Last Thursday evening we had a short power outage, here in South London. There was barely enough time to get the torches out before power was restored.
The next morning, my elderly next door neighbour came to see us to tell me that she hadn't got any power on her downstairs ring main. I eventually found out that I had to reset her consumer unit's RCD as it had tripped out.
Later that day she turned on her new-ish Sony TV (certainly less than 12 months old) only to find it no longer worked. I checked out all the obvious things but the panel was dead. An emergency TV bloke came out later and diagnosed a blown/kaput circuit board and so had to take it away for repair and ordered the requisite parts from his suppliers. I assume the power cut and subsequent surge found out a weakness in this TV, which probably explains the tripping out of the RCD.
The question I pose is how can she claim the repair costs of over £110 from Sony or rather Amazon; her son bought it for her from Amazon and brought it up from his home in the West Country on one of his frequent visits to her?
She probably didn't use an Amazon/Sony authorised repairer for this TV.

I would be surprised if she could claim against Amazon. Unless it was some sort of inherent design fault that makes the TV especially prone to blowing circuit boards when unusual power conditions are encountered.

More likely it is the fact the TV did encounter power conditions outside it's design spec that caused the board to fail. That would come under the same heading as pouring a glass of water down the vents on the back of the TV, ie accidental or deliberate damage.

More likely to be an insurance claim than any claim under Consumer law.

I get your point but I think that the TV or that particular model is not really fit for purpose. I suppose it is pointless saying our TV (same make) hasn't been affected, so far at least.
Had it happened to me I would be on the phone to Sony but there again I bought mine from a nearby Currys - a far better option, I think

If you have a problem with anything you buy your first port of call is the retailer you bought it from, not the manufacturer. Though if there is a manufacturer's warranty you can try that. But under consumer law your contract is with whoever took your money off you and it is up to them to remedy the situation. Good luck getting Currys to do anything if you have a fault with something you bought from them. Their reputation in that respect is not great!

Anyway the problem you have in this instance is proving the damage is due to an inherent fault in the TV not simply due to it encountering conditions it is not designed to handle. Given the right circumstances anything can fail if subjected to a really nasty mains voltage spike. There is only so much protection you can design in.

As I said you stand a far better chance claiming on the home insurance than taking it up with Amazon.

She can't claim anything - if the set was under warranty you contact the seller, or Sony direct, and they organise a warranty repair on it.

However, passing it to an unauthorised service guy invalidates the warranty anyway.

Would a warranty cover this sort of damage in the first place?

Of course it would be covered. Simply contact the vendor to report the telly has gone wrong - you don't need to elaborate.

Think I've answered my own question. This is the standard Sony Warranty

http://services.sony.co.uk/support/en/warranty/general

Seems power surges are explicitly excluded. As are repairs by non-approved service agents. Snipped from the list of exclusions

No need to elaborate when reporting the problem to the vendor. Simply state that telly went wrong when you were watching it. Bet you could have got this repaired FOC if you had done this.

Thanks guys for your replies and you present sensible answers when thinking further about it.
I might have reacted differently and contacted Amazon in the first instance but she relies heavily on her TV unlike myself who would probably have ditched it and taken my car to Currys and replaced it with another Sony? Perhaps a surge protector is in order?

As others have said, just don't tell them - it 'may' be obvious, and they could refuse to repair it under warranty - but more likely there will be no obvious signs how the fault had been caused. If it was lightning damage, that's a different matter - it's VERY often blindingly obvious.

But the warranty repair would only consist of replacing the PCB (presumably the power supply one), so it most probably wouldn't be any problem doing it under warranty.

I wonder why the set's AC power adaptor didn't protect that TV? I was looking at replacement Adaptors and one firm supplying them, for my TV in fact, alleges it has circuits that will protect the TV itself and blow preferentially but of course the adaptor would then need replacing, I assume?

You're assuming the TV uses an AC Power Adaptor, as the TV 'failed' then it almost certainly isn't the case.

Basically the AC Adaptor is just the main part of the TV PSU, moved outside the TV case - if it's internal then that's what gets damaged, if it's external, then the external part gets damaged (in either case, it's basically the same part that gets damaged).

It's not that the AC Adaptor 'has parts to protect the TV', merely that the parts of the TV that might get damaged have been moved to the external adaptor.

I seem to confuse people or perhaps I am confused with technology. Anyway both my 3 year old Sony KDL42 ..... and my neighbour's defunct Sony KDL 40....... both have external AC adapters supplying about 19v to the set as a simple centre pin plug - don't know its official title.
I was therefore wondering why the external 'brick' didn't take the strain, so to speak. I wanted to put my Avo on the plug, that plugs into the set to see whether there was voltage there but my neighbour was a bit het up, to be honest and my interest had started to wane somewhat.
For all I know the adapter may have failed and not the set and the repairer is therefore ordering that and making a bit of money on the side. There is only so much you can do for people with whom it is difficult to communicate and fuss around you all the time.

AC Adaptor is perfectly fine, however as I previously mentioned it's most likely that his set doesn't use one - only some Sony models do, some still have the PSU built-in the TV.

If it used an external PSU, it's almost certain that would have died - and that same part of the circuit has most likely died inside the TV.


Because there probably isn't one

EDIT:

Just noticed, you're the OP - if your set has an external PSU (AC Adaptor) then it's VERY likely that is the problem. However, the repair guy would need to take the TV away as well as the PSU, in order to confirm that a replacement PSU cures the problem.