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To Keith, I appreciate your sharing your positive experience with Selectron regarding
your own repair; Mark had already kindly responded offering to help.
Keith asked if I am absolutely positive that neither I nor some other member of my
household ever spilled any quantity of anything at anytime into my T60, among those
models which Lenovo marketed with video of a Thinkpad plunging into a diving pool at
Nasa.
Please permit me to ask all of you here a similar question:
If, instead of fixing your notebook, Solectron had tardily responded, requesting $750
payment for in-warranty repair, claiming you'd spilled something into it, how would
you be able to prove absolutely, positively, you hadn't?
They've got your laptop. When they dispute the case, they take the pictures of the
internals in order to document what they say is water damage which they claim you
caused.
You, meanwhile, have no recollection, ever, of any spill, and certainly not one prior
to complete boot failure, before which your notebook functioned as-new.
It's a tough one, presuming you hadn't grabbed a screwdriver, disassembled your
Thinkpad, exposed the motherboard and taken your own photographs before sending it in.
How do you dispute such a negative, after the fact?
Nor are we just talking spills.
Since my original post, I have discovered other posts from Thinkpad owners who attempted to dispute spill-related In-Service Warranty
denials -- only to be told after Selectron took photos yes, you're correct, no spills, but
no, you're still screwed, we found "moisture."
I've also found posts indicating that $750 is the standard 'magic number' charged for
alleged uncovered repairs on in-warranty Thinkpads, whereas that same depot repair,
undertaken as if the warranty had expired, costs significantly less, written by owners
who tried going that route.
I don't know if this is true in general, but it seems logical it would be;
in-warranty, Lenovo receives its commission or fee for uncovered repairs, having
certifed the shop as one of its depots; out-of-warranty, the shop keeps the whole pot,
and can offer a lower price on the job.
All very fair -- unless you're the Thinkpad owner.
Yes, I am cranky 
, but not with you guys. I've been without use of my relatively new,
, but not with you guys. I've been without use of my relatively new,still-under-warranty laptop for going on a week. And although I retained the hard
drive, I don't know how to access my data.
Because all my old Thinkpad drives were interchangable, I had not anticipated any
problem with waiting.
Big problem. The pins are completely different.
And Selectron has not responded to my query regarding the availability of a low-cost
hardware workaround, possibly an adapter.Their supposed 'dispute supervisor'
doesn't return my calls, period.
So while I am grateful especially for Mark's help and hopefully await the results of
his intercession, frankly, compared to the service I am used to receiving from IBM,
this is an utter fiasco.
I have used virtually nothing but IBM Thinkpads since their inception.
Never once before, following a malfunction, did IBM fail to deliver a perfectly
functioning Thinkpad into my hands within 2 days -- three days at most.
Never once before did any other machine break down during the first year of ownership.
And in those pre-recession expense-account days, those machines were handled far less
delicately (being heavier-duty) and saw far more use on the road, often sitting right
beside my requisite post-flight cocktail, 'moist' room service order, and migratory crumbs.
That's the kind of service and the quality IBM made its name on, which I thought I was
getting with the T60 -- part of a Thinkpad line touted as most durable to date.
I am not naive, and wouldn't have been surprised, if IBM-Lenovo had to make some
trade-offs in manufacturing and service in order to stay competitive.
But if that is so, do not market your product as tougher than ever, trumpeting
rollcages and airbags, videotaping torture tests, and sponsoring public demos in which
a stunt rider repeatedly pops wheelies upon and runs over a Thinkpad.
And absolutely do not ignore calls to tech support, refuse access to supervisors and
look for flimsy pretexts to deny in-warranty repairs or otherwise all-around trod-upon
customers -- many of them loyal to this product for years.
Believe me, if I had been asked to pay more for my Thinkpad in order to receive that
same old IBM quality, I would have paid it.
I paid what I was asked to pay, for quality IBM-Lenovo claimed was better than ever,
reasonably presuming this was the truth.
(I had to say this to somebody; thanks to my forum friends for listening)
Message Edited by brasscupcakes on 04-30-2008 06:04 PM
Message Edited by brasscupcakes on 04-30-2008 06:05 PM
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