Funky said:
Just testing warranty. All one gives up when purchasing from gray is 1 year warranty from Sony. Which is far too less for my liking. If it was 3 years + i would have purchased from retail.
Also you have to pay stupid service charge anyway for warranty from SOny India. Which is 1000 bucks for 32 inch LCD TV.
I know where I can get it repaired if something goes wrong.
Saving 12k was a no brainer decision for me.
Agreed, a 1yr warranty is really useless, especially given the initial purchase price. Most likely due to the dealer network (or after sales service) Sony has in the country over other vendors. No one i know in the west really buys Sony as often as here cos they are many other just as good options. Hopefully this may change in the future in India, but it will take time to set up those networks for other manufacturers.
You also mention thats its just a testing warranty, what does that mean ?
If something goes wrong within the 1st yr, isn't it reasonable to get it repaired for free. Provided of course, you pay the service tax on the warranty offered.
superczar said:
If it fails, you would have to pay for repairs where the bill would come to say 20K (unlikely it will be this high but let's take a conservative POV)
so to cover a 5% risk of saving 20K, you lose out on a 100% chance of saving 15K at the onset
hehe, true provided that..the vendor you have is...
superczar said:
... a dependable seller who you know won't sell you seconds/refurbs,
That's really the biggest caveat..in this sceanrio cos spotting a second hand or refurbished model is a very tricky affair. Trust *really* is everything here.
Maybe you have helped many others to purchase the same so have a better idea of who is or isn't dependable in your area. For the avg person, who's buying on best price, that's in the market every 5-10 yrs or so for a new telly, this might be quite difficult to achieve.
superczar said:
Scenario B: You buy with B&W to hedge against risk of possible failure in the next 1 year...now the probability of thisfailure occurring for electronic devices with no moving parts is fairly low (barring exceptions like xbox 360), say 5%
If it fails, you would have to pay for repairs where the bill would come to say 20K (unlikely it will be this high but let's take a conservative POV)
Sure but consider that for the bulk of electronic products, if its going to fail, then its really going to happen within a yr or less, faulty components etc. or in the extreme case a product recalls, does not happen very often and is a much lower risk.
Would you agree then that the highest probability of failure would occur within the first yr ?
Therefore a warranty covering this period would help to offset it and is why its offered.
So...does this mean then, for the avg person.. that the risk of going grey market outweighs the advantages suggested ?
I am in no way talking about extended warrnaties here which stores in the west offer to extend what a vendor provides, those are usually a waste of money. Very good money maker for the stores and i expect the practise will start here if it hasn't already.