Lenovo Warranty vs Aftermarket warranty

Well I had posted a thread where I was asking about Neweggs warranty on the Thinkpads. It just didn't click to me at the time that they are using some company to handle their warranty. I think it was NET service or something. Then someone mentioned SquareTrade. I went to their site and it seemed pretty good, at least from their description. The warranty cost about the same as Lenovo's 3 year depot warranty.

I have read so many complaints about Lenovo's awful depot repair and machines coming back worse then when they went in. I know that there are some good cases, but I would be scared to send my machine in.

So my question is why not keep the standard Lenovo 1 year warranty and go with something like Squaretrade warranty? I mean they say that in many cases they won't even bother to fix the product if it is time intensive and just refund you the money. It sounds similar to the protection plan that stores like Best Buy, Circuit City etc offer. I mean Lenovo is also outsourcing their repair service so why not go with another outsourced company if Lenovo's sucks?

What do you guys feel? Please post any points or experience you have with these other aftermarket warranties.

 

Someone must have comments on this.

 

I have no personal experience, but a friend of mine bought an aftermarket warranty for his laptop recently and got screwed. He had to pay to get his machine fixed himself after over a month of wrangling with them and has now had to threaten the company with legal action to get them to refund his warranty. I don't remember the name of the company.

I have been reasonably happy with lenovo's depot repair for the 3-4 times I have had issues.

 

Hi Firesnake,

Not everyone here is a guy but I think you question is a good one.

My system was preorder off of Ebay with three years of depot warranty. The service has been good but Lenovo was not excited about me trying to convert the warranty to four years of onsite.

I was offered this warranty as an enhancment to my warranty.

"I mean they say that in many cases they won't even bother to fix the product if it is time intensive and just refund you the money."

This doesn't sound like a good deal to me at all. The implication with lenovo warranty is that if something breaks they'll fix it during the warranty period.

That's a good deal.

"I mean they say that in many cases they won't even bother to fix the product if it is time intensive and just refund you the money."

This statement looks like to me that if something goes wrong, they will throw up their hands and refund your money. If a battery explodes or catches on fire... lenovo will fix it. If that happens with this "plan" you are out of a computer. What good is it?

So far, lenovo has sent me recovery disks and also a key popped off of my keyboard. A new NMB keyboard appeared the next day!

I don't think you'll receive anywhere near that kind of support with this plan.

 

lol, sorry Renee. Did not mean to offend you or others. I use the term "guys" loosely to refer to everyone.

Thanks for your insight about the warranty. So it looks like the depot repair does come through in a lot of the instances. About not having the machine, you bring up a good point. If they just throw up their hands then I am out a machine and have to rebuy one, but I do get the money back so I can buy something with newer technology. Thats if they are honest and actually honor my warranty. My thinkpad isn't going to be used for mission critical work, but I do hate shopping for things. Therefore, all in all maybe I will stick with the 3 year depot service from Lenovo. I would have liked to even go for the 4 year, but the price difference did not seem worth it to me.

What do others think?

 

Firesnake,

My impression was, you get your insurance money back. Nothing more.

That's little protection and they have very little incentive to do much for you.

 

I don't think this is true, at least for square trade, unless they are flat out lying. I was under the impression that you get your money back on what you spent for the product, not just the insureance money back.

Here is the link to square trade -> squaretrade