California was one state which dictated a 7-year parts availability.
Unfortunately NAFTA, GATT, etc have superceded these state laws.

Sony's current repair policy, as distinguished from their long-term parts
availability policy, is that they will service products at a flat rate for 7
years, assuming no physical damage, severe abuse, botched service attempts,
etc.

Beyond the 7 years, they will service it on a "time and materials" basis,
assuming parts are available.

The fly in this ointment is that they often no longer have anyone on staff
familiar with the old product. Very often, and I say this because I have
seen it personally, they will simply identify a part no longer available for
that model, then say, that's what it needs, sorry, can't fix it, would you
like the piece back for the minimum charge? Even though the part specified
had NOTHING to do with the stated complaint. For example a mechanical part
when the symptom was static in the sound.

So you've just gone to the trouble of packing, shipping, insuring, waiting,
etc only to find they never even gave a good-faith effort toward fixing the
piece.

Mark Z.

--
Please reply only to Group. I regret this is necessary. Viruses and spam
have rendered my regular e-mail address useless.


"Laurence Payne" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 25 Apr 2004 09:04:19 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:

Where does this law apply? I doubt it's a matter for international law
:-)

WITHIN THE UNITED STATES. Where ELSE would I be talking about? Good
grief.

Oh dear :-)

This Internet thing, it's global you know.