Did you contact Jots yet? What did they say? (Bob is the owner, and I've known him for decades.)

The Minnesota company, at best, has mixed feedback online, some of which may just be shilled. So be careful of that. I would hope they're good, being former Panasonic techs, but you never know. It's really just a gamble/risk that's going to cost you several hundred, no matter who you use. I'd verify that $130 isn't just an initial repair fee, as I highly doubt it includes that parts/time for capacitor repair. Caps are not expensive, maybe $25 at most, but it takes many hours to swap them out. There's dozens and dozens of those things -- not sure if it's 100+, but I would not be surprised!

I emailed them a couple weeks back at the address listed on their "Contact Us" page, and never got a response.

Just called them this morning to see what the story is. I specifically asked if they still service the AG1980, since I heard that their VCR tech retired. The gentleman who I spoke with confirmed that he is in fact retired. However, he said that this particular tech does still come in about one day per week to work on VCRs. So he said they still definitely repair them, it just might take a little while for the work to get done (he didn't give any definite figure for how long it would take).

I asked for a rough estimate on repair costs. He said the tech usually has to replace between 25-40 caps on these units, and that the cost is usually $250-$300 plus return shipping.

The adventurous (and cheap) side of me still wants to crack open the unit and replace them myself, but the practical side of me says to just send it into Jots at this point, since my free time is extremely limited at this point in my life. At least the cost is more reasonable than SA, and it seems like they have a better track record (hopefully Jpass992's experience with Jots and his JVC HM DH30000U is an anomaly and not representative of the work they do on AG1980s).

I will post back when I decide what to do and inform everyone of the results. If I decide to send it in, is it reasonable to ask them for a list of which caps were replaced?