to >10 in one year and I only watch about 3~4 hours of TV a week. Called up Sony and they replaced the light engine, but that does not guarantee pixel count will not grow again. LCD panel used in PR is also known to have other issue due to the organic substrate. Newer LCD (not sure which version) avoided it. DLP can also fail from fatigue.

Geez Semi, you just bummed me out. The money was burning a hole in my pocket to get one of those cool and sexy flat panels hanging on my wall. I currently have a four year old 61 inch 4:3 Phillips analog projection behemoth sitting in my living room now. It works just fine, except that it's so, um, er, ...20th century....and I wanted something new and sleek. I guess I'll hold off until the reliability issues clear up. Thanks Semi and the rest of you for your input, I appreciate it.

mitch

Ya, hold off a bit more. I read that Panasonic is going to flood the market and drive prices down a bit. Panasonic if I remember right.