My latest official reply from the Sony support email is a standard reply that my TV is out of warranty and I will have to pay for the repair myself.  This is after they told me I would need to pay to have my TV looked at by one of their service agents.

I have still NOT had any response to the 3 (THREE) emails I have sent to the referrals email address provided by Lee (StartTheCar)..

What a cheeky rip off! The engineers came and checked the inverter, which was simply measuring the impedance of a transformer. If it is too high then it is a fire risk. As for my dark lines they said it was a panel defect and was not covered. I then got a call from ICTV sony’s agent to say there are no panels left and they could replace the TV with a modern equivalent for £530 inc VAT, special price. The panel used to be £250 and I can buy a new equivalent TV for £450! What a swizz!

I started having this same problem about 2/3 weeks ago on my KDL40V3000 and decided to e-mail Currys about my issue.

They've since been in rouch and told me about the recall etc. I actually purchased the TV in Dec '08.

The TV's been booked by the Sony service centre for Mon 31/10/11 and I've got a sneaky suspicion that they're going to respond with the same crap they've been giving everyone else.

I will fight and would expect the rest of you guys too as this is more than just COMMON, the sales of goods act of 1979 states you have six years from the date of purchase to claim damages for faulty goods. (With the retailer off course)

Take a look at this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theoneshow/consumer/2009/07/03/sale_of_goods_act_letter_downl.html

I've attached some pictures of the problems I am having and will try to update you with what comes back. (Sorry about the quality!)

Message was edited by: hagigan

Message was edited by: hagigan

This definately a problem with this model.   It seems that the average life of the screen is 2.5 years.  I am lucky because I had a 5 year warranty and therefore sony have no choice but to repalce this.  The engineers who came to look at it played dumb saying that they had come across 1 or 2 beofre but were not sure.  So I had to email them photos.

Unfortunately I might end up with a newer but poorer quqlity replacement.

Hi just joined this site , Just bought new Tv  and was just about to sell my old sony bravia  KDL-40V300 and was looking it on internet to see what info i needed to sell it , im glad i did as found out I had the same fault as the rest of you with shadowing on the screen .

I then found out it could be a fire risk!!  im glad i did not pass it on or sell it and the posible fire risk!

i will be contacting sony for my free inspection to see if its one of the affected models, also will be contacting currys under sale of goods act  as should not of been faulty after 2 half yrs .

Hi some update , I decided to email customer services at currys where I bought my tv 2.5 yrs ago , and sent them  the template letter about sale of goods act 1979,  and here is their response i got today ,

Thank you for your recent contact with us.I have noticed your issue ,regarding an out of warranty Sony Bravia Television.

As a company , we do understand our obligation to provide a remedy for products that fault following the expiry of the guarantee in certain situations .I do appreciate that manufacturing defects may not manifest themselves until after the warranty period has expired.

In view of this and in order that we may consider your request , we would like to inspect your product to diagnose the cause of the fault.With this in mind ,we will require a payment of £60.00 for us to pick up the product and asses the unit at our repair centre.Should our workshop discover a manufacturing fault with the product, your assessment charge will be refunded and your product repaired at no cost.

... so this friday i have a Sony engineer comming to inspect and poss rework concerning the fire risk , then i will be contacting currys to come and collect it and see what they come back with , my Tv is now 2.5 yrs old and out of warranty.

I have exactly the same problem on my KDL-46W5500 just one month after warranty expired. In this picture:

you can see the dark lines on the left side of my TV. Im really upset. Contacting with Sony only offer me technical service phone number to call. In technical service they told me that this is a common problem (and if you Google a little bit is really easy to find out more people with exactly the same issue) and the solution is replace the back pannel that it's so expensive like buy a new TV.

Just thought i'd post an update.............

I'm on my sixth or seventh email to Sony now and still they refuse even acknowledge the problem exists let alone help.

They advise that in rare instances this sort of thing can happen and i've just been unlucky, there must be a lot of "unlucky" going around. As for the posts on this forum they advise that they do not give a fair/unbiased opinion on the matter and their numbers are small in comparison. So basically, they do read the forums, they just don't care.

I'm gonna try my luck with this email address, i suggest other people do the same.

gildas.pelliet@eu.sony.com   (managing director of Sony UK)

You never know!

Message was edited by: -Soup-