Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Well, up until recently I was really pretty high on Sony products. But no longer. We bought this unit just under a year ago and the "PLAY" button broke with moderate use. After disassembling the unit, I found that the buttons (especially PLAY, FF, and REW) are all cantilevered away from the cassette handling mechanism. When you combine that with the very thin piece of plastic connecting the button to the mechanism, you have something that's designed to fail. Very poor design, and Sony could easily have done a better job by simply using more plastic in that area. So, since the unit was still under warranty for parts, I called and asked for a new button. No deal! They said that they could only sell me an entire unit, refurbished, or I would have to pay them to put in a new button "for safety reasons". Oh, maybe I could PURCHASE a new button, but they weren't sure. Let me see the warranty says: "... Sony will supply, at no charge, new or rebuilt replacements in exchange for defective parts for a period of one (1) year. After 90 days from the date of purchase, labor for removal and installation is available from Sony authorized service facilities or a Sony Service Center at your expense." Available? More like "mandatory". They simply would NOT send me a new button, under the terms of their warranty. All they could do was refer me to the "Executive Resolution Committee" - c'mon - for a button??? What is Sony thinking? We are talking about a little plastic button here! Well, the story is not yet over. I FedEx'd the Committee a copy of my purchase reciept, Sony's warranty, and the details of the problem. We'll see if Sony stands behind their warranty promises - or not. Stay tuned ... 1/7/07 - update - Sony phoned me directly after receiving the FedEx documentation and offered to replace the box if I paid to ship the old one to them. So at least I wouldn't have to pay about $30 for the refurbished unit (although the FedEx to the Executive Committee cost me about $12). Cost another $12 via FedEx ground to ship back the broken unit (repair facility is about 100 miles from here). Got a refurbished unit back in about a week - total cost of about $25. Pretty good service - but still disappointing to learn that their own service representative agreed with my assessment of the situation. Too bad their warranty statements aren't representative of the actual warranty policy - you can either pay them to fix it, or you can pay for a whole new (refurbished) unit. But to actually get a replacement part that fails under warranty replaced? Forget it!