My advice: Sell your Dell before guaranty is over

Hi,

I share my experience because I couldn't believe the offer I received from Dell. Let me explain:

I got a Latitude D800 5 years ago from my company, which I bought when I left. It had three years guaranty; I had to change the keyboard and the screen during that time: Service was quick and efficient, and I was very pleased with Dell support. So I ordered another one last year (XPS M1530). As I said I was an happy customer so far.

This month my Latitude keyboard gave some signs of weakness, and since the kids have some stuff on it I ask from Dell if I could get a new keyboard. It's a nice machine, not powerful by today's standards, but still working fine.

"Sure, said Dell support, we send you an offer by email".

So the price to get a new keyboard is....
6700 Norwegian krones , with translate as 800€ (or nearly 1000 US$). And that's the lowest price!!!!

Detail is:
Keyboard 15€
Motherboard (why do Dell want to change my motherboard?!?) 475€
CAR (collect and return) 170€

And the best part of it: They say (on the pdf I received) it's not possible to order only the parts I want.

I'll have a few words with Dell support, and hope this insanity will be fixed rapidly. Otherwise I'll sell my XPS and get a new supplier.

 

A motherboard? Say what? Do they solder the keyboards to the motherboard or some such idiocy?

 

Your old laptop keyboard broken has nothing to do with your new XPS. What do you mean its "weak"? In any case, you should not have kidz put stuff on your keyboard. My advice, buy a broken used Latitude from ebay and change out the keyboard yourself.

 

Or just buy the keyboard by itself... not from Dell of course. There are plenty of third party retailers out there selling these old parts; you just need to find one that'll ship to your country. eBay is also a viable option, though usually moreso in the US...

 

I have bought keyboards to old D-series laptops (some still use them at work). It was 10€ shipping and under 30€ for the keyboard. You don't need to change the MB. Call Dell again for more reasonable (and correct) offer.

Say Norway really really is much more expensive than Finland and we're neighbours

 

Tell them you need part# G1272 or part# 1M745

These are both compatible keyboards for the D800 - give Dell their own part#.

 

heh...sounds like your over-reacting just a bit for a piece of hardware that's slowly becoming older and older. There's plenty of other places to obtain parts, not a big deal if you look.

 

With a screwdriver, you can change the keyboard yourself instead of sending the computer back to them.

But... 5 years!... your D800 is by now obsolete... if it were me I'd just get something else. But... your choice.

 

Obsolete for what? Not running Windows XP, as that came out 8 years ago. Not obsolete for running most versions of Linux, even ones that are coming out now.

I hate how people always think that since something is 4+ years old, it must be obsolete and unusable.

 

And...like the OP mentioned.

He already HAS BOUGHT a new lappy, an XPS
So it's no use telling him his D800 is obsolete and indeed it will still have it's uses. Letting kids have a go at it to get familiar with laptops is a very good purpose actually...and not one i'd like to do with a brand new laptop.

@ skogatt

like others said...have a look on ebay or such, keyboards should be cheap. Just be sure to get the right part nr.

 

Not saying it's unusable at all...but to expect that a 4+ year old machine will be in prime condition as brand new is honestly not realistic.

 

Sorry, but I had to laugh because I think something got lost in translation here.. I think when he said "the kids have some stuff on it".. he meant that the kids have stuff (data) on the Latitude.. not on the keyboard.. admittedly, thats what I thought at first too with the way its worded.. so because the kids had data on the computer, he just asked Dell to send him a new keyboard (rather than send the whole machine back).. at least thats what I concluded after I read the whole post..

But yeah, I agree with the others.. go find it on eBay or search Google.. there are tons of businesses out there selling used or new Dell parts.. its one of the reasons I decided to get a Dell.. parts o' plenty

 

Oh I see. LOL.

 

Back for some news: I told them (in nice terms ) what I tought about their offer, and I got back a new offer and some explanations about the first one.

They wanted to change the mobo "because maybe a liquid dropped on the keyboard and destroyed the mainboard too". Well, that's nice taking care of potential problems, but when the final price gets far over the price for a new laptop, I don't call that "Great customer service".

And the new offer is only the keyboard, which is nice, but the keyboard price between offer 1 and 2 went from 15€ to 50€. I have to investigate to understand the reason back the out-of-control inflation. Financial crisis maybe...

Thanks for your help and comments! A few explanations:
- The kids didn't put food on it (at least not while I was looking). By stuff I meant school programs, a few games,...
- I don't think I'm overreacting. As I said, I think that's really terrible customer service: More expensive than a new computer, with parts I didn't ask for, and clearly written "Not available as separate parts". About the last statement it's probably because they wanted to change the mobo also, but still...
- Obsolete? For common mortal, there are two main differences between old and new machines: 3D performance, and wireless performance. Sure my 4200Go is out of date, but there are no 3D apps running on this machine. And no wireless either (Sorry kids!): I disabled the wifi, which accepts only WEP and 802.11a/b. Otherwise a perfectly functionnal machine, with 1920*1200 real estate screen

Again I was only asking: Can I have a new keyboard? How much does it cost?

 

While you`re at the task of getting a new keyboard, maybe get a newer Intel wireless card, which can do WPA and 802.11b/g - namely the 2200BG.

 

Dell is probably quoting you a motherboard replacement since you mentioned kid's 'putting' stuff on it. If they do service your laptop and find out that the motherboard is fine then they'll probably only charge you for the keyboard replacement. I too thought that the kid's dropped something on your laptop from your statement. So you'll return your XPS because of this? Doesn't make sense to me. I have a feeling you're doing this out of spite. Other manufacturers will probably do the same and is not exclusive to Dell.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'll ask for the price of it.

 

Just go on eBay and get a keyboard. I used to fix-up and resell D600/D610 and any other D-Series. The keyboards are worth about $2-$5 maybe at the most. I have like 30 of them sitting in a box here since I bought them in bulk. People will sell 100 of these at a time.

I think its funny though that you are making such a big deal about a keyboard. Direct from Dell is the last place to get parts from because they are always going to be extremely overpriced. Its not like they devalue parts to what the fair market value would be. Just search google for the part number and I'm sure you can find plenty if you don't feel like going on eBay.

 

Yes, maybe I sould have started on ebay. Now norwegian keyboards are not that popular

Just a last question: I received two different prices in my offers for the same part (15€ and 50€ . Normal or not?

 

You may want to try ebay.