Colorado Springs resident Sumanth Maddirala bought a 23-inch Philips LCD television for $400 a year ago.
The TV broke down last month, Maddirala said, even though his family watched it for less than two hours daily.
“One day, all of a sudden, it showed a white screen,” he said. “It still looks brand new. We never even had to change the batteries on the remote.”
The liquid crystal display TV’s short life span left Maddirala incredulous, but he’s among a growing number of consumers finding that it’s tough to squeeze more than a few years out of their new flat-panel sets before something goes wrong.
The latest plasma and LCD TVs are thinner and lighter, but not nearly as durable as the big honking cathode ray tube TVs or even the first generations of plasmas introduced in the late 1990s, metro area technicians say.
“The timeframe within which they usually fail seems to have changed,” said Haz Murib, manager of AAAA TVs and Electronics in Centennial. “It seems like they happen within five years, whereas with older TVs, it used to happen usually between five and 10 years.”
Though no hard statistics or reports are available, technicians attribute the problems to two developments:
• To cut costs, manufacturers are using lower-quality components, such as power-supply capacitors that help stabilize voltages. Higher-quality capacitors can handle more stress and heat and are less prone to burning out.
• To reduce weight, circuit boards are more compact, meaning computer chips that serve as the brains of a TV are smaller and closer together, leading to more frequent malfunctions.
Repair technicians say the growing use of cheaper components is one reason prices on flat-panel TVs — LCDs and plasmas — have drastically dropped in recent years.
In the fourth quarter of 2009, a 32-inch LCD TV sold for an average price of $511, down from $1,566 in 2005, according to market research firm iSuppli. The average price is expected to fall to $374 in the fourth quarter of this year.
“Panasonic makes capacitors, but they don’t use their own capacitors,” said Eagle Wehner, owner of Eagle Vision TV Repair in Englewood. “They use cheaper parts in their TVs.”
In the past, manufacturers used components that cost up to $3 each, compared with capacitors that cost as little as 10 cents each today, said Bruno Buzevicius, owner of International TV Sales & Service in Denver.
Manufacturers say lower prices on TVs come from breakthroughs in research and development.
“Our plasmas are (built) to last 100,000 hours, at which point they achieve half brightness, something discernible only if you have a new set for side-by-side comparison,” said Jeff Samuels, a spokesman for Panasonic. “Lower prices are the result of continual R&D engineers constantly working to build better, less expensive sets.”
Over the past three years, thousands of Better Business Bureau complaints have been lodged against TV manufacturers across the country. But the agency has not conducted a cumulative report on the complaints, which cover issues with advertising, warranty and product quality, among other things.
Repair shops are not among those complaining.
“If (manufacturers) didn’t make them with some of the components that they use, I wouldn’t have a job,” said Steven Gonzales, a technician with AAAA.
“For the newer technology, if you get five to six years out of it before something fails, that actually is very good,” Gonzales said. “In the past, the big-screen TVs went 10 to 15 years.”
Despite the shorter life spans, flat-panel sets now represent the vast majority of TV sales. Nearly 34 million LCD and plasma TVs are expected to be sold this year, up from 13.4 million in 2006, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.
One factor driving sales could be that, amid plummeting prices, consumers are choosing to buy new sets rather than repair an old unit. Replacing an entire circuit board — a common repair for a TV that loses its picture — could cost $300 or more.
Warranty coverage for repairs vary depending on where the TV was bought and its manufacturer.
Maddirala said his TV, bought online, was still under warranty, but Philips only offered to send him a comparable replacement if he paid $380. Philips officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Maddirala decided to buy a 40-inch Sony LCD and is trying to sell the broken Philips for $55.
Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209, avuong@denverpost.com or
