IBM 3 Year On-Site Warrenty No Good Out of Country?

[j0rd]

I bought two t61p's for my business in preparation for taking myself on the road for 2 years. I live and work for my internet business with my colleague abroad. Currently we're in Thailand and plan to move to Czech Republic in the next while.

We bought the accidental damage ThinkPlus 3 Year Onsite 9x5 Next Business Day Warranty at a cost of about $900 . I figured this would be a worthy investment in keeping our business up and running while we were on the road.

Last week my colleague had his laptop battery and ac-adapter or die. The battery and ac-adapter are covered under a 1 year warranty which is still in effect.

Today we phone the support center to try and arrange to have the parts available at a Official IBM Service store in Bangkok, Thailand (where we've been living for the past 6 months), but the support department is saying they're un-able to help us because the laptop was registered in Canada. This leaves our $900 worth of warranties essentially useless for the duration of our travels (2-3 years). They also won't ship the parts to our current address.

What hoops should I be jumping through to get my repaired here in Bangkok?

... Or am I fscked?

Thanks for advice in advance,
Jordan of http://gocubeco.com

[andrey]

it probably depends on you warranty coverage. I also have T60p with 3 years on-site IWS warranty and even although my laptop is registered in Canada, I had no problems servicing it in US, Russian Federation and Canada.

You might want to try to talk to US or Canada tech support, since if your warranty is valid, you should have no issues servicing your laptop outside of Canada.

-- Andrey

[Johan]

@ j0rd: First, please check if your (and your partners) T61p's are eligible for Lenovo's International warranty service (IWS). If eligible, then check the International Warranty Service Terms And Conditions (English). What was the Lenovo warranty part-number purchased? The 43R8834?

Johan

[j0rd]

Warranty information

Type: Model: Serial number:
6459 CTO L3XXXX

Status: Expiration date: Location:
In warranty 2010-10-15 UNITED STATES

I am unable to pull up my warranty part number from old emails i have, nor am i able to find it in the customer login at Lenovo.

[j0rd]

I did find the number for Thailand IWS...so I will phone that today and see if they can help me.

[Johan]

The 6459-series of ThinkPad's are covered by the IWS, but apparantly (at this time, at least) only in relatively few countries; see the list here. Thailand is included on this list!

Best of luck with getting your new T61p repaired.

Johan

[j0rd]

After the run around by a couple people on the American Support line we managed to get the number for the thai IWS. We talked with them and they arranged the exchange to new working parts.

Of course when we went to pick them up, they didn't have the proper ones in stock, but they were kind enough to ship them to my house the next day.

Aside from the american tech support team being unable to help us or point us in the right direction, I'm reasonably happy with the service.

Thanks for all your insight guys,
Jordan

[Crunch]

[...]We talked with them and they arranged the exchange to new working parts.

Of course when we went to pick them up, they didn't have the proper ones in stock, but they were kind enough to ship them to my house the next day.

That's great news! So they shipped the parts all the way from the U.S. to you in Thailand? Wow! May I ask which parts they were?? And how come Thailand's customer support was unable to help you, fellow world traveler?

[j0rd]

Actually it was US customer support who couldn't help us. They told us there was nothing they could do because my laptop was registered in Canada and I was in Thailand. I told them I was permantly moved to thailand that that I'd like to change my address. They told me to phone IBM support in China because they were the only ones who could deal with an address change to Asia.

BUT! After reading some of the helpful advice in this thread, I was able to find the number for Thai IWS phone line. ProTip: YOu can not phone Thai IWS number from a cell phone, it's required to be a landline from my experience.

Once we got through to Thai (IWS) and explained our situation (the battery and AC adaptor were burnt out for 1 laptop) they refered us to the IBM service station near the Aree BTS station.

When we arrived their there were missing the 9-cell battery we required, but we were able to borrow an AC adaptor from a service men who worked at the place. They courriered the battery and ac adaptor to our house the next day.

Over all happy experience after it was established who we had to phone.

[j0rd]

I've been to this service station in Bangkok before to have my keyboard replaced (the space button didn't work properly).

I told them I was under warranty and that I shouldn't have to pay for the replacement. I believe there were some language difficulties between us and the clerks, but I ended up having to pay for the replacement myself.

Needing my laptop back as soon as possible, I paid the fee. I'll phone IWS again and see if they can refund me. Any one have experience getting a refund after a repair was made?

[crashnburn]

I can understand the issues with it not being SEAMLESS but that was not so bad. I'd say pretty good.

[j0rd]

Overall, once you figure out how the process work....IBM has been great. The #1 most important thing you need to do is Phone IWS and have them authorize your repair with the service station. If the service station is not authorized for your repair ahead of time, they can jerk you around.


Next move is to Czech Republic...so it will be interesting to see how the service differs in Europe