Quote:
Originally Posted by probnot
As waltchan has suggested, these era Panasonics are troublesome. I have a PV-4760 that had the power supply caps leak as I powered it on to test it. Upon recapping I learned that one of the heads was worn out - another common problem on these.
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The Panasonics (called MBK-36 from Studio Sound) are troublesome only if you use it daily for more than 10 years, with lots of worn-out part inside that could show multiple problems at once. Total amount of repairs usually cost more than replacing it with a new unit. Otherwise, they are fairly trouble-free with decent original belts, as long as they are not exposed into a high-heat or poor ventilation environment.
When they were brand-new and fresh out from the retail-box before, all Matsushita-made VCRs were rated #1 in reliability by Consumer Reports for the first 5 years of use only. Of course, the power supply always works trouble-free for the first 5 years until the capacitors dried up from heat. The only way to fix this, blow a cooling fan into the power supply directly, and then it easily lasts 3 times longer.
The most-reliable Panasonic VCRs ever made in history are the ones made in 1997-1999 (MBK-106), based on feedbacks from customers telling me all the time. The older one, forget it. Panasonic, along with Hitachi, is one of the few brands that the older VCRs are not more reliable than the new ones.