I have a Sharp 66FY53H TV (28" WS) which has just went on the fritz after 2.5 years. Out of curiousity I did a search on google and found a review site and everyone who had this TV suffered the same major problem and even when it was fixed and returned it would break down again.

Now, the TV was bought with a 5 year insurance which covers everything so the store it was bought from have to fix it. is there any way I can get them to actually replace it with a totally different TV on the grounds that this TV is clearly faulty?

If you read the small print of the EW, it will probably say that repair is the first option and replacement will only be considered if the set is unrepairable. Most do, to stop people requesting a replacement as soon as a new model is launched. It's worth telling the EW company what you know and say that you will request a replacement if you have a repeat failure. It might work.

what is the fault??

The TV was working fine on Wednesday night when it was switched off. When it was switched on again the next morning, the only thing that happened was the standby light came on. I pressed at all the buttons on the TV as well as the remote and still nothing.

Before you can really ask for a replacement, you'll have to let the company repair the TV.

If it keeps failing then you have a better reason to exchange it.

Don't forget that other things go wrong quite often, cars for example can have extended warranties and if the car keeps going wrong you're very unlikely to get a new one ! (from my own experience, you'll be lucky if the car's warranty actually covers the fault - '' ... oh no sir, the radiator isn't covered')

So firstly give the repair a chance, if you get the same fault twice in a short period then perhaps make noises about a replacement.

If replacements were given out freely after a fault then everyone would simply make sure they had a 'fault' and demand for a new TV... so every year they could get a new model. This would push up extended warranties and TV prices - which of course we'd all complain about!