How to get Dell to replace laptop with new one?

Hey guys, this might not be the right place to ask this question, but I thought I'd get ya'lls opinion on this.

We purchased a brand new Studio 15 in the end of October/early November. But as it was for Christmas, we didn't start using it till now. Now we are finding out that it has some hardware issues, or possibly some driver issues, not sure which. It's got the 1 year warranty, so they're taking it in to replace some parts, but I've seen issues like this before. It's going to take months to finally get a working laptop.

Problem is, the issue is intermittent. It doesn't happen all the time. It crashes with a blue screen error, and I have to restore the OS. But it doesn't happen on every boot, and it doesn't happen every day. So they're going to do some troubleshooting, may or may not be able to replicate the issue, replace the MB or some random part hoping to fix it, only to send it back to me, and the problem resurfaces a week later. At which point I'll have to ship it back to them, and who knows how long this could go on.

I told this to a Dell tech through their chat system, and they said since it is past the 21 day return period, they can't replace it with a new one, they can only troubleshoot the issues, and replace parts. (probably refurbished ones at that).

I'm pretty upset that I buy a brand new laptop, and now I'm having to go without one for who knows how long so they can try and fix it. We wouldn't be in a rush, but our current pc is on the fritz, and we really need the new one.

So do any of you have experience with Dell in trying to get them to bend the rules a little? Can I just try calling some other tech, and seeing if they'll do it for me? I really don't want to deal with this one when there are obvious issues with it.

 

Skip the chat, call them. Let them unsuccessfully replace parts once or twice and then tell them you want a new build expedited. If the tech says they can't do it, don't assume they're lying (because they actually can't), take it in stride, and then ask for a supervisor to call you so you can discuss it. Once you get a supervisor to call you back, explain that you've had several unsuccessful attempts to repair this basically brand-new system and that you would like a new one shipped out.

In the future, skip the Home purchases and buy from Small Business with the ProSupport warranty. All you've got to do then to get a system replaced is call gold support, tell them the machine is flaky as hell, and then give them an address to ship a new one. I went though this with an E4200 a couple months ago. I called them about an issue I was having with the thumbprint reader. They offered to ship me a new system but i told them that a service call would be faster since the system was in short supply. The tech came out and fixed that but the system then started having screen issues. I called back and they said they'd send me a new one NDA. It took two days to build and a third day to ship and I had my new system.

 

Good advice. I may have to do that. At this point, they're already dispatching out a box to have me ship it to them to replace some parts, so I don't need to get them to do that. And I just finished writing an email to them to further explain the issue and hope that they will comply. But if not, I'll do what you say, and have to just live through the weeks of troubleshooting, and if it is fixed great, if not, hopefully I can persuade them. But my whole point in the beginning was to avoid the long wait. But oh well, I guess that's not going to happen.

 

paqman; what happend? Are you still in the replacing parts cirkus?