Great news for owner's of GE color TV's from '64

[wa2ise]

At most GE might exchange that antique color set with some POS from China....

[Whirled One]

I could be wrong, but if I remember correctly, the "Lifetime Warranty" on the circuit board that some manufacturers (I don't think GE was the only one) had back then was:
(a) just for the PC board itself-- not the parts on it
(b) the only thing 'free' was the replacement board itself, not the labor required to unsolder everything from the old board and remount it all on the new board
(c) only valid for service done only by a qualified service shop

Frankly, I think those warranties were hardly more than a sales gimmick at the time-- probably to asuage the concerns people had after the number of reliability problems that the early PC boards from the 1950's had.

Anyway, even if you tried to get GE to honor the warranty today-- and even if GE said "Sure! We'll replace your PC board, no problem!" -- just think of how much $$$ it'd cost to pay an authorized GE/RCA/Thompson service tech (at today's labor rates!) just to get your "free" replacement PC board.

Actually, though, I'd suspect if you made a big enough fuss over it, GE might be nice enough to let you 'trade in' your old TV (minus depreciation) on a new GE-Thompson set.

BTW, sometimes old "lifetime" warranties do work, though! I also collect old cameras, and back in the late 1980's, I sent GE several bad #5 and #5B flashbulbs just to see if they'd still honor the warranty on 'em. These were the 'defectives' (non-firing bulbs) I had encountered over the past few years. these were all from boxes of old GE flashbulbs I had bought at yard sales and such, and most of these were probably made in the 1950's and 60's. [BTW, ol' flashbulbs still pack a pretty powerful punch compared with most of today's electronic flashes!] I was rather doubtful that GE would actually still honor the lifetime warranty on those things, but I figured, hey, why not. Besides, the original warranty offered 4 replacement bulbs for each bad one mailed in. Sure enough, some weeks later, what do I get in the mail-- a box of new #5B flashbulbs from GE!

On a more TV-related note, you know those old Realistic "Lifetime" tubes from Radio Shack? Does Radio Shack still honor the replacement warranty on those things? That should be pretty entertaining just to try.

[bgadow]

The last I heard, Radio Schlock would give you a replacement tube; the replacement would not come with a lifetime warranty. Someone said that the tubes they dole out now are relabled, possibly even used tubes. Yeah, I bet you could have a ton of fun down at your local shopping mall!

Before I expanded my knowledge to include a second brain cell I ventured to the Shack with a selenium rectifier. I didn't know a plain old diode would work to replace it...and believe me, the kid behind the counter sure didn't know it, either! I really had him scratching his head.

[Jukin Jay]

Originally Posted by Bobby Brady

I imagine this would apply to other years. I read through an issue of LIFE from '63 and saw an advertisement for a '64 GE roundie inwhich it has a hang-tag stating that the set has a lifetime cicuitboard warranty. The small print stated that GE would replace any defective circuitboard for the life of the set.

Does anybody know if GE would honor this? Could they not be legally forced to do so? Would there be all the manufactoring specs to reproduce one from raw materials?

Thanks

The warranty likely applies to the board itself and not the parts on it.

It also covers "defective" as opposed to "damaged". A board that is carbonized from overheated components could be reasonably argued to be damaged as opposed to defective.

Just take it to your local factory-authorized GE TV repair shop, they'll get right on it.

I *have* had Rat Shack replace a "lifetime warranty" tube. They gave me a NOS RCA replacement, which came with no warranty but works fine. I think they get them from AES. The guy behind the counter had never seen a tube before, I got a really funny look. He made a phone call and was told to send it in to HQ. Took a couple of weeks. This was a couple of months ago, a 6L6GC.

[frenchy]

That gets me to thinking - if somebody took their, say, tabletop-cabinet color roundie to a tv repair shop, what would the guy usually say? "Forget it, it's too old" no matter what was wrong with it, or what? Would ANY of them bother to even look at it unless they were really old coots? I could imagine some young repair guy just being fascinated with one of them... "wow, look at all those glass tubes!"