HP replaced my 2-1/2 y.o. DV9000

My first HP laptop ran perfectly for almost three years, running 15 hours a day, before the charging circuitry failed in November 2006. It was long out of warranty, so I decided to buy a DV9000 CTO... and, thank FSM, a three year Care Pack. The DV9000 turned out, as many of us know, to be a LEMON.

This month, after the 5th big failure, I set out to get HP to replace the laptop instead of repairing it yet again. Less than three weeks after my first E-mail contact with HP, and exactly two weeks after I called in the case managers, a brand new dv7t-2000 showed up on my doorstep.

For the first year I owned my DV9000, everything was just fine. I formatted the hard drive the day I bought it and installed XP Pro SP2; when Vista came out two months later, I did a clean install of 32-bit Ultimate. I struggled along with Ultimate, upgrading the RAM to 2 GB (but I set aside the original RAM & hard disk), until the cavalcade of failures commenced.

After a year, the left hinge split and the fun began. First, HP denied that I had purchased a Care Pack; I had to Email the original receipts to India, and wait a week for them to "update my data" in their system. Then, they tried to blame the hinge on "accidental damage," but those wonderful Web sites (and this forum) helped me document that it was a factory defect. The repair depot sent it back after a week, with the hinge "fixed:" there was (only?) an inch of back-and-forth slop in the display. (Of course, they also replaced the hard drive, but I was expecting that). I knew it wouldn't be its only trip, so I waited a few months...
...until its second trip, which was for its first failed system board. Again, HP Support didn't believe that I had a Care Pack. I declined their invitation to prove it again, and demanded a supervisor; they eventually gave me the number for the Case Managers here in the USA. This vastly improved my support experience. Finally, I could reach a professional contact who treated me with respect and was honest & pragmatic about what HP would and wouldn't do for me and my defective DV9000.
The Case Manager sent me a return box, off it went to the repair depot.They replaced the system board, heatsink, fan and the hard drive... and apparently dropped the laptop on the corner of the display.
I spotted the physical damage immediately and called the case mamagers, so the 3rd repair box arrived two days after the repaired & newly broken laptop had. Two weeks after that, it came back with the case damage repaired.

(At this point, I asked my wife for a Dell Vostro laptop "for my birthday," explaining that it would be her laptop except when my HP was in "rehab." She wasn't happy about this: she saw it as a waste of money... until the next repair).

Not long after it came back from Rehab 2 & 3, the DVD drive started popping open under case flex loads. I found a Web site describing the design problem with these drives, so I was ready when the replacement system board fried itself a few months later.
On that trip, its fourth, they replaced the system board and the DVD drive (and the hard drive, of course) and they managed to avoid breaking anything while they had it. It came back in July 2008, in as good a shape as it had ever been.
I was beginning to think This Old DV9000 might settle down and make it to the finish line on its warranty... until last month, when it developed weird electrical problems. First, it would not POST & boot on external power; I needed to unplug the adapter until the logo screen appeared. Then, it would sometimes require me to remove the battery and drain the juice by holding down the power button, then replace the battery to start it. Finally, it started exhibiting a truly fatal symptom: it would simply shut off, mid-sentence.
I started this support encounter with a simple statement of demand:

Of course, their Email reply said very little: only that a supervisor would contact me within 3-4 business days. When this didn't happen, I called the Case Managers on Friday 3 April. After I recounted my history of failures (and demonstrated again that I actually had a Care Pack), the Case Manager agreed to build a dv7t-2000 CTO to replace my DV9000. He promised to E-mail a "proposal" on Monday, but it didn't come; I called him Tuesday evening. He apologized... and clicked through the CTO screens, with me following along on my end. He gave me every option that I wanted, and told me to expect it in two weeks or less.
It came in ten days later, built to the exact specifications he had agreed to.

So far, I am more than satisfied. Sending a new (and much faster) laptop, after 30 months of part-time service from the lemon, is the only way they could have satisfied me. If this laptop has a reasonable service life, HP will have come a long way toward making good for selling me that big plastic turd.

This is important to HP, moreso than they might realize.

I have a small PC repair business with just under a thousand customers. All of these folks consult me before they (and their family members) buy expensive things. Since 2007, I have been steering them away from HP computers. I "sold" dozens -- maybe even 100 -- of the various Dell laptops, rather than risk sending my customers down the HP Support rabbit hole. (I also sent a few dozen DV-series owners back to HP for free out-of-warranty repairs under the "Customer Service Enhancement Program).
Changing my mind about HP Support has the potential to sell a few hundred laptops over the next few years... if those laptops hold up, HP will get loyal customers.

 

Horrah a good story. I had a dv6338se it was replaced with a dv6500t for free after it went in for repair and was schedueled to be in repair for over a month. I also had a tx1000 it broke 3 times they gave me a brand new dv4 which i sold and got a dv7. And with my desktop it broke twice and on the third time they replaced it with a $1200 computer that was labled refurbished for $600. Wow was i happy a computer twice the value of the one i bought for free. The dv6338se breaking was my fault and the tx1000 was just a lemon. I love hp's warrentys they never let me down.

 

Great Deal !! Welcome to the "HP Replaced my Notebook" club. I think the secret is keeping exact records....

 

Lol, congratz.

HP has treated me very well and I steer every single person I can to HP . Ppl that steer others to Dell are my enemy! LOL.

Good work.

I'm assuming you live in US, from all that trouble you had on the help lines.

I'm in Canada, and we don't get this trouble . All customer service reps are located in our country, speak english, are very courteous, and have accurate records.

Just from posting good things about HP, I think I've helped HP sell a TON of laptops lol.

HP hasn't let me down, I won't let it down.

The HP computers aren't the best in the world, I have to admit that, but the quality of their warranty makes up for anything and everything.

One time I shipped my laptop for a complaint about "a tight hinge", honestly, it was barely a problem. Box came, shipped it in, guess what, my laptop was BARELY at the depot for 24 hours!!! and they had replaced the hinge and shipped it back out!

You really have to appreciate it though. I've heard that HP makes approx 4% profit from each laptop sold. If you ship it in for warranty, they've made a loss. 2-way shipping @ $40 each way + parts + labour + customer service reps and the whole infrastructure.... they are really doing their part to make sure you are satisfied. Think again, how much did HP spend on your repairs and a new laptop? I don't even know how HP makes money!

Well, I never really appreciated how good HP's warranty was until I had my Samsung printer warrantied! It took about 10 phone calls, 1 email, 5 attachments, and 3 weeks for them to INITIATE a service order. And after all that, it didn't even fix my printer. And to top it off, they denied warranty on my 1/4 used toner. I gave up, and sold the printer on the internet.

Unfortunately, because those Samsung printers are so cheap, I bought another different one, giving them another chance. And guess what, the new one had a design flaw.... Once again, called Samsung support, about 5 phone calls later and 3 escalations, I was blamed for not knowing how to use my computer (which is completely not true) and was told to contact microsoft or HP (my computer brand) for support on how to work my Samsung printer. HP was glad to help, but was obviously of no use because it was a Samsung design flaw.

Since then, I've given up on Samsung.

 

Me too. I've seen folks have decent luck with Samsung's sub-$100 laser printer, but I wouldn't count on Samsung for anything mission-critical. One of my customers fought with Samsung for two years over his terribly unreliable color laser printer before finally giving up and buying a HP.

Even when I was very down on HP's laptops -- and, face it, HP sold tens of thousands of defective DV-series laptops, then only fixed those that died in warranty or whose owners found out about HP's extended repair program -- I still stood behind their printers. They just work.

And, even on the defective laptop, I was mostly lucky with their repair service (other than the one time they cracked the case, and they repaired the damage when I spotted it). The longest they ever kept it, including shipping, was two weeks.