Serious material defects for T400 series, Rethink before buy!

I am a loyal TP fan using T23,X31,T61,X200 till this T410S, It really makes me uncomfortable to reveal this serious factory defect, but I wish it could raise alerts to those who still trust Thinkpad’s quality and service in blind.

The whole thing happened since Dec.2010, only 3 mos after I bought my T410s. I treated it like a baby every day, and one day in Dec., I suddenly found an outstanding crack on palm rest(canot find the pictures for 2010 crack)! I am 100% sure that I didn't drop or bump before, this crack is a sure consequence of material/manufacturing defect. I called Lenovo's service and they gave me very confusing answers, first they said my warranty can cover the fix then they denied..I was so pissed off and required being put thru to the guy's supervisor...and this supervisor(sorry I forgot his name) changed tone and admitted the free of charge but told me to bring my laptop to one service depot near Mississauga airport to fix it. Honestly, I have so deep concerns that some new cracks would appear after this one because I searched Lenovo’s forum and found at least 50+ claimed about their palm rest problems.

Nightmare finally came last week, sep. 14,2012. I felt itchy on my left wrist and surprisingly found the plastic mesh on left speaker peeled up, which I used to think it is made of metal. This fragile area soon broke into small pieces while I kept on using the keyboard. I had to stop working and tried to find the reason. Obviously, Lenovo used some low-quality glue and after 2 years, it went off and came to this result. Quickly, I identified another surprise gift, a new tiny crack right below the mesh as shown in the attached picture. It was so obvious that this area could not be caused by any bumping, which is right under screen if lid closed.

I called the Canadian Lenovo service center It really pissed me off when I was told by someone that the free replacement of the palm rest in 2010 was for "Courtesy" and this time you won't get the free "treat" despite I am still in warranty. Hey, it was your supervisor that admitted the plastic factory defect in 2010 in person and now you denied everything? I was also instructed by that guy to bring my laptop to the same service depot I approached in 2010, the reply is the same, They cannot fix it for free, will charge more than 700+ bucks!

What an arrogant service attitude and what a reply to a loyal user!

Lenovo is a Chinese enterprise wanting to play in global arena but the quality still stay “made-in-China”, and service too! I remembered before Lenovo took over Thinkpad from IBM, all my TP models were so durable and never met with crack problems. If you don’t want to pay hundreds of bucks for your laptop after only 2 year use, “Think over”! the reason is simple, The materials used even for T series are too crappy and their service will try their best to avoid the responsibilities, especially for those who have been used for 2 years but still in valid warranty, they could shun away easily. Also, you could easily find many material quality issues even in Lenovo’s forum, for example, there is one example here:

T410s Palmrest Crack - Last Thinkpad Ever - Lenovo Community

Any media who wants more evidences or report about more details (I had problems too with it webcam and harddrive too), please contact by PM me.


anyone who suffer from inferior quality of T series, welcome to follow.

 

I had much better luck on the palmrest issue. I don't know what COGs are on that part, but sending you a replacement is a lot cheaper than losing a customer over it.

 

I don't know about internationally, but at least for US support reps are, in fact, instructed to replace the palmrest under warranty despite it being otherwise classifiable as a cosmetic issue (doc ID HT003251):

It has nothing to do with it being a "courtesy" or a "treat". It was a defect. They fixed the defect. That's about all there is to it.

Regarding the speaker grill: 1) I'm not surprised they classified it as cosmetic (since it is) 2) it won't cost 700 USD to replace. You can get the keyboard bezel and do the replacement yourself. I don't remember whether or not it's a CRU, but it's easy enough to do either way. I also can't say I've ever heard of the grill design failing like you described, although I certainly believe you when you say it has. Just that it's not an uncommon design (it's on the T400s and up, plus the T410/T510 and up) and you're the first one I've seen who's described it having peeled.

Also -- and I'm not saying that you were wrong when you spoke to support, but your post leads me to mention it -- you might want to remember that "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar". A rant about "made in China", etc. might feel good to get off your chest, but taking that approach with support reps is an excellent way to ensure that you don't get a good resolution.

Oh, and since you seem to want to draw all sorts of conclusions from the nationality of the vendor, you might want to double check just which companies manufactured your beloved X31, T61, and X200, where their facilities are, and where they're headquartered.

 

They reluctantly replaced my palmrest for the first time in 2010 and I raised my concerns about more cracks might come out in a very soon at that time, they promised nothing need to be worried about.

and now it really happened, where is so much close to the palm rest.

Lenovo's "strategy" is to show some "courtesy" in the 1st year and play tough balls in second year, which you have to pay a really steepy price to fix any problem by yourself.

If you just want to use your laptop for two years and dispose it, Choose Lenovo... That's the lesson I learn from my own tragedy.

 

If you need to get it replaced, you would need to get the customer satisfaction team involved.

The crack on these T400s and T410s occur as the result of poor structural design and materials choices. The T420s was only updated with small amount of design changes (i.e. one piece palmrest and keyboard/speaker bezel design) and the amount of cracks in plastic were reduced.

 

I would also report that repair center to Lenovo since that part doesn't cost 700 bucks to repair.