Andy Hall wrote:


I suppose the lesson here is, if you buy something top of the line
then go over it very carefully and if it is not perfect then return
it.


I think this is extremely good advice, and, if followed, would actually
improve product quality.

I have a Land Rover Defender that has been back for about half a dozen
warranty repairs, including repsraying bits of it that corroded. As I
understand it, every time a warranty repair is undertaken, teh car
manufacture gets the bits back, sends them back to its supplier, and
they bear the cost of replacement. If this happenes often enough, those
parts don't get replaced with et same parts, but with better parts,
because the manufacturers stop making any profit.

You have to be ruthless. Laziness is what allows teh manufactures to
believe that they cheapo crap they are bolting in is of acceptable
quality. In teh case of 99% of teh British Car industry, what happened
was that people didn't send the cars back, they simply stopped buying
them and the whole industry vanished.

I have some sympathy with manufactureres: Its not easy to control
component quality. As a designer for productiomn my designs were often
compromised by the buyer attempting to save pence by buying substandard
components. Or productin engineers removing them altogether ("but they
still work: Yes, but not when they get hot/a low spec bunch of
trnsasitors get used/ under exterem power conditions etc etc).


In the OP's case, the fact that the set is worth better than a grand,
and a picture tube fitted is probably far less than that, its worth
pursuing even on a split/parts labour cost. Go direct to the
manufacturers and complain about the quality of the product, and the
quality of service from the retailer. In the car world at least, car
dealers who have a slew of complaints against them lose franchises.