[duhmel]

I am about to declare my Series 3 (lifetime) unit DEAD as it resets and/or freezes on a daily basis. Not being a very intense user I was planning to buy a Premiere or Roamio on eBay with lifetime for around $150. For about $30 I can get a two years Square Trade warranty (doubled by my CC) as an inexpensive bit of insurance if something comes up that I cannot fix myself.

However I was wondering how Square Trade works such a warranty request. I expect they will want me to ship them the unit and then likely send me a replacement as old Tivos are not likely to be fixable. I assume that the replacement that they would want to send to me wouldn't have lifetime service so could I insist on a refund of my original purchase price or would I be stuck with a similar unit without lifetime.

 

[ThAbtO]

Even without a warranty, a Roamio can be fixed whenever the hard drive fails and all you have to do is swap it with another up to 3TB, or up to 8TB with a computer.

The Series 3 fails due to the power supply capacitors which cause the hard drive to fail.

 

[duhmel]

I have been working on my Series 3 HD for about a month trying to get it working again. I get random reboots while I am using the Tivo especially when I am moving through menus. During periods when I am not watching TV, the Tivo often freezes or drops out so that I have no signal on my TV even though the Tivo LEDs are lit on the front. I have tried two additional hard drive with new images and had the capacitors replaced on the power supply and installed another working power supply all of which had no change to the failure modes. I connected from the Tivo to TV via component connectors instead of via HDMI but no change. I swapped the Tivo with another unit on a different TV and the failure stayed with the unit in the new room thus eliminating bad cables or bad electrical signals being the cause. I have been working with a tech who fixes Tivo power supplies through eBay and he has never seen the failure signature that my unit shows.

That's why I am concerned of a catastrophic failure developing in my purchase of a Premiers or Roamio. Unlikely??? I can deal with a HDD or power supply replacement myself but if there is a issue that causes the unit to be unfixable, I'm wondering what the outcome would be if I got a SquareTrade warranty.

 

[bob61]

I've had a couple claims with SquareTrade. While not on TiVo units, my experience is they will first try to repair a unit. If unit can't be repaired they will refund your original purchase price, you need to provide itemized receipt of your purchase. You can then buy whatever replacement you want.

For repair of small items they will ask you to ship item, they cover shipping cost. I've not had them replace/exchange an item.

Now.... While not relative to your purchase, for others, if your receipt shows TiVo unit and lifetime as separate items you may have a bit of a battle on your hands. ST will most certainly look to only cover the cost of the unit itself.

Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk

 

[shwru980r]

I am about to declare my Series 3 (lifetime) unit DEAD as it resets and/or freezes on a daily basis. Not being a very intense user I was planning to buy a Premiere or Roamio on eBay with lifetime for around $150. For about $30 I can get a two years Square Trade warranty (doubled by my CC) as an inexpensive bit of insurance if something comes up that I cannot fix myself.

However I was wondering how Square Trade works such a warranty request. I expect they will want me to ship them the unit and then likely send me a replacement as old Tivos are not likely to be fixable. I assume that the replacement that they would want to send to me wouldn't have lifetime service so could I insist on a refund of my original purchase price or would I be stuck with a similar unit without lifetime.

The premiere and Roamio don't have the capacitor issues of the S3's. It's highly unlikely that you would have an issue that you could not fix.