Thinkpads Forum

A word to the wise - dealing with Lenovo Israel can be nasty. I bought an X61 Type 7675 in the U.S. before the X61 arrived in Israel. so I had no way to know whether or not it would be in the "approved list." I needed a repair (outside of warranty) and got a real runaround. First they said they would not repair it, later they told me they had decided to add this type to the list and "agreed" to replace a faulty fan for $125. That was mid June 08.

Now I have another problem (no video output to external monitor) and they are telling me that they have taken the 7675 OFF the list so cannot do work on it. All in all a very ugly customer experience from a company that touts itself as global vendor. so it would seem that the decision about machine types on the list or off the list is somewhat arbitrary and can be changed without notice.

Apparently there is some internal dispute between Lenovo Israel and IBM Israel/Global about support costs - and end user pays the price.

Dealing with warranty issues with a model not bought in the country where the warranty claim is made can be a hassle (there are quite a few posts about this here on this forum). I can imagine what a hassle it must be with a non-warranty claim.

In any case, I would guess that for the money they would charge you for replacing the motherboard outside of warranty to fix your video out problem, you might be able to buy a new X61.

Just a few clarifications:

If you go to Lenovo's IWS site, 7675 is clearly not listed as getting coverage in Israel, and I don't think it was ever listed. Perhaps the IBM service center chose to "do you a favor" at the time, sometimes they do.

The issue of Lenovo's weird International Warranty Coverage were some models are covered only in specific countries, even though they are completely identical hardware-wise to other models, which are mysteriously covered in all countries, is a well-known and annoying one. There is a long discussion on the subject on Lenovo blogs.

However, none of this is specific to Israel. As far as Lenovo's IWS coverage goes, Israel belongs to the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) space, and so a model is "covered" in Israel, if and only if, it is covered in Europe.

The only solution is to check Lenovo's IWS site before buying. Yes, it's bloody annoying that they have such a policy, which is not obvious. I hope they change it soon, but currently it stands.