No WiFi after iOS 7.0.2 update

[ScotlandLover]

I have an iPhone 4S that I bought in March 2012 so I'm past the year warranty. I updated my phone to iOS 7.0.2 and noticed wifi problems just a few days later. It would shut off and then come back on. It got worse and worse each day. So I started doing a little research on why this was happening. A lot of 4s users were having this same problem. Just a few days ago I noticed my phone no longer even connects to wifi anymore. I went into my wifi settings, the wifi was turned off and greyed out so I can no longer even turn it on. I've tried all the suggestions I have found online (reset network settings when I could turn wifi on, click Forget This Network, etc). The only suggestion I haven't done is a hard reset which I would really like to avoid. Most of the people have said it has become a problem with the wifi chip. The latest update is too much for the 4 and 4s chip to handle and it burns out. So here's what I'm wondering...

I don't live near an Apple store. If I take it to Verizon, can they determine if it is the chip? If it is, will they fix it even though I'm outside of the year warranty?