The fan in my ThinkPad died last week. On bootup the ThinkPad gives me “Fan error” and shuts down automatically to prevent the CPU from frying. I contacted IBM early last Thursday and they said they would get me a box by the end of the next day so I could send the machine to Memphis (!) for repair. It’s now the end of Monday and I still haven’t received the box.
My dad had his ThinkPad repaired in Oslo recently. He dropped it off at IBM’s service location and 3 hours later it was repaired. When they called it was rush hour so my dad decided to wait until the next day to pick it up. The next day IBM delivered it for free.
You’d think that getting a ThinkPad repaired would be easier and quicker in Silicon Valley than Oslo, but I guess not…
Update: DHL delivered the box on Tuesday. IBM had a quick turnaround; they repaired the ThinkPad and sent it back on Wednesday.
One more thing: DHL sucks. I was supposed to have the ThinkPad back on Thursday, but didn’t have it until Friday. DHL somehow managed to completely lose track of the package for about 24 hours. When I called, they apologized and said that “sometimes the driver forgets to scan the package”. Their “noon next day delivery” ended up more like two days. I had to head over to the DHL depot and wait in line for 30mn to actually get my package.
I believe that would have something to do with the warranty. For instance, in Belgium I have Next-Business-Day On-Site, however in the rest of the world it is just 2 weeks (not even pick-up and return)
I wonder how much of that is starting to change since the Lenovo takeover. I love my ThinkPad, but I don’t know if I’d buy one under Lenovo, as it seems they’re quite happy to change the ThinkPad image IBM had crafted with it’s quality service and materials. I’m not sure what my next laptop will be, now.
I am near Boston .. My t42p died in June and when I contacted IBM, they offered to send me a DHL Box. But unlike your case, I got the box with in 2 days of my call. The repaired laptop was delivered within 3 days.
well, I had to pay around $ 500 for a new motherboard etc. 🙁
Well, go for a new Mac 🙂
I worked in this company located a long way form anywhere. To my surprise, when my Thinkpad broke down, a serviceman showed up on short notice and repaired it. Not only that, a few days later a nice lady called me to know if the service was ok! Again, this is Norway. ;))))))
Here in Egypt we rather use UPS or Western Union. Probably DHL died here years ago.
DHL does suck. What with all the package delivery they do, you’d think they’d be good at delivering packages. They were supposed to deliver my dell, and despite the huge tags on the box requiring a signature they decided to drop it off at my doorstep. I returned home just in time to watch a security video of my neighbor stealing the box. Fine, I have shaddy neighbors, but dude… they can’t even practice their trade right.
Man, you are so right about DHL, I’m filled with dread everytime I hear that someone has used DHL to send a package to us. The driver can’t get in our building, which admittedly has a key code on front. Nevermind that UPS, USPS, Fedex and everyone else has figured out how to use the loading dock or whatever.
Strange, I’ve sent Thinkpads in for repair at least 3 times, and I always had DHL do a flawless overnight but the depot would sit on it for several days.
I’m writing this on a Thinkpad, but like Wayne said I don’t know if my next laptop is going to be a Thinkpad.
Funnily enough, my brother recently had a very good experience with Dell, in Greece, of all places. IIRC his several-years-out-of-warranty laptop’s motherboard fried. He called Dell and the rep hinted that he might want to buy the extended warranty plan for something like EUR100. A couple of days later a tech showed up at his house in Athens and replaced both whatever the failed part was *and* the LCD panel, which had developed a row of stuck pixels much earlier, just weeks out of warranty.
Service like this from any manufacturer is unheard of, but Dell??!! Who would have thunk that?
When the motherbord of my ThinkPad x31 died, I delivered to at service center in Bergen and picked it up the next day. Quick and easy.
About the “lost track of the package for about 24 hours”, maybe you want to check your Thinkpad in detail and reinstall your system from scratch if you left the harddisk in during repair…
DHL = Documents Hopelessly Lost
Seriously. It took them 2 weeks to get my sister’s laptop back from Dell. Dell needs to drop DHL. Kinda like I dropped Dell.
DHL has lost my Thinkpad too, so far it has been 6 days on a ‘next day’ shipment. I called twice today and they now have a trace out looking for it. It appears the tracking number is useless, it only tracks a carton with a bunch of other packages. This is the 3rd time this month I have had problems with DHL, but this one is the worst. I recommend everyone avoid this company.