Why such a stigma for refurbished Tivos???

[funtoupgrade]

Why not rebuilt or refurbished? Neither Humax nor TiVo repair any electrical components. If the motherboard board is bad it is replaced with a working one, if power supply bad it is replaced with a working one. Same for hard drive and front panel. There are no other electrical parts. Absolutely no difference from a personal computer that has either defective parts replaced or upgraded.

On the other hand, Sony does do the electrical repairs and possibly also Toshiba. Neither of those manufacturer's offer refurbed replacements for out of warranty repairs.

In the opinion of EBay Square Trade, refurbished is better than used since they offer one additional year of extended warranty coverage for refurbished than used.

Didn't know whether this post belonged here in help forum or coffee house, but it seems lots of folks with help questions have quite an aversion to refurbs so thought it fitting to place here.

[Einselen]

Well refurbed ST S2 are pointless now as you can get a new one for free. Refurbed Humax is not bad (like the one on Tivo.com Web Specials). Refurbed DT would not be bad if below $69.99. Other units not in production not bad if you want the specific unit. I have had issues with some refurbed products, but with others not at all. When I have had issues it fell within the warrenty so I had to send it back, which sucked, but I wasn't out the money. I personally don't have issues with refurbed or open box, etc. I actually like those options as it saves me money for the same exact product.

[Rwood]

I've purchased 3 refurbed units. One Humax and two TiVos. Zero problems.

[arcadefreaque]

In my experience with hardware in general...
-Used/working means it will likely work fine
-Refurbed means that it definitely did not work at some point, and someone at the repair place MAY have found the problem and fixed it, or the problem may be spurratic and didn't occur at the repair center (but definitely ends up occuring in your livingroom). Refurbs are often fixed based on the problems that they exhibit at the time. Say you have a hard drive failure due to overheating. A quick repair shop will toss a new drive in there and shove it out the door (maybe they'll fire it up and let it run for awhile, but probably not for a week straight, in a normal AV cabinet). So they probably won't fix the slightly failing fan, or any capacitors or other components that may be drying up quicker due to high heat conditions. Therefore, your failure on major componenets happens months later after the warranty expires.. nice.

So generally, my aversion to refurb equiment comes from the fact that it normally costs more than used, and has more possiblity of breaking (in my personal experience).

[classicsat]

Refurbed doesn't necessarily mean it was broken. It just means it isn't new off the line.

[arctanstevo]

I got a refurb S2 - Yeah, it didn't work at one point, tracked it down to a bad power cord. The one that shipped to the customer with the unit, and their return came to me. When they refurb and boot test them, they do it in a lab - going on 3 years now - no problem (after replacing the power cord)

[spambox]

We went through five -- that's right, five -- Series2 boxes before we finally got one that lasted more than a year. The first two failed inside of 6 months; the third failed two days before a year was out; the fourth didn't even work out of the box; the fifth one has been working now for about 2 years.

Had we not bought lifetime service, we would have given up on Tivo long ago. It works great once it's working, but getting it to work is quite the chore.