Quote:
Originally Posted by old_tv_nut
. . . Philco Corporation by 1960 had applied for bankruptcy protection and on December 11, 1961, Ford Motor Company purchased Philco . . . .
|
The 1940's and pre-Predicta 1950's sets were fairly well built and reliable sets that could easily be serviced.
However, many of their cabinets had less charm than a rutting moose, and this hurt Philco's sales.
Philco decided to upgrade profits by designing beautiful cabinets, without regard to serviceability and then sticking in the cheapest possible, flimsy and prone-to-fail parts. They also attempted to maximize company profits by forcing the customers to use Philco Service shops when their sets went out, so they charged the independent service shops
full list price for replacement parts plus shipping, and Philco took about two weeks to fill the order.
Consequentially most TV shops quit servicing the Philco sets where generic parts were not available, and this left the set buyers up the proverbial creek in the smaller towns, where there were no Philco repair shops. Once bitten by an unrepairable product, most customers picked another brand for their next TV.
With that said, I got out of TV service in late 1960 and am unaware if Ford continued this policy or not.
James