I bought my Sony in Oct 2003. I can't believe I've had it for over 6 years. Well in June of 06 I noticed a little blue line at the bottom and finally around Dec I called to Sony. After their referal to a local service company I was hit with a 100.00 service call for just to come out. It was the optic engine and the service tech advised me to replace the lamp at the same time. 1000.00+!!! Wow, just in time for the holidays, Merry Xmas!!! I called Sony and was fired up and said that their products and their reputation should be second to the Sony Corp customer service that they will provide to take care of this problem. Well, they covered for 50% of the cost of the optic engine. I took the deal.
For the past year my TV has been making a funny noise. I knew it was a fan but needed to get a service tech over to pinpoint the fan. He was really cool and showed me how to take the TV apart and put back together so I would avoid the 150.00 labor charge if I wanted to replace the the fan myself.. I repaired it myself.
During my search with the problem of the fan, I found out the Sony had extened the warranty on the optic engine to 12/31/2008. Thank you Sony for ladvising me of this update in info. I called Sony and lwent thru their 3 tiers of service and 55 minutes late the service person said to fax over all of the info, receipt and letter of explanation, etc. A couple of day later I received a call from the service person advising me that I will receive and refund for the full amount of the repair. They even covered the cost of the new lamp.
You just need to be persistant. I pride myself in the fact that I can be a real thorn in the buttocks to them.
Now I have a problem with a green hue - no red. Maybe Sony will send me a new TV.LOL I'm calling them Monday AM