Sharp recalls faulty LCD TVs

Sharp Corporation of Australia on Tuesday told retailers that it had located a fault in 20 per cent of its existing stocks of 42-inch LCD televisions, prompting Sharp to announce a voluntary recall on Friday.

The vendor is now urging retailers and consumers to return Sharp LCD televisions with model numbers LC42BX5X, LC42GD7X and LC42PD7X with serial numbers 610700001 to 705799999 inclusive, purchased from Sharp between 1 February and 27 May this year.

During mandatory product testing this month, Sharp found that a small piece of foam shielding had become free from its mounting in the affected models, which in extreme cases could make contact with the power board causing overheating and/or creating a live voltage on the frame of the unit.

No instances of electrical shock or Sharp television units have been reported to Sharp, according to Sharp managing director, Dennis Kerr.

“There have been reported incidences of anything. This fault has been picked up by our routine inspection of units as they come into the warehouse. We tested 10 per cent of our stock a week ago and we found one unit had a piece of conductor foam that had slipped out. We immediately froze all our stock and sent a notice to retailers to withdraw all items from sale until we had a chance to inspect 100 per cent of our stock,” Kerr told ITnews.

“We then urged retailers to send all their stock back to us to test. We then asked engineers to come from Japan to do a simulation to find out what could happen if the mounting went into different areas of the LCD. There is actually no risk of fire at all, but the mounting could have melted and disintegrated.”

Approximately 2,000 of the potentially-affected units were sold to retailers, and as of today, Sharp has received 400 units back. Kerr believes that the 1,600 outstanding units could have been sold to consumers, and he plans to receive 100 per cent of them back.

“We advertised the voluntary recall to consumers in all national and regional papers yesterday. We will be repeating this again in a week. Our target is to be able to account for 100 per cent of the units – the average recall percentage is generally very low at 15 or 20 per cent, but our target is 100,” he said.

“We have notified the ACCC, the Queensland Department of Industry, and all other safety regulators in Australia. We have been given the green light on all the actions we’ve taken so far, and we will continue to report to these authorities so they can see we’re meeting our corporate social responsibility as a company.”

Consumers are urged to turn off their units and disconnect them from the power point. Australian consumers should visit www.sharp.net.au or call 1800 333 435 between 7am and 7pm, seven days, to arrange for an inspection and modification if required. New Zealand consumers should visit www.sharp.net.nz or call toll free 0800 543 899 between 9am and 9pm, seven days, to arrange for an inspection and modification if required.

All necessary modifications will be conducted in the consumer's home, free-of-charge.

Byline: Sarah Falson, online editor - ITNews

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