Gateway 450 & Liquid Spill Repair Excuses

I own approximately 20 of the Gateway 450 series notebooks and really feel there are a couple of design flaws with this particular model.

The display hinges are very weak. If you don't continuously tighten the hinge screws, they then become stripped. Gateway then informs me that this is abuse and refuses to repair the notebook under warranty.

The other issue I'm having with the laptop concerns the motherboard. The laptop will be working fine and then all of sudden the screen becomes distorted. Once this happens, the laptop usually will no longer boot up. The power light comes on and the fan spins, but that is it. I then have to send them in for a motherboard replacement. It is a headache, but I was willing to endure it until now.

I just sent one in and got a call from Gateway informing me that the repair will be $649. The laptop is 2 1/2 years old and not worth half of that. They say that there is liquid spill on the keyboard, keyboard cover, top assembly, base assembly, and the motherboard. I told them that wasn't possible because I inspected the laptop prior to shipping it in for repair. There was a very, very minor spill on the keyboard itself. But the underlying parts were not affected at all. I told them to ship the notebook back unrepaired. I just inspected the notebook again, and still there is no underlying damage.

All 20 of my notebooks have been sent in for repair at one point or another mainly due to motherboard failures. This is the 6th or 7th time that they have tried to pull the liquid spill excuse on me. It got so bad that I was putting a note in with the notebooks to inform their repair staff that I had already personally inspected the notebook for liquid spills.

I finally quit buying Gateways due to these problems. Unfortunately, I still have to deal with them regarding warranty work.

I was just curious if anyone has had these type of problems with the Gateway 450 and/or the liqiud spill excuse by their repair department.

I hope Gateway actually reads these posts and thanks to all for letting me vent!

UPDATE: I actually got a call from a Gateway engineer after sending an e-mail. To my surprise, he was very nice and understanding. I was on the phone with him for probably an hour. He had me take the keyboard back off and look for any type of corrosion. There was a trace amount on one of the heatsinks that he thinks might have been caused by condensation. I guess it is possible. But probably unlikely, considering it was 95 to 100 degrees during the period the notebook quit working. They still refused to repair it under warranty.