LG quality

[Big Cliff]

If you are thinking of buying an LG product be careful! I bought a 50" LG TV Mod. 50UH5500 just over 4 years ago. Almost $800.00 but I wanted a good tv. Sunday it just quit working. I went on line and found that particular modle had a well doccumented failure at just short of 5 years and it can't be repaired. I spent a lot of time on the phone and emailing LG about the problem and I just got a call from them which basically said sorry for your luck, it was almost 5 years old so too bad, best we'll do is offer you 15% off a new set. I realize things don't last forever but the fact that LG is now selling disposable products means I will be choosing my next purchases more carefully and LG will be my last choice. If this had been some "no name" tv I might have expected the failure but I always thought LG was better than that.

[Fisherman]

I don't think LG has ever had a good reputation, same with Goldstar.  I've had Samsung and a little Toshiba for about 7 years and it's on all night to help me sleep with the damn tinnitus.

[GBW]

LG has gotten SO BAD I will never buy a single product they make! They are so bad they are even getting out of the cell phone market. For a TV with a great picture a Samsung is hard to beat! They sell the glass for the LCD's that they think is sub-par too all the other folks out there...

[Crimsongulf]

We live in a disposable society.  The first flat screen I bought was an Insignia (Best Buy house brand LG) in 06 and it is still going in one of the rental condos bedrooms.  Our main one at home is a Samsung and so far so good.  Run like hell from Samsung major appliances though.

[smitty55]

29 minutes ago, Crimsongulf said:

We live in a disposable society.  The first flat screen I bought was an Insignia (Best Buy house brand LG) in 06 and it is still going in one of the rental condos bedrooms.  Our main one at home is a Samsung and so far so good.  Run like hell from Samsung major appliances though.

My Samsung washer and dryer set is almost 8 years old and so far zero issues. Dryer gets very little use though, clothesline in summer and in front of wood stove on a rack in the winter.

[Crimsongulf]

59 minutes ago, smitty55 said:

My Samsung washer and dryer set is almost 8 years old and so far zero issues. Dryer gets very little use though, clothesline in summer and in front of wood stove on a rack in the winter.

I should have been more specific.  They have a huge class action on French door refrigerators.

[lew]

Lots of things fail sooner than we'd expect but it's just a chance we take when buying stuff. I had a fridge die after only 8 years and a 65" Samsung give up the ghost after only 4 years yet I have 3 Samsung TV's still working perfectly after 11 years. 

It's all just a coin toss if we get a good one or not.

[Headhunter]

If you buy your tv at Costco, you can purchase an extended warranty that will cover you for five years. Well, I am honestly not sure they still do, but they did when I bought my last tv there.

HH

[RandyLinden]

I used to work in the electronics industry and also operated a service center. Things have generally changed and failure rates after the warranty period are quite high for most brands. Reliability is not that good and serviceability is actually a thing of the past for most brands if not all. The bottom line is that it is not cost effective to repair electronics anymore unless it is a very minor repair. Looking back the traditional Japanese brands like Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Sharp, NEC, Sanyo, Mitsubishi etc. were the best. Then we started to see the Korean lower priced brands like Daewoo, Samsung, LG etc. come along and even some other more traditional low end brands like RCA. Some of these products were actually not to bad and were comparable to the more expensive Japanese products. Others had very poor reliability and service along and obtaining replacement parts was a problem. The result was that the Japanese products had to be less expensive to compete and that for the most part meant that cheaper components and overall quality had to come down. When it comes to TV's in todays market I would still buy a Japanese one over any LG or Samsung even though they are all fairly similar now. When they fail outside of the warranty period be prepared to scrap it and buy a new one. In the more recent past the LG TV was in my opinion better than the Samsung in terms of the circuitry and electronics but that may now have changed as well. Samsung has kind of climbed to the top with innovations, larger displays and aggressive sales and marketing etc. but it would not be at the top of my list if I was looking to purchase. I 100% agree with staying away from LG and Samsung appliances they are definitely unreliable and totally unserviceable. They should not be allowed to import and sell those products. 

[Hack_Fisherman]

Tough to find anything you think you can trust these days. Gone are the 25 year lifespans on ANY appliance. Electronics used to last 10-20 years. Pretty bad that we don’t even have a choice to pay more for quality. It’s all engineered to fail it seems

 

[DRIFTER_016]

On October 30th 2010 I brought my new 50" Panasonic Plasma TV home from the store.

It was the last one they had and was the floor model.

It's got many 1,000's of hours on it and is my living room TV at the house.

It gets lots of use every day and is still going strong 10 1/2 years later. 

[smitty55]

7 minutes ago, Hack_Fisherman said:

Tough to find anything you think you can trust these days. Gone are the 25 year lifespans on ANY appliance. Electronics used to last 10-20 years. Pretty bad that we don’t even have a choice to pay more for quality. It’s all engineered to fail it seems 

 

Satellite receivers have been like that for a long time. Echostar (bell) uses cheaper components that barely meet specs. I've repaired 3 of them over the years and every failure has been capacitors. 1 of them I had to use a good receiver and compare readings with a meter and 2 of them a visual inspection was all that was needed to spot the swollen cans caused by excessive heat. Those receivers are always on if plugged in and run quite hot all the time, both of ours are always removed from power every night. I have mine sitting on spacers to allow more air flow underneath. The last one I fixed had two bad caps. So the system runs on 5V and the caps are only rated for 6.3 volts. Add in a very hot environment and the cans swell and next thing you know you can't get a satellite signal. For a few cents more the could have used a higher rated cap to reduce failure rates but of course then they wouldn't sell as many replacements.

[DanD]

I'm on my 50" LG smart TV as I type this. Been one of the better TV's I owned and is on it's 10th year? The thing is on all the time; I use it as my computer screen, TV cable monitor; along with all the movie streaming I do.

Did I get lucky with this one?

With all the circuitry that's inside these things; it only take one soldered connection on one of the hundreds of boards to go open and shut the thing down. The labour involved in finding this possible open connection out ways the cost of replacing the unit. The only thing that I think is different between brands is the quality control at the factories that supply the companies that do the final assembly and slap their name on it. Just like the automotive industry. GM, Ford or Chrysler do not build the components that go into their vehicles. All that is subbed out to other companies to build whatever part to spec. The vehicle manufacturer then assembles those bought parts to build their vehicle. I should ask my son to post some of the horror stories he has to deal with working as an engineer at GM and is in charge of North American rear wheel drive mounting (engine, transmission & body) components. Sometimes what he has approved in a manufacturer's sample part; isn't exactly what shows up at the assembly plant. Talk about the "Ship High In Transit" (S.H.I.T.) hitting the fan. LOL

Dan.

Trivia. Ship High In Transit comes from when river barges use to transport manure in their holds. They didn't want the manure to get wet; so they labeled the bails with the words Ship High In Transit. That's where the acronym S.H.I.T. comes from. LOL  

 

Edited April 23, 2021 by DanD

[grimsbylander]

LG is not a quality product anymore. The local appliance repair guy won't come out and even look at them. The old fridges that dimmed the lights when the compressor kicked in lasted forever! 

[Hack_Fisherman]

3 minutes ago, grimsbylander said:

LG is not a quality product anymore. The local appliance repair guy won't come out and even look at them. The old fridges that dimmed the lights when the compressor kicked in lasted forever! 

I had a 30 yo beaumark (the bay brand) that was still working when I got rid of it. How many people have those old round fridges at their cottages and hunt camps that still work half a century later

[captpierre]

7 hours ago, DanD said:

I'm on my 50" LG smart TV as I type this. Been one of the better TV's I owned and is on it's 10th year? The thing is on all the time; I use it as my computer screen, TV cable monitor; along with all the movie streaming I do.

Did I get lucky with this one?

With all the circuitry that's inside these things; it only take one soldered connection on one of the hundreds of boards to go open and shut the thing down. The labour involved in finding this possible open connection out ways the cost of replacing the unit. The only thing that I think is different between brands is the quality control at the factories that supply the companies that do the final assembly and slap their name on it. Just like the automotive industry. GM, Ford or Chrysler do not build the components that go into their vehicles. All that is subbed out to other companies to build whatever part to spec. The vehicle manufacturer then assembles those bought parts to build their vehicle. I should ask my son to post some of the horror stories he has to deal with working as an engineer at GM and is in charge of North American rear wheel drive mounting (engine, transmission & body) components. Sometimes what he has approved in a manufacturer's sample part; isn't exactly what shows up at the assembly plant. Talk about the "Ship High In Transit" (S.H.I.T.) hitting the fan. LOL

Dan.

Trivia. Ship High In Transit comes from when river barges use to transport manure in their holds. They didn't want the manure to get wet; so they labeled the bails with the words Ship High In Transit. That's where the acronym S.H.I.T. comes from. LOL  

 

So Dan. You are saying the word sh_t came from the manure barges?  This is a profound revelation.   Sorta like when I found out where the word schmuck came from. After I’d called a hundred guys that 😎

[dave524]

19 hours ago, grimsbylander said:

LG is not a quality product anymore. The local appliance repair guy won't come out and even look at them. The old fridges that dimmed the lights when the compressor kicked in lasted forever! 

Think it is a 7 cu.ft. Woods freezer in the basement, my sister gave it to me as a house warming present when I bought the house in '84, they had it for a few years and went bigger . It is still going, probably 40 years old now. 

[jonasdry]

On 4/22/2021 at 6:45 PM, Fisherman said:

I don't think LG has ever had a good reputation, same with Goldstar.  I've had Samsung and a little Toshiba for about 7 years and it's on all night to help me sleep with the damn tinnitus.

Just as a point of interest here... LG stands for Lucky Goldstar. I own a few LG items and personally haven't had any issues with them, yet.

I bought an Insignia LCD TV 12 years ago because after a bit of research it turns out that the model actually used a Samsung panel. It's still going well but my urge to upgrade to something bigger than 47" is really kicking in. I'm old, my eyes need bigger

[Fisherman]

47 minutes ago, jonasdry said:

Just as a point of interest here... LG stands for Lucky Goldstar. I own a few LG items and personally haven't had any issues with them, yet.

I bought an Insignia LCD TV 12 years ago because after a bit of research it turns out that the model actually used a Samsung panel. It's still going well but my urge to upgrade to something bigger than 47" is really kicking in. I'm old, my eyes need bigger

Don't fool yourself thinking bigger is sharper when it comes to the eyes.  I finally gave in, went to the eye doc and yup, needed a slight improvement for long distance seeing.  Can't believe it makes such a difference.

[lew]

11 minutes ago, Fisherman said:

Don't fool yourself thinking bigger is sharper when it comes to the eyes.  I finally gave in, went to the eye doc and yup, needed a slight improvement for long distance seeing.  Can't believe it makes such a difference.

And it didn't cost a couple grand that you'd pay for a bigger TV either LOL

[GBW]

5 hours ago, jonasdry said:

Just as a point of interest here... LG stands for Lucky Goldstar. 

Yup, and you're LUCKY if any current units last after the warranty and OR you can find someone to fix it under warranty.  

The ONLY LG product I would still use is a DVD/CD-RW unit in my pc.  

[Headhunter]

On 4/23/2021 at 1:55 PM, DRIFTER_016 said:

On October 30th 2010 I brought my new 50" Panasonic Plasma TV home from the store.

It was the last one they had and was the floor model.

It's got many 1,000's of hours on it and is my living room TV at the house.

It gets lots of use every day and is still going strong 10 1/2 years later. 

I had the 46 inch version of this TV. It had the best "organic" picture I have seen, until it didn't! What crapped out that TV was the all to numerous power outages we suffered through here. Fluctuations/spikes when the power went out and back on blew out the power supply module. To replace it would have cost more then the TV (Samsung) I bought to replace it. All these current TV's are built in a modular manner, meaning they don't replace bulging caps or bad resisters, they just swap out the entire board, which are typically really expensive. No component level repairs that I'm aware of.

HH

[lew]

Who else remembers the days when you'd pull the tubes out of the back of the TV when it stopped working and take them down to the tube tester machine at the drugstore. Plug the tubes into the machine and it would indicate it when it found the bad one.

I remember vividly back in the 50's when it was just a normal thing to do that and I'd always accompany Dad when we went to the drugstore to test them.

Yup, the good ole days weren't always so good   LOL 😁

 

[grimsbylander]

8 minutes ago, lew said:

Who else remembers the days when you'd pull the tubes out of the back of the TV when it stopped working and take them down to the tube tester machine at the drugstore. Plug the tubes into the machine and it would indicate it when it found the bad one.

I remember vividly back in the 50's when it was just a normal thing to do that and I'd always accompany Dad when we went to the drugstore to test them.

Yup, the good ole days weren't always so good   LOL 😁

 

Isn't that the truth! I remember thinking we were soooo high tech when we got the power rotary antennae on the house! Change the channel = spin the dial! haha  

[lew]

I met my wife waaaay back in '64 and shortly after meeting her she invited me over to her place to meet her parents and darned if they didn't have a colour TV. First one I'd ever seen and I was amazed at how good it looked. Don't remember for sure all these years later but I'd guess the colour was pretty crappy compared to what we have today, but back then it really something  LOL