Broken hinge - backordered spare parts - what to do?

So my the left hinge on my Dell Studio 17 is broken. I got in contact with Dell on Monday two weeks ago and we scheduled a repair for the Friday the same week. Disappointingly the technician was a no-show and I wasn't given any reason or excuse what so ever.

Second Friday: I was told the technician couldn't reschedule to come and repair the laptop at my work which is a mere 15min from where I live. So we rescheduled.

Wednesday after the second Friday: Approximentally 11:20am on the day the technician was scheduled to come by my work, I received a call and got slapped in the face with the bad news that there are no spare parts for my laptop and that they are back-ordered

All in all dire experience being led on a goose chase for almost three week. More annoyingly Dell are keeping a closed mouth about when parts will be available. Worth mentioning is that I have in-home next 5 day repair so waiting more than 5 days go entirely against my warranty and defeat the whole purpose of me buying the extended warranty.

Has anyone else here ever had to sit and wait for back-ordered spare parts and for how long did you wait? I'll going on holiday on Saturday next week but do not look forward to travelling with a laptop that's is on the brink of falling apart. Would be reasonable for me to request a replacement if Dell cannot repair my computer in the next week or so?

 

Very few times have I ever seen a Dell part backordered, typically it's about 5 business days, but hinges is something they should have plenty of..

 

I would see if you can escalate because they need to provide the service you paid for. If they really do not have the parts then they need to work something else out.

Sometimes you have to keep after them and if your not getting answer ask to speak to supervisors.

Here is some info I was given on these forums that helped me out.

Dellcares
Dell Unresolved Issues

Also just quick ebay search seems like the hinges are available elsewhere if you want to pursue that...but if your still under warranty then make dell do something.

 

The spare parts inventory probably dropped once Dell stopped selling these systems. There is an escalation process inside of Dell which I believe is called Sparq which allows them to get spare parts from manufacturing instead of the spares inventory. Unfortunately, that doesn't work for system models that are no longer manufactured. And the manufacturing of the Studio line was done by Quanta in China, so that wouldn't be a fast way to get a part, even if the factory still had some.

I had a spare parts order (purchase, not repair) take 3 months to be fulfilled. I had to say I'd return the systems (3 top-end Optiplex 960's) under the Total Satisfaction Guarantee and re-order them with the option I needed (2nd serial port) as a factory-installed option to get Dell to escalate my parts order. Even then, it took well over 2 months to actually get the parts.

The last time I looked, new and used hinges were available on eBay. Personally, I'd rather buy the hinges and either swap them myself or have the tech do it (tell Dell the spare part is already on-site) rather than risk exchanging the system for a refurbished one with options that may not be the same as the system I have. Maybe that's just me, though.

 

Thanks for the answers guys, much appreciated. I'm still under warranty which expires in October, bought it almost three years ago. I've now reported my issue and unsolved and I should hear from Dell tomorrow. I paid for a five day service and thus I should not have to resort to having repairing my laptop myself.

This is roughly the 5th time Dell have repaired something on my system. Previously they've acted amazingly fast, even solving my issues while I'm abroad but on this occasion they seem out of character.

I'll get back to you all with correspondence once Dell have replied to me.