Dell, Warranties, White Goods and the EU

Caporegime
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I'm having a look at the moment so might find out what I'm after, but I'm sure this has come up on here before.

I have a Dell laptop that is soon leaving its warranty. Naturally Dell are trying to sell me an extended warranty at an outrageous price, with the usual scaremongering about how my computer will no longer be repairable for free if something goes wrong.

Now, I'm sure that if you can prove something is a fault of the device, as opposed to something you've done, you should be able to expect a warranty over a reasonable 'lifetime' of the goods, the reason I mention white goods is that you'd expect one to last ~7 years, and I'm sure it's an EU directive that helps enforce this?

Could be way off the mark here, but could I therefore in turn reasonably expect my laptop to last ~3-4 years? Therefore claim under warranty any repairs as long as its a fault with the original product?
 
Now, I'm sure that if you can prove something is a fault of the device, as opposed to something you've done, you should be able to expect a warranty over a reasonable 'lifetime' of the goods

I was under the impression it had to be proven that it was a flaw in the device, as in loads of the same laptop had the same issue?
 
fixing it yourself is all well and good but a system board or LCD could easily cost more than the warranty though if the £120 for 1 year mentioned above is correct then that is very steep
 
Lots of people have gotten protection under SOGA and 6 years for the Nvidia Defect.

Google it if you want to know more. Its pretty simple but can be painfully protracted with Dell.
 
The key problem here is that after the first year (?) it is then for you to prove that it's an inherent fault. Within the first year it is presumed to be so.
 
fixing it yourself is all well and good but a system board or LCD could easily cost more than the warranty though if the £120 for 1 year mentioned above is correct then that is very steep

They did quote me £90 at first and I thought thats fair but when I rang up they said it was for the normal studio and mine will cost £120. Because mine is a XPS studio they say it has to have the top level warranty, i argued the case as I didnt need on site next day etc and I didnt mind it going back for repairs as its not my primary machine.

You are right a LCD will cost more than £120 but if i broke it (lets face it LCD's only break by human misuse) so that wont be covered by the warranty, meaning ill still have to fork out the money. If the mainboard goes I know somewhere that can fix them for £70 all in. Ive sent a good 20 to 30 laptops to them and never had problems. I have also fixed a few laptops so I dont mind cracking it open and fixing it.
 
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