Anyone every try off-brand replacement hinges? Thoughts?

[careet]

Hey folks,

The hinges on my X1 (non-carbon model, plastic hinges) are starting to give out. All of the usual outlets I go through for genuine IBM/Lenovo parts want around $90 for the pair, and I'm having trouble justifying the price. SparePartsWarehouse.com is selling a non-genuine set for $30, and I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with their hinges. The FRU is 04W2057, which I believe to be common to a few different ThinkPad models - not sure which specifically, though. As hard a pill to swallow as the $90 OEM plastic hinges are, I'm equally hesitant to buy a third-party version of an already suspect item (I guess you could say I want to have my cake and eat it, too.)

Also - and I don't expect any luck on this end - does anyone know if there's a firm out there somewhere that sells compatible steel replacement hinges for models which originally came with the plastic hinges? I assume that if there were anyone doing this I would have found some results in my searching, but given how vocal the ThinkPad community has been over this issue and how resourceful we are as a whole, it doesn't seem too farfetched (hell, if anyone wants to go into business...)

EDIT: I've just ordered the pair; will report back with preliminary results after I get them installed.

[BillMorrow]

did you try ebay..?
find the FRU number from the hardware maintenance manual and search ebay and google..

I have seen many thinkpad spares appearing from Chinese sellers and coming from HK..

there are probably a thousand leaks in the supply chain from manufacturer to Lenovo..

[ThinkRob]

there are probably a thousand leaks in the supply chain from manufacturer to Lenovo..

They're not necessarily leaks.

In some cases, they're "seconds" -- parts that didn't pass some form of QC or acceptance testing. In other cases it's just a case of "they ordered 15K, we built 16K and are selling the last 1K to cover our barely-there margins".