SXPS 1340 Being killed by Dell

Hi all,
I've been a casual reader of these forums since before I bought my 1340, but only signed up when I wanted to speak up.

I bought my 1340 from the UK Dell Outlet in September 09, and I would never buy a new laptop again. The price was lower, shipping was faster, and best of all the Premium warranty was thrown in for free. Everything was going great until Feb 10, when two problems I could live with cropped up.

Now, to avoid falling into the "only those with problems speak up", let me say that this laptop has been wonderful. It shipped with Vista and now has W7 Pro on it, which is a vast improvement. The performance of the system turned me into a laptop user, which is saying something coming from a self-building custom desktop user.

Back to the complaints... My problems were trivial. The E key had partially come off the keyboard (the top was attached, but the bottom latch was broken) but was usable, and the LCD went black when the top was open nearly all the way, which it never is during normal use. I could've lived with these, but decided that I'd better call Dell, since the screen problem might've been a precursor to a total death, and I didn't want that to happen.

The express service code put me through to a tech immediately, and no-questions-asked an engineer would be here the next day to replace the palmrest and screen. Simple, fast and efficient service. Exactly what the warranty provides. I should've known it was too good to be true.

The engineer arrived promptly in the morning, watched as I demonstrated the screen's problem, and replaced the parts. I turned the machine on, tested it for a few minutes and signed on the dotted line. Less then a week later I was back on the phone to Dell because my laptop was now shutting down whenever I touched the palmrest at the top left, next to the power button, or picked the laptop up off the table. They arranged a new engineer, and he came and replaced the palmrest, which hadn't been reassembled correctly by the first engineer, and the shutdowns were due to the LCD cable being directly under the palmrest, instead of sitting nicely in it's alcove. He did manage to do something to the antenna connection on the wireless card, as I later discovered. My usual place of use is within 6 feet of my router, and as such never noticed until I tried to move my laptop to the other side of the room and lost my internet connection. I figured it was the common problem with the 1515 drivers that I'd seen large discussions on, and went on a whole saga of trying to fix it.

Everything was going great until the middle of March. I was living with limited wireless connectivity. But then, my screen died. Again. I could use the laptop with an external display, and everything checked out, so Dell determined that it was an LCD failure, and would replace it. Due to work commitments I was unable to be in on any day from 9-5:30, so they shipped me the screen and I would do the replacement myself. Easy enough, I'd replaced parts on a laptop before, what could go wrong? Never, ever ask yourself that question. The screws the first engineer had put in to secure the screen were stripped. Completely. Not "turn carefully and hold the screen at an angle as to not put pressure on the screw" stripped, but "put in with a powerdrill" stripped. Thankfully I had needle-nosed pliers and superglue handy, and managed to have all 4 screws out in about half an hour. I tested the system with an external display to make sure I hadn't caused it any damage, and waited until the next morning when I'd swap my dead screen for the new one.

Hallelujah! The new screen worked, and my wireless problems were fixed! I had 5 hours of straight use without a single problem. I put the laptop to sleep, went to bed, and the next day woke it after work. It worked for a whole 10 minutes before the entire LCD went white and the computer shut down. I opened it up again, resat all of the cables and closed. The machine turned on, but no LCD. It worked perfectly fine with an external display, and the mainboard connection test reported that the LCD connection was present, so Dell determined that I needed a screen replacement.

However, the tech offered me an alternative solution. As this was my third problem in a couple of months, Dell would allow me to return the system, and use the purchase price (minus 30% depreciation) as credit towards a heavily discounted SXPS 13 or 16. Great idea, I thought. I get a new system (hopefully problem free) and Dell doesn't have to continue to pay to repair mine. This was Friday evening, so the decision to repair or buy new could wait for me to think about it, and have a look at the systems available. The tech would call me back on Monday to hear my decision.

I decided on the replacement option, as a "slightly upgraded model" wouldn't have hurt as recompense for all of the problems I'd had. Being warned of a parts shortage for the 13 and that it would be at least a month before they could ship me one, I decided to look at the 16s. Yeah. Right. Heavily discounted my arse. They wanted £800 plus my system, and that only included 1 year's basic warranty, which I'd be dammed if I was going to take it after the problems I'd had. Next! To get a new 13, I'd have to wait a month and pay £500, which was nearly what I paid for the system in the first place. Repair, please.

The same engineer that broke my computer the first time came this morning (Tuesday) to replace the screen and motherboard (since the problem *hopefully* wasn't that Dell had given me 3 faulty screens, but something fixable going on), and was inside for about 10 minutes before he hit a stripped screw and couldn't carry on. So, he called Dell and a courier is coming tomorrow to take my computer back to the factory, and I'll have it back in 5-7 working days completely fixed, or given a FREE replacement if there was too much wrong with it. He put the system back together and told me I should backup any data on it, as an OS wipe or HD replacement may be necessary.

I went to backup my data later on, and found that my computer was now shutting down all the time. Great, he broke it again. He'd also managed to completely wipe out my wireless connectivity, despite the antenna being reattached properly, I checked. How the hell am I supposed to backup my data now? On the phone to Dell again, speaking to one of the call centre managers; I wanted compensation for the horrible service I'd received. After about half an hour, the best "offer" I got out of him was that the factory would do their best to ensure all of my data was safe, and that he would personally contact them to make sure that my computer was seen to as soon as it arrived so I will have it back as soon as possible. The first part I would hope for anyway, and I believe the second part was a bunch of rubbish just to get me off the phone.

Hopefully this will fix my problems, and I imagine it'll cost Dell a lot more then if they'd just offered me the new replacement laptop free of charge.

tl;dr aka the moral of the story: The next day in-house service is pointless. I'd rather have my laptop taken back to the factory and looked at by the people that built it in the first place then some contractor who is actually going to break it.