Extended Warranty or not on the XPS 15

These machines are already really expensive, and the standard warranty is only one year., send your system in, etc. Does anyone purchase the improved warranty and/or accident warrant?

 

3 year NBD onsite, looking to take out the 4th year as well.

 

When I purchased the 3 year on site warranty for my daughter's Inspiron, and her screen hinge developed stress cracks, the guy I talked to insisted she must have dropped it and since she didn't have accident insurance, refused to fix it under the warranty. I argued with him that, no, this is a clear stress crack, he told me that I was not knowledgeable enough to know what I was talking about and he was a trained Dell tech service agent. I asked for his name and agent #, and hung up, called again, they pulled up my previous call record and said there was nothing they could do. I told them (thruthfully) that my Ph.D. in polymer science was heavy into fracture mechanics and at one time I worked for IBM in their enclosure design and would be happy to provide them with a formal analysis of the cracking, including calculations of where it likely strarted, etc. if they would pay me my normal consultant's fee; otherwise, I just wanted it repaired under the warranty. Again, "sir, these machines simply do not crack on their own unless you dropped it or dropped something on it."

It tool a month of work to finally get to someone who agreed, reluctantly, to repair the cracked hinge. 3 months later. the new hinge started to develop a crack. Again, they insisted since I had not purchased accident warranty coverage, they woudl not fix it.

Then, on this machine, an Alienware M17xR4, the headphone input jack stopped working. I could feel that it was loose. Called under my warranty, in the 2nd year of a 3 year, and politely described the problem. Once I got past the normal "Reinstall Windows" etc. tree diagram of responses, I once again got "Sir, I assume you must have broken the jack yourself when you put the headphone jack in at some time, because they don't break on their own, and since you do not have accident protection, you will need to pay for a new motherboard." You have GOT to be kidding me! Once again, it took a lot of phone calls and then when they did agree to fix it, they sounded really pissed about it.

All of that said - I'm afraid to buy the machine without the additional coverage. But the 3 year extended warranty adds $239, and the accident coverage for the same time adds another $139. So basically, adding on almost $400 for full warranty support for 3 years. I know if there's just one issue requiring a MB replacement (and so much in these systems is not modular, i.e. requires a full MB replacement) it pays for itself, but man, that's a big bet.

 

I will buy the extended warranty including the accidental coverage as it's a notebook I take it with me everywhere I go so the chances are that something will fail on the notebook probably in the 2nd or 3rd year and if I am keeping it for at least 3 - 4 years I want to have the warranty as it's a expensive computer.

 

I am also considering buying an XPS 15 9550 FHD 16 GB RAM 512 GB SSD. I am also not sure whether to get the Dell extended warranty and accidental warranty jefflackley, since $400 is indeed a big bet.. I have never dropped a laptop or spilled liquids over it, but the extended warranty seems attractive since there are a lot of people with mostly software problems, which is covered under the extended warranty. Can anybody of the owners that bought it via the Dell website comment on this?

 

My previous gen XPS15 (9530) was replaced after 18 months with current gen 9550

If Dell pisses you off enough with constant repairs they can provide a new replacement.

 

Is the laptop gonna be used for work? If it puts bread on the table, get the warranty, having a working system asap is more important if you can afford the warranty when your income depends on it.