Sharp Microwave LCD Display Problems

[Sparky]

I'm the unfortunate owner of a Sharp R-653M microwave oven which cost me 80 quid.

Last year I switched it off for two weeks to go on holiday,and when I got back home and switched it on again,the LCD display didn't work correctly, though the machine did function if you pressed the right buttons and ignored the jumbled up display. The machine was 15 months old at the time, and after complaining to Sharp UK I eventually managed to wring a free repair out of them. The repair took six weeks as the repairer said that there was a shortage of the displaysas Sharp had been having problems with them and was unofficially extending the guarantee period to 18 monhs or so.

I've just got back from this years two week holiday, and guess what - the bloody LCD display has packed up again! What is it with these displays that they fail while they're not actually switched on!!!

I think this *MUST* be a design fault, and I don't want Sharp to get away with it, so before I complain to them yet again, does anyone have any info I can use as ammo?

Thanks in advance

[David]

In my previous job (just been made redundant), one of the products I repaired were microwaves, and I did have to change the displays occasionally. Some of them were easy, as they were plug in, the others had to be wired to the control board which always meant replacing the two.

We did sell them by the bucket load, and the numbers we saw to repair were not excessive. I can't give you any statistics unfortunately. We did not experience any problems in getting spares.

Classifying something as a design fault is difficult. For that to be the case, the manufacturer would have to have a higher failure rate than normal for specific faults on that product. I don't personally believe that this was our experience with these. Even though I did fix a few, the number involved didn't warrant keeping the parts in stock. Therefore the failure rate of these is probably not particularly high.

In my experience, when manufacturers have a problem, they usually look upon customers complaints in a favourable way if out of warranty - often agreeing to provide the spares for free, and paying the retailer for fitting. We are talking about major brands here of course.

Bearing in mind that you have personally had it go twice now, both under the same circumstances, their customer service department might be willing to help, or maybe the retailer you got it from. The usual practice in these disputes with most manufacturers was for them to provide the spares free, but the customer would have to pay to have them fitted. However, a lot of this depended on if the customer shouted or not, and if the person on the end of the shouting felt sympathetic with the customer, or wanted to take revenge for being shouted at!!

Good luck with it.

[VivienB]

I think this is the second post recently about a display going wrong on a Sharp Microwave oven. I have a Sharp R-953M combination oven, with the same problem. Until I saw these posts, I thought it was possibly the result of a surge caused by a thunderstorm while we were away (it wasn't switched off deliberately). Perhaps I had better pursue Sharp now, instead of getting the local repairer onto it.

Regards, VivienB -

[Peter]

These displays are the most common failure on Sharps they are made to a price so you get what you pay for at £80 buy another.

Pete

[geewhizza]

Same thing happened to us on a much more expensive Sharp Microwave twice in

18 months...microwave still works but you dont know if your cooking or defrosting something until you remove it.

[David]

If they won't play ball then yes, it's not worth paying for a repair - the trade cost of the parts will be pretty high

[Sparky]

Thanks people. Wish me luck.

[Sparky]

Hello, Hello.

My wife tells me that she had a call today (Thursday) from a Sharp Customer Services guy who really sounded as though he wants to help, which is poles apart from their initial stance first time around.

Maybe they do have something to hide regarding the reliability of these LCD displays?

A phone call later today should reveal all.

[Sparky]

Whoooohooooo. Result!

*This* Customer Services guy actually wanted to help, and actually agreed with me that the LCDs packing up like that was unacceptable. Seems that there was a batch of LCDs from China some time back which turned out to have a high failure rate. At least this guy was honest enough to put his hand up to the problem, which is all most of us ever want, to be treated fairly.

Whether this affected more than one model of microwave though, I couldn't say.

Anyway, they've offered me another free repair, so lets hope I don't get a chinese one :-)