Manufacturer trying to avoid warranty on XPS1530

Neill_J

Neill_J

Neill_J

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
109
Location
Stamford, Lincolnshire
Hi


Can you please tell me in general terms what my rights would/should be in the below:

I Purchased direct from a company (cant mention name - will refer to it as D) (for around £532) an XPS 1530 laptop using one of my credit cards in May this year (with the basic default warranty) - invoice is dated 20th May 2008.

When the laptop arrived - after using it a week or so I suspected it was faulty - frequent random crashes, blue screens etc (+ D Laptop diagnostic errors were found when Diags were run) - which resulted in a engineer call out and replacement of the hard disk, memory and motherboard. This repair happened after about 3 weeks from delivery.

The laptop I noticed a few days after repair had not been fitted back together 100% properly as some of the chassis does not fit as well as it did when originally purchased.

Today (11/11/2008) I opened the lid on the laptop and the screen (near the top by the webcam) has gone funny - there is a black circle about 2" diameter, and running from under the edge (by the webcam) and through this black circle are 3 cracks. The screen does not feel cracked - rather it looks like there is a split/crack on the underside of the screen and the LCD material is bleeding out from these lines.
When I finished with the laptop last night it was fine (it has never been bashed, dropped, knocked or had things chucked/placed on it). All I did was to close the lid and then later on plug it into the power adapter. Next thing I know is that when I raise the lid the screen is knackered.

I contacted D tech support and explained all this to them and they are saying this should be covered under accidental warranty and as I don’t have this I will have to pay for repair and parts (unknown amount at this time but I suspect will be £200-300 at least). I am disputing this as I feel this is a hardware failure and the fault does not stem from any accidental damage - how can raising the lid of the laptop be classed as causing accidental damage?

What are my rights here?

D's webpage re warranty says:

What do D's Support Services exclude?
Fixing issues with the Operating System other than as required for resolving hardware issues.
Accidental damage including spills, drops, power surges (CompleteCare Accident cover required)
Theft (CompleteCare Theft cover required).
Intentional damage, normal wear and tear, unreasonable or excessive use, acts of God including fire and flood, environmental conditions, act of violence or similar occurrence.
Damage caused by use of components of software not supplied by D, relocation or transportation, servicing not authorised by D, usage not in accordance with product instructions, improper voltage selection on systems power supply.
Assistance with Spyware/Virus Removal (a separate chargeable service may be available).
General usage questions for Operating System, Email, Internet set-up and Network set-up.
General usage questions for installation, and configuration of software applications after 30 days.
Non-D supplied hardware, their installation & compatibility with D branded hardware (Original manufacturer supports).The exclusions as described in the relevant service description and D's Terms & Conditions. This does not affect your statutory rights.

I feel that this repair should be covered by D as under the sale of goods act do not items have to be fit for purpose etc etc and last a reasonable length of time?
(This is not yet quite 6 months old).

As it stands at the moment D are to call me back tomorrow - but the 2nd technician I spoke to has already told me my first request for help (earlier today I rang and spoke to a technician who told me the same story - he was to escalate this to a manager who was to call me to discuss - the manager didn’t call me back as agreed) had been sent to the customer relations team and they had already replied saying "not covered - out of warranty repair".
All in all this is appalling treatment of a customer.

I think from the top of my head I can do the following

1 - Stick to my guns and claim it is hardware at fault and ask D to repair it under warranty - as they should!
2 - If this is not forthcoming write a letter of complaint to them stating my concerns and what I would like done to rectify them (i.e. free repair under warranty or refund for full amount)
3 - If this is unsuccessful take the solicitor route to get D to take responsibility (never done this so no idea what to do here or what costs are involved!)
4 - Claim for the laptop via credit card provider under section 75(?) of consumer credit act
Any other advice or options or things to try?

Thanks, Neill
 
contact CAB, if the laptop is not properly fitted together then you can pin the blaim on them as its damaged as a result of the state they gave it to you in.
 
For a cracked screen its going to be very hard to prove it was anything other than you damaging it to be honest.

You should have reported the shoddy repair job when you noticed it and they would have had to do something about it. Its very possible that because some of the plastic latches werent in place properly the very act of opening the lid bent the screen slightly and so broke it. PROVING this however is going to be almost impossible i would have thought. Does it have security seals or anything refitted after he had it open? they could say you opened it up and broke it yourself.

You need to stay calm and document all correspondance with them in regards this matter, if they offer a much reduced cost repair to be honest i would take it. If you go the whole way and demand a free repair and nothing else they may well fight back harder and in so doing the onus would be on you to prove they are liable, which like i said is not going to be easy.

Good luck, youre gonna need it! :(
 
Last edited:
an update....

A manager from D has rung me - I listed all my concerns and dissatisfaction with the product and service to date, and after describing the fault to them they claim there is nothing wrong with the design of the unit (fair enough), but I claimed that it should last more than 6 months and that opening the lid to find this fault would indicate a flaw in the manufacture of this particular screen or that it stemmed from the previous repair.
I made a point that the flaw is on the reverse of the screen not on the front, once this was clear to them they said it is still not covered by warranty but as a goodwill gesture will replace the screen free of charge.
At the end they did say to take more care in the future with the product!!!! (I only lifted the lid - wasnt playing basket ball with it!!!! grrr)

Waiting for an engineer call now

Some pics:

Picture_1.jpg

Picture_2.jpg

Picture_3.jpg

Picture_4.jpg

Picture_5.jpg


On the second to last picture you can see on the edging how it wasn't fitted back together correctly after the original repair.
what it not so clear is that near the power button there is a raise on the chassis which bulges upwards, will make sure this is all addressed when it is repaired.


Thanks for the advice - hopefully wont need to take this any further now!

Neill
 
good man, you got em by the balls there - they know they are beaten so have conceeded defeat, although they wont admit it.

They probably wont have had a leg to stand on if the unit was examined by an independant as it would be down to the assembly that the fault has occured in this case.
 
AtreuS said:
For a cracked screen its going to be very hard to prove it was anything other than you damaging it to be honest.

You should have reported the shoddy repair job when you noticed it and they would have had to do something about it. Its very possible that because some of the plastic latches werent in place properly the very act of opening the lid bent the screen slightly and so broke it. PROVING this however is going to be almost impossible i would have thought. Does it have security seals or anything refitted after he had it open? they could say you opened it up and broke it yourself.
Click to expand...
That pretty much sums up what I was going to say.
 
Strife212 said:
To be fair that didn't happen by itself, look at it.
Click to expand...

So did I take a hammer to it or something?, maybe I did it while I was asleep?
Credit me with knowing what I did to the laptop and knowing it was not caused by an accident!

Facts:
I shut the lid down on Monday night after printing a document - it was fine, later that evening I moved the laptop to another room to charge it up overnight (didnt open the lid), then opened the lid to use it on Tuesday around 5pm and found what you see when it opened.

At no point has the laptop been dropped, bashed, kicked, punched, slapped or otherwise assaulted, to me that indicates a fault with manufacture.

just had the engineer ring - should visit and fix it at my work Thursday :)

Neill
 
I've spent 3 years working as a laptop repair technician, that is physical damage to the lcd panel. I'm not saying that the laptop didn't have a manufacturing defect and was weak, however that dmg is caused by physical force.

When your replacement arrives, avoid potential damage by using two hands, one at each corner of the screen not slamming it.

If you use, say 1 finger in the centre of the screen, it's possible that when closed the pressure has been directed into 1 spot. If it's stiff this will no doubt require a large amount of force to shut. Our fingers can exert a large amount of pressure, be more careful.
 
I'm playing devil's advocate here, but nothing about the state of that screen suggests that it was due to something being put together wrong, even if it was put together badly it would still take higher than average force to break the screen in that way.

Still no cause not to try and get them to sort it out of their money ;)
 
Skyfall said:
I'm playing devil's advocate here, but nothing about the state of that screen suggests that it was due to something being put together wrong, even if it was put together badly it would still take higher than average force to break the screen in that way.

Still no cause not to try and get them to sort it out of their money ;)
Click to expand...

not really, the LCD screens in laptops are AMAZINGLY fragile gentle pressure will easily crack the extremely thin glass panel and then the huge black thing as shown by the OP will occur. ordinarily it would be very difficult to crack the screen to that extent without causing at least SOME visible markings to the front or back of the monitor.

however, if the thing was assembled/reassembled incorrectly, then its entirely possible that the lid-monitor assembly was compromised, causing the panel to break.
 
Aod said:
not really, the LCD screens in laptops are AMAZINGLY fragile gentle pressure will easily crack the extremely thin glass panel and then the huge black thing as shown by the OP will occur. ordinarily it would be very difficult to crack the screen to that extent without causing at least SOME visible markings to the front or back of the monitor.

however, if the thing was assembled/reassembled incorrectly, then its entirely possible that the lid-monitor assembly was compromised, causing the panel to break.
Click to expand...

Don't agree, its easy to cause that sort of damage to a laptop screen without any visiable damage to either the computer case or impact mark on the front of the screen.

This clearly isn't an assembly issue thats been cause by the end user, good job they didn't ask him to send it back to Dell or i'd tell him to take a walk.
 
Hi

While I understand you guys have experience in this area (laptop repairs) and have seen similar problems etc before, it does not change the fact that no undue force or pressure was placed on the laptop by me, it has not been slammed or pushed in any way outside of what you would class as ordinary use.
Based on everything I can see, all I can surmise is that the laptop screen was weak from the outset and choose that particular time to go pop when the lid was opened.
You can see (2nd pic) that the lines seem to emanate from under the edge of the screen as if the edge of the screen/glass was the weak point, there is no damage to the top cover of the laptop and the webcam works fine.
When I opened it on Tuesday, it was with one hand which in hindsight may have focused the pressure in a smaller area but it still should not fail in this basic way.

If people believe that I damaged it in some way then that is their choice, this is hardly a court of law to prove/disprove facts, I am only relaying exactly what I did and to me those are the facts of the matter.

I am hoping the replacement is more durable, I will ask the engineer to tell me what he thinks caused the problem in the first place

Cheers, Neill
 
Neill_J said:
what it not so clear is that near the power button there is a raise on the chassis which bulges upwards, will make sure this is all addressed when it is repaired.


Thanks for the advice - hopefully wont need to take this any further now!

Neill
Click to expand...
I work for Dell. I personally wouldn't have replaced that as it's clear impact damage. Your covered for 7 days after the repair to report it. If you didn't, It's not Dells fault. While it seems as though it was reassmbled correctly, I would have reported it looked dodgy the 2nd the engineer left.

Glad you got it sorted in the end though.

As for that bulge, that's just the LCD bezel. It's very strong. Push it in hard and it should go back in place.
 
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