My Bad experience with LG C9 65” OLED

[Barun7]

Technician confirmed that it is the panel issue due to some internal short. There is nothing they can help on this, and replacing the entire panel is the only option.

Such a bad luck, warranty expired on Dec 5th and product dead on Dec 12th and I have to spend over rs. 66,000 for getting it replaced.

My suggestion - Don't.
What if you spend 66k on the replacement panel and after a few hours of usage, that panel too goes caput?

 

[Sandipbarik]

That is why I always prefer to buy extended warranty before my warranty expires, that way I stay risk free for atleast 3 yrs, and after that we always get a new TV anyway

 

[Ramanuj]

And I thought LGs were better than most.

 

[mathan]

And I thought LGs were better than most.

It is not the product that matters be it any brand but if you get a bad apple the support from any of these brands is awful especially in India. Infact I have a LG 49 inch 3D TV bought in 2013 and it still goes strong and not serviced even once. Couple of years back I had bought a Samsung and Sony for additional rooms and both of them had problems with power and panel. Luckily it was during the warranty period and it was rectified. These Tv's are used only for few hours a month but still they developed problems, maybe the quality of the components have gone down or not up to the mark and added to this now is the pathetic service support.

 

[Vinod.R]

My experience tells me that once the money changes hands, then one is at the mercy of the company, dealer, salesman, service centre etc.

In India the laws with regards to this are so lax and it is very difficult for an ordinary customer to fight the big companies who have fat lawyers. The entire system is set up to their advantage.

Also if one reads the warranty card/ Instructions many a time it says that "any claims is valid in the court of XYZ state and so on" They have their best legal eagles draft such warranty cards and claims that one cannot beat them and one usually gets tired beating around the bush. Also warranty claims do not usually cover consumables, rubbers, bushes, batteries etc. Again also floods, electrical damage is mainly not covered. What I fail to understand is why electrical damage is not covered, do they expect us to watch the electric wire with a tester as it is running? As long as the customer takes reasonable precautions, such damage should be covered.

This is obviously as far as India is concerned. Other countries like USA, UK are better than us and some other countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri lanka may be worse than us. This is of course guess work.

 

[Donivlapog]

It is not the product that matters be it any brand but if you get a bad apple the support from any of these brands is awful especially in India. Infact I have a LG 49 inch 3D TV bought in 2013 and it still goes strong and not serviced even once. Couple of years back I had bought a Samsung and Sony for additional rooms and both of them had problems with power and panel. Luckily it was during the warranty period and it was rectified. These Tv's are used only for few hours a month but still they developed problems, maybe the quality of the components have gone down or not up to the mark and added to this now is the pathetic service support.

Adding to what you said, out of warranty itself marks a huge risk for electronics as we do not have honest and reliable technicians that does chip level servicing. The brand service centers will offer to only exchange the TV or change a panel and this is true for every brand. We cannot predict when an electronic component will go kaput. In rejin's case he has left a TV unused for many days and I am beginning to notice those cases are detrimental to an equipment's longevity however it cant be explained why. So the formula is dont over use a TV (6-8 or more hours a day) or let it lie without being used for a continual substancial period.

 

[rejin]

My suggestion - Don't.
What if you spend 66k on the replacement panel and after a few hours of usage, that panel too goes caput?

LG provides 1 year warranty on panel, if it is a paid replacement.

No warranty on panels that are replaced free of cost under warranty/ extended warranty.

I have heard that earlier LG used to provide 1 years warranty on panels replaced under warranty. Not sure since when the policy was changed

 

[rejin]

Adding to what you said, out of warranty itself marks a huge risk for electronics as we do not have honest and reliable technicians that does chip level servicing. The brand service centers will offer to only exchange the TV or change a panel and this is true for every brand. We cannot predict when an electronic component will go kaput. In rejin's case he has left a TV unused for many days and I am beginning to notice those cases are detrimental to an equipment's longevity however it cant be explained why. So the formula is dont over use a TV (6-8 or more hours a day) or let it lie without being used for a continual substancial period.

I spoke to a technician ( not from LG, but he has got training on LG OLED) . Shared him the video that I had recorded during JIG testing of panel which shows all colours perfectly.
He told, according to his knowledge it should not be a Panel issue. If there are no errors in JIQ testing it should be fine.

 

[Donivlapog]

I spoke to a technician ( not from LG, but he has got training on LG OLED) . Shared him the video that I had recorded during JIG testing of panel which shows all colours perfectly.
He told, according to his knowledge it should not be a Panel issue. If there are no errors in JIQ testing it should be fine.

I will send phone number of the technician who repaired my TV in your pm mail box. Ask for a second opinion if need be.

 

[rejin]

I will send phone number of the technician who repaired my TV in your pm mail box. Ask for a second opinion if need be.

Thanks for the contact number.

 

[rejin]

The offline store that I purchased the TV have been trying to contact LG service. But so far the response has been very negative.
Since LG has already replaced the panel once in extended period LG they are not ready to replace it again.

It clearly looks like they had provided me a faulty panel last time or they wrongly diagnosed as panel issue both the time.

Since these are very delicate TV, I am hesitant to bring a third party technician. Do you guys think I should try a external technician?

 

[nitz_vision]

Use social media to complain they will budge.. unfortunate after paying big cash.. how much u paid?

 

[rejin]

Use social media to complain they will budge.. unfortunate after paying big cash.. how much u paid?

I paid around 2 lakhs for the TV. It lasted around 1020 hours of turn on time.

I tried complaining over Twitter , but they are not bulging . All social media escalations are also redirected to the same service manager is Chennai, who is useless.

Regret buying LG tv.

 

[rejin]

So, I tried emailing to [email protected] explaining my concerns and complaints on 1st April.
They responded today with the same quote/reply they provided earlier.


-------------------------------------------------Email to LG on 1st April--------------------------------------

Hi LG Service Team,

I am an extremely dissatisfied consumer of LG C9 65 OLED. My name is Rejin Ramakrishnan and I made the regretful decision of buying the TV. (Invoiced 27th Oct 2019).
The TV was not turning on in June'22. The authorized technician after the visit confirmed an issue with the panel and replaced it under extended warranty.

To my surprise the same issue occurred on 12th Dec'22 AGAIN. By this time I was sure that there could be a manufacturing defect in Panels.
What else could be a logical explanation to a top of the line TV panel that lasted only for a few months. The new panel was used for less than 30 hours.

Now the technician suggests that I will have to pay for the panel and repair charges as I am just over the warranty period by 7 days. The panel alone costs Rs.1,26,132/-.
I fail to understand the point of buying such a high end television with such poor quality and life. The TV has got only 1020 hours of total turn on time as per the TV status.

I have been asked to pay 50% of panel charges(+shipping+gst+service charges) Rs.66252. I am not willing to pay for a part which is bound to get faulty due to a manufacturing defect. I request you to please consider my request and get this issue fixed.
I am a reasonable consumer of LG and I can take care of 20% of the charges.

Please find below the chronology of events:
5th Dec 2022 - Warranty expired

12th Dec 2022 - TV does not turn on and raised Ticket: RNP221221019028

15th Dec 2022- Identified panel issue

Dec 21th – Informed LG official that the panel was replaced last June, so he said that then the panel will come with 1 year warranty. He raised it to his manager who didn’t approve the panel replacement. The manager told him that there was no chance for the panel to die in such a short time , and he wanted to try replacing the motherboard once. I raised a new request for this motherboard replacement.

23nd Dec 2022- Technicians tried replacing the motherboard, but it still didn't work,so I asked them to get the panel replaced as I am eligible for 1 year on the new panel.

24th Dec 2022 - They checked the records again and informed me that the previous panel replacement was not a paid one, so I am not eligible for any warranty and I will have to pay for the replacement.

The technician, who replaced the panel in June'22(Yuvraj), confirmed that the same issue with the panel when he replaced it last time. He had taken it to the service center and after some Jiq testing the panel was reset by pixel refresh and it was working.
However, in Dec 2022 the panel showed the same results on Jiq, but the pixel refresh is not happening. Jiq results attached here

I have documented my experience here.

I am a loyal customer of LG and have been recommending OLED Tvs to a lot of Hifi enthusiasts. I don't intend to spoil our relationship.
Looking forward to your favorable response.


Regards,
Rejin Ramakrishnan
Mob:xxxxxxxxxxxx


------------------------Reply from LG-----------------



Dear Sir,

This is to inform you that as per your complaints registered against RNP221221019028 for your OLED65C9PTA.ATR& after its due inspection done by our engineer, it has been reported that the below-mentioned parts of your OLED65C9PTA.ATRwere defective. Kindly go through the below-mentioned estimated repair charges for your kind perusal & kindly approve the same so that we can proceed with undertaking the necessary in your OLED65C9PTA.ATR. It is here again being clarified that the below-mentioned charges are based on our preliminary examination & not a final estimate, which may vary depending on any additional requirement which would be assessed after the below-stated repairs are carried out. Kindly register a fresh complaint at 18003159999 once an estimate has been approved by you.

Model​	Part code​	Part Required​	Standard Price​	GST​	Sub Total​	Total​
OLED65C9PTA.ATR​	EAJ65449801​	OLED,Module-AM	53446​	18%​	9620​	63066​
​	​	​	​	​	​
​	​	Transport​	1200​	18%​	216​	1416​
​	​	Service charge​	1500​	18%​	270​	1770​
TOTAL​	56146​		10106​	66252​

Thanks & Regards,
LG Service

------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[sbg]

This Just does not sound good.
I think my perception of LG is changing (Though I have one 6+ years with no issues) .
Amazon Basics is the next one if at all - no more large formats too.

 

[rejin]

This Just does not sound good.
I think my perception of LG is changing (Though I have one 6+ years with no issues) .
Amazon Basics is the next one if at all - no more large formats too.

The service is definitely not worth the premium price that we are paying for these. As far I understand, all the service request that we raise is redirected to the local service center/region. For me it is Chennai, and they are too bad. Even the higher officials are not ready to hear us out.

Even from my email, I have clearly written out the details and their response is a blind copy paste of previous response. Pathetic.

 

[Donivlapog]

The service is definitely not worth the premium price that we are paying for these. As far I understand, all the service request that we raise is redirected to the local service center/region. For me it is Chennai, and they are too bad. Even the higher officials are not ready to hear us out.

Even from my email, I have clearly written out the details and their response is a blind copy paste of previous response. Pathetic.

Consumer court can help but you will go through a lot of hassles. The twitter tagging of top LG India's bosses have given some success. A youtube video is something one of our forum members have tried. In addition you could put a some complaint in news print like the hindu, Indian Express etc...

 

[rejin]

Consumer court can help but you will go through a lot of hassles. The twitter tagging of top LG India's bosses have given some success. A youtube video is something one of our forum members have tried. In addition you could put a some complaint in news print like the hindu, Indian Express etc...

As a next step I am planning to take it to consumer court.
This is the email that I have send to LG yesterday. Hoping they will do the right thing by providing a better deal.

------------------------------------------------
Subject: Rejection of quotation for dead panel replacement

Dear LG Team,

I am writing to express my dissatisfaction with the quotation provided for the dead panel replacement of my television. As per the technician, the previous panel had a manufacturer defect, and therefore, I should be eligible for a better deal on the replacement panel.

I appreciate your efforts in providing a quotation for the panel replacement, but I was disappointed to see that it did not reflect the issue with the defective panel that I reported. I expected a more reasonable offer from a reputed company like LG, especially considering that the defect was not due to any fault of mine, but rather a manufacturing defect.

As a customer who has been loyal to LG for years, I believe that I deserve a better solution to this issue. I understand that costs are involved in the manufacturing and replacement of products, but I cannot accept the quotation provided given that it does not adequately address the issue.

I am looking forward to a resolution that is fair and reasonable for both parties. I urge you to reconsider the quotation and provide me with a more favorable offer for the replacement panel.

I hope to hear from you soon and look forward to resolving this issue promptly.

Sincerely,
Rejin.R

---------------
I have been posting my comments on LG Global page, and started getting some support from people having issues with LG.

 

[rockstah]

The service is definitely not worth the premium price that we are paying for these. As far I understand, all the service request that we raise is redirected to the local service center/region. For me it is Chennai, and they are too bad. Even the higher officials are not ready to hear us out.

Even from my email, I have clearly written out the details and their response is a blind copy paste of previous response. Pathetic.

I've had to run behind them for many months just for them to acknowledge that the panel is defective that too in a month old TV. I'm not surprised how they're treating their customers when warranty is expired.

Their official LG shop was over hyping the support they provide if any issue were to happen but when i had asked to support they just redirected me to LG support. They gave regional manager contact and he's apparently always busy to take any calls. LG used to be great but now I don't think I'd ever buy any of their product ever again. I'm messaging you the Chennai area manager number, see if he can be of any assistance but I wouldn't count on him.

 

[rejin]

I've had to run behind them for many months just for them to acknowledge that the panel is defective that too in a month old TV. I'm not surprised how they're treating their customers when warranty is expired.

Their official LG shop was over hyping the support they provide if any issue were to happen but when i had asked to support they just redirected me to LG support. They gave regional manager contact and he's apparently always busy to take any calls. LG used to be great but now I don't think I'd ever buy any of their product ever again. I'm messaging you the Chennai area manager number, see if he can be of any assistance but I wouldn't count on him.

Thanks for providing the contact number. I am getting very irritated talking to these people over phone. As of now, I am trying to get proof in written so trying to get their responses in email.

I also think official shop is over hyping. When I visited them last week, they told me that if I had purchased from them, they would have challenged LG and got a replacement within this time.