Caveat Regarding Lenovo Warranty

I learned something interesting today about Lenovo's warranty. The mouse keys on my T60p finally gave out after 3 years of heavy use,and my express card slot wasn't working, and I sent the unit in for service. I received a telephone call from Repair Service, in which I was informed that I need a new motherboard, a new hard drive, a new keyboard pad, a new palm rest, a new pc slot, and a new base cover - all at my expense!

Evidently, there was a stain caused by liquid in the computer, and if any liquid stain is found inside of your computer, regardless of the amount or location, Lenovo can require you to pay for ALL repairs, and make you replace ANY and ALL components demanded by the service center, in order to bring your computer up to factory standards. Simply by observing a liquid stain, Lenovo can consider all parts to be damaged and in need of replacement, without performing any tests to determine if this is actually the case. If you send your computer in to a service center and a stain is found, I was told "that changes everything," and automatically makes all repairs billable to the customer, and subjects the customer to whatever replacements are demanded by the bookkeeper at the service facility.

When I talked with the billing manager, I told him that I did not want him to replace the hard drive or the motherboard, because I had not experienced any related problems of any kind, and could not remember the last time that any liquid might have gotten into the computer. I asked him to simply fix the keys, and put in a PCI Express Card per the work order, at my expense. The billing agent became belligerant and insisted upon conducting all repairs or none, for him to warranty the work. My warranty expires this week, so that should not be an important requirement. I told him I would release him from any guarantee, that I only wanted the keys fixed and the pci Express Card put in the slot to see if it would work, at my expense.

Lenovo wrote me: "KEYBOARD AND PALMREST ARE WORN. REPLACE KEYBOARD AND PALMREST FOR WORN BROKEN KEYS. REPLACE BASE COVER FOR CRACKED PLASTIC. SENDING QUOTE FOR BILLABLE REPAIRS." In other words, the billing agent is telling me that my computer is falling apart due to problems related to their plastic, and he expects me to pay for as many of these plastic related repairs as possible, even though they are not related to any liquid spill, as only the keys appear in my work order. Please don't make me fret about how much plastic is in the T410s computer that I just purchased, or the W701 that I plan on purchasing at the end of this month.s

I appreciate Lenovo checking out the condition of the computer and giving me their opinion, but let's be reasonable, and realize that this is an older three year old computer, and steps need to be taken to restore the computer at a reasonable cost, and not use a standard that makes it cheaper to simply give up on using the computer again. Giving me options on a computer that is going out of warranty would be appreciated.

I have been a very happy Lenovo owner, but this has been a very disappointing experience. Billing managers should administer billing, and not take it upon themselves to determine problems simply by sight and not testinig. I once had an Asus keyboard get fried in a lightening storm, literally melted at one end, and it worked for years. A new motherboard should not be foisted upon me, nor the cost of repairs due to Lenovo's use of plastic.

I will find out tomorrow if I can keep my motherboard and my hard drive which have worked just fine for me, and just let Lenovo replace the cheap plastic parts that broke.

Anyway, I thought people on the forums may be interested in Lenovo's Warranty, and how the presence of one single liquid stain can make one responsible for all repairs to the machine, and cause the owner to replace any and all parts demanded by the bookkeeper, even if they are working fine and have no request for service. Kind of Scary.

BTW, I was told that the Accidental Protection policy can avoid these situations.

Richard

 

Thanks for posting. I think it's a pretty well known fact that liquid damage does indeed void your warranty. If you look at it from Lenovo's perspective, people probably send their notebooks in with liquid damage all the time expecting Lenovo to repair it. Lenovo warrants ThinkPads for defective parts and faulty workmanship. Liquid damage is not an error on Lenovo's part.

I would also say Selectron, who Lenovo outsources their depot repair to, has been known to over aggressively claim liquid damage on machines sent in for repair. If you feel that this is in error, you should take your claim up the food chain at Lenovo. If all else fails you can send a PM to [email protected] asking for assistance. He's got an account here, but you're much more likely to catch him over at the Lenovo forums. Good Luck.

 

Depending on the country, the entire system warranty can be voided if your laptop receives a user damage that may or may not have caused the failure of the actual part of the systems.

But i guess you can escalate the issue with Lenovo warranty support (IBM service), they maybe able to help you out with certain parts of the warranty claim.

My T61 laptop had everything replaced (motherboard, basecover twice, top cover, keyboard, palmrest, fan, hinge twice) after 6 months of wrangling with ByteCraft. I guess the moral of the story is that you should be prepared to battle the depot charge claim.

 

I am curious about your case.

Were your problems directly related to the water damage, or was Lenovo wanting you to pay for repairs that were unrelated to the water damage?

I would not mind paying for repairs due to water damage, that is fair. I thought asking me to pay for hairline cracked plastic that was not related to water damage was an abuse of their water damage policy. None of the cracked plastic showed signs of a drop or impact, none of the plastic was broken. It just cracked over time, and I had never even noticed the crack.

BUT THE LESSON LEARNED IS: Buy the Accidental Repair Policy. I was told that this covers water damage. I would double check that statement, though, as I have not verified it.

My computer was working fine with the "water damaged" parts, with the possible exception of the PCI card or slot. I was willing to pay for a new Express Card, at my expense, to find out.

Richard

 

no water damage, i did drop the laptop several times, which had cracked the laptop the corner of the top case and part of the base cover. However, the laptop went in for fan, hinge and headphone jack replacement (requires a new motherboard). It took them 2 months to repair the problem, because they didn't order the parts. It came back after 2 months with a new base cover (i didn't ask them to replace it) and new motherboard, but they didn't change the hinge.

The laptop had to go into repair again, and when they replaced the hinge, they cracked the top case and scratched the LCD, so it went back after 1 months of sorting who is responsible for the damage bill (IBM or Bytecraft).. it was escalated to IBM executive team, which forced Bytecraft to foot the repair bill.

Also, my T60 was in repair at the same time (that was in A1 condition) for a new fan... came back damaged several times, which in the end required a new base cover, keyboard bezel, touchpad, etc. Oh it went in at the end of Oct last year, and it only got fully fixed in March of 2010.

Not exactly happy about this whole incident, as clearly the depot was clearly incompetent and someone should have realised that they were even worse than Flextronics/Solectron...

 

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