LED Display Warranty: What to Check Before You Sign
Most warranty disputes come down to four things nobody wrote down. Here they are.
Get four things in writing on the quote: how long, what is covered, whether on-site labour is included, and how fast someone responds. A verbal assurance is worth nothing when a module fails in month fourteen.
The four terms
| Term | What to ask | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Duration | How many years, from what date — dispatch or commissioning? | A year lost in transit and installation is common on remote projects. |
| Coverage | Panels only, or panels plus power supplies, receiving cards and controller? | Power supplies fail more often than panels. A panels-only warranty covers the least likely failure. |
| On-site labour | Included, or parts only? | Parts-only means you pay for the visit, the labour and any access equipment. On a facade that can exceed the part cost. |
| Response time | How many working days to attend? | Without a number this is unenforceable, and it is the term most often left blank. |
What is almost never covered
- Water ingress through a badly sealed installation — which is why sealing quality at installation matters so much
- Power surge and lightning damage, unless surge protection was specified and fitted
- Physical damage, vandalism and impact
- Degradation from lack of cleaning or from running at full brightness continuously
- Anything on a screen that has been opened or worked on by someone else
Panel life is not warranty
Suppliers quote 50,000 to 100,000 hours of panel life, which sounds like a decade of cover. It is not a warranty — it is a half-brightness figure, meaning the point at which the panel has dimmed to half its original output. It says nothing about what happens if a module fails in year two.
What we do
Duration, coverage, on-site labour and response time are stated in writing on every quote we issue. We put them on paper precisely because the alternative is an argument in month fourteen that neither party can win.