What has been your experience when you had to send your laptop in for repairs?

How long did they take to get your thinkpad back to you?

Was the issue satisfactorily fixed upon return?

Did they handle your laptop with care? (I've heard a few horror stories which involved scratched LCD's and outer casing)

The reason I am asking this is because I had to send in my brand new T410s in due to a defect in my ultraby slot (there is a small piece hanging which gets in the way of removing and replacing my ODD) I found it out when I was replacing my defective ODD with a replacement part.

Begin rant: Quality control at Lenovo really seems to have gone to the dogs. End Rant.

 

Lenovo per se don't fix your laptop.

The warranty phone support and management (i.e. parts) is done by IBM service. While, the depot and onsite warranty support technicians are provided by another third party companies.

My own experience with the current Australian depot is pretty bad, they took too long to order the parts, oh their technicians can't even put back the laptop without scratching and cracking the casing, scratching the LCD, or the thing you originally sent the laptop in for.

Also, it took them 3 months + to properly fix the T60 and T61.... a real ordeal that i don't really want to go through again anytime soon.

I should got the on-site warranty for the T60 and T61, at least i can supervise the repair.

But the flexitronics/solectron were pretty good in Australia, i would imagine that it would be the case in USA too.

 

Part of me kept on telling me "you can live with it, don't send it in it will come back with more problems" but I decided to do otherwise. In all reality it was not affecting the functionality of the laptop at all but its just that I paid over a grand for a top notch Business laptop with a 3 year warranty so I should have exactly that: A TOP NOTCH BUSINESS LAPTOP. Not one with parts hanging.
Also thats all I could see from outside. God only knows what else could be going on inside.

 

There is no point living with a problem, unless you can't part with the laptop due to time or location constraint.

US depot stocks the most amount of Thinkpad parts, due to the larger customer base.

 

My warranty experience a few weeks ago was... odd, to say the least. I turned in both my X200 and T400 to have some minor repairs done. The X200 had an obvious inverter problem, and I wanted to see if they could fix the ThinkLight on my T400... it was badly aligned either due to design or being put together incorrectly.

The service itself was pretty good. I called on 5 July which was apparently considered a holiday here in the US(all shipping services were closed). Boxes arrived on Wednesday, and I got my machines back on Friday morning.

The repairs, however, confused me. They didn't even touch the ThinkLight itself on the T400, and ended up installing a new keyboard. It's an improvement over its original keyboard so I can't complain too loudly, at least.

The X200, however, was very strange. They didn't even touch the inverter, instead installing an entire new motherboard. The inverter was buzzing the moment I pulled it out of the box and powered it on. :/

All in all, I could see them doing good for major issues, but if I have anything on these systems I can fix myself, I'll do it that way from now on.

 

this usually means the technicians (i.e. a newbie) have no idea what they are doing.

 

ive had to send my t400 in twice now and both times the turnover has been about 2 days. overnight shipping both ways in both cases as well.

no problems whatsoever.

 

LegendaryKA8's experience necessitated me sharing my experience, albeit tongue-in-cheek.

I sent in my machine; they returned a box to me with a brand new machine, which was accompanied by a Service Engineer who ensured that I was satisfied and helped me set up the machine. Turnaround time - after multiple twists and turns recorded elsewhere - about 3 months. Would I say I was satisfied with the service? Considering the problem and the eventual scale and levels of engagement, yes!

Btw, I remain covered by a 3-year onsite IWS.

 

Did all you guys who sent in your machines send it in with the hard drive or without it? I asked the technician who I spoke with on the phone (who recorded my complaint) if it was ok to send in the laptop without the hard drive and he said ok but, online I've read incidents where individuals who sent in their machines without harddrives sometimes having to ship their hard drive in seperately and things taking forever.

 

@ miliranga: I sent in my machine with the drive (though I had wiped it clean) and they sent me back a new machine with the drive (with nothing on it)!

 

no hdd, my friend sent his T61 with the hdd in, it got wiped clean. Even though he specifically told them not to touch the content of his hdd.

So from then on, i learnt that no matter what never send your hdd in, unless.

1. the hdd is faulty.

2. you have nothing on it that you need to keep.

3. you made a backup of all the important files.

 

Never send anything to EasyServ that isn't part of the problem.

 

I had a couple of spare hard drives hanging around, so I retained my original drives and sent out a couple of blank ones. They ended up re-imaging them, but no big loss.

 

agreed.   besides, they don't make shipping containers capable of transporting the systems' owners... yet.

 

or simply get the onsite warranty and make them come to you.

 

I have been happy with our depot support.

I have sent in a T400 that had a liquid spill, replaced the mobo, HD, mem, and some other addon cards. Had it back within a week.

Sent my X200 in because the plastic was broke by the wireless switch, I wanted to replace it while still under warranty. They had to replace the whole case, back within a week.

I had T61 warrantied, IIRC faulty finger print scanner.

This is at work so they get a little abuse. For the T410 I just purchased, it will be for a remote office I won't be easily able to support, so I did onsite.

Last time I did onsite was about 8yrs ago and was happy with IBM then.

 

@lines_of_flight
I closely followed your R400 creaking palm rest issue and how Lenovo (after some drama I might add) satisfactorily resolved it. This was in India if I am not mistaken right? Experiences such as yours Max_PL's and mooseracing give me hope.
Thanks for all you guys who responded to my "HDD or NO HDD" question. I am glad I made the right move.

 

oh sorry i didnt mention.

when i sent mine in, they later emailed me asking if ive backed up my drive and if it was okay for them to wipe it clean.

cant say they do this for everyone but this was a special case where i'd gone back and forth with one guy via email for about a month.

 

Yes, this was in India.

 

My W500's discrete graphics chip stopped displaying anything last year. Easyserv sent me a special padded courier box to ship it to them, which I sent on a Wednesday evening and by mid-day Friday the Thinkpad was back in my hands, fully repaired (mobo replacement). It helped that Flextronics had a repair depot in town--but still, very good experience.

 

Ladies and Gentleman,
I am glad to announce that I just got my laptop back and everything is fine and dandy!!!
They satisfactorily fixed the issue that I sent the T410s in for
NO scratches of any sort on the LCD or anywhere on the machine.
And the time they took to fix and ship the laptop back to me was more than reasonable.
I am thinking I should write up some sort of review/my opinon of my experience and post it on multiple forums to counter some of the negative reviews I came across when I searched for EZserve depot reviews. It was the aforementioned negative reviews that planted a seed of doubt in my mind and prompted me to start this thread in the first place.

 

excellent!   it's good to hear positive experiences like this.

the lenovo forum would be a GREAT place to start.

(and don't forget the thinkpads.com forum, too )