Warranty extension

[Johan]

<snip>

Reading Johan's excellent posts, I notice this third-party vendor offers the 41C9180 2-year warranty extension that I desire for $150. Has anyone purchased one of these? How does one ensure that the additional warranty is activated if not purchased from IBM/Lenovo itself (for which I was quoted $199 on the telephone). I will be getting the warranty paid for by work, so I guess it ultimately doesn't matter, but it would be nice to save money if possible.

Thanks for the kind words, Tim - such kind feedback is exactly what fuels further effort to remain active on this fabulous friendly forum!!

Well, to comment your question about if anybody has purchased an extended warranty from IBM/Lenovo and/or from the "third-party vendors", as you call them, I have been sort of "involved" in doing business with both. This spring, I purchased an used T42p via this forum, and the seller (who was in the USA) was very helpful to arrange an extended warranty be purchased (directly from IBM/USA), before shipping the T42p to me (an additional explanation being that this extended warranty is not offered in Europe, where I live). OK, so the IBM P/N 41C9180 ("5 year depot, 5 years parts and labor depot warranty") was ordered directly from IBM, but it took forever to get it activated, and many phone calls had to be made before it finally went through - some details is given in the thread Warranty extension (see the post there of Thu Aug 02, 2007 8:33 pm). That was the "genuine-IBM warranty extension experience". Slow, lengthy, painful - but eventually successful.

Then, more recently, I have bought another T42p (I'm an addict to FlexView T42/p's!), also via this forum --> FS Flexview heaven T60P and T42P's (see my post from Sun Nov 25, 2007 1:41 pm). Also in this case, I wanted an extended warranty, and also in this case the seller was very kind and helpful in accepting to arrange that (= buying this ext. warr. in the USA, before shipping me the T42p). Again, the 41C9180 was ordered, but this time from the CostCentral site. Order date was 30. Nov. 2007, Lenovo registration authorization was received via CostCentral on 13. Dec. 2007, the registration was then activated on Lenovo's site, but today (Jan. 12, 2008) it has still not been registered as "Successful" (!?!). According to a mail received today from the very, very helpful seller, positive he wrote this: "I have called IBM on many occasions, the last time was yesterday. I left my number for their registration dept to call me back, and they never did. I spent much time before the holidays; I also spent much time with costcentral to finally acquire the auth. number + passcode. I am very frustrated with costcentral and Lenovo. I don't have an answer as to why it has not been updated, but they said it could just be a small error." That was/is the "third-party-vendor" ext. warr. experience: Slow, lengthy, painful - and not even yet successful.

Bottom line? Seems that the whole (extended) warranty sales/registration process is quite difficult in the USA... before Christmas I extended the warranty of a couple of T42's here in Denmark, and that went without problems.

What is very strange is that CostCentral no longer offer the 41C9180; I just did a search on their site (a lot of other ThinkPlus warranties are still offered, but no longer the 41C9180) - and I wonder why it has gone?? The 41C9180 is still available from Affinity Systems, Inc. at still at only $150.

Perhaps you should really rush in getting the 41C9180, because according to this Lenovo-page (which I just discovered, thanks to you!): Hardware withdrawal: Selected Think-branded offerings — Replacements available the 41C9180 is listed (under "Services") as "Product withdrawals" and Effective December 18, 2007 (!!). As it says in the top of that page: "After that date, you can no longer obtain these products directly from Lenovo. You can obtain these products through authorized remarketers or Lenovo Authorized Personal Computer Dealers while supplies last." So, run and get the 41C9180 anywhere you can while still being offered!!

I know the above was perhaps a bit "In excess" of what you asked, but now you are prepared for the troubles...

NOTE that all I address in the above is extending the warranty on ThinkPad's which ARE STILL covered by the warranty. The above may, or may not, also apply to extending warranty on out-of-warranty ThinkPad's.

PS: Beware of (the immense!) difficulties associated with having IBM/Lenovo to honor an extended warranty claim outside of the USA - as evident through the thread IBM/Denmark deny to honor warranty confirmed by IBM-Support.

Best regards,

Johan

[Tim M]

Perhaps you should really rush in getting the 41C9180, because according to this Lenovo-page (which I just discovered, thanks to you!): Hardware withdrawal: Selected Think-branded offerings — Replacements available the 41C9180 is listed (under "Services") as "Product withdrawals" and Effective December 18, 2007 (!!). As it says in the top of that page: "After that date, you can no longer obtain these products directly from Lenovo. You can obtain these products through authorized remarketers or Lenovo Authorized Personal Computer Dealers while supplies last."

Interesting. I spoke with a Lenovo representative on the phone earlier this week and was quoted $199 for the 41C9180 warranty extension. So, either the representative was in error (possible) or the product withdrawal is not going ahead as planned. I suppose it is also possible that Lenovo is simply selling off its remaining "stock" of warranty extensions with no intention to offer more in the future.

[underclocker]

Just a thought, warranties, a.k.a. insurance, may not be worth the cost if the replacement part costs roughly the same or the device isn't likely to break during the coverage period.

Additionally, if you have multiple ThinkPads, and buy insurance on all, your costs for insurance will almost definitely exceed any parts costs for broken down items.

Using a T4x as an example, the expensive trouble areas are 1) motherboard, 2) LCD, 3) hard disk. Replacment parts for all there routinely sell for less than $150. Therefore, over the course of one year, unless you have multiple failures and/or aren't willing to do your own repair, you'll come out ahead by not buying the extended warranty.

On "p" models, where the motherboard is slightly more costly, you have more exposure, but how much? Maybe $50. A recent eBay sale for a T42p motherboard was $188 -> http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-ThinkPad-T42p-M ... 0188689954

Personally, I generally have 7+ ThinkPads around, there is no way I'm going to pay $1K plus for extra warranties per year. I'll never need that much replaced.

You could even take it one step further, why buy extended warranties on anything? I do not and I consider the savings like my own little insurance pool. If my refridgerator breaks, I pay to get it fixed. At least I don't have annual warranties on my cooktop, ovens, dryer, washer, fireplace, car, TV's, etc.

Like I said, just a thought...

[Tim M]

You could even take it one step further, why buy extended warranties on anything? I do not and I consider the savings like my own little insurance pool. If my refridgerator breaks, I pay to get it fixed. At least I don't have annual warranties on my cooktop, ovens, dryer, washer, fireplace, car, TV's, etc.

That is generally my philosophy as well, but as my employer has offered to reimburse my cost of a warranty extension (I use my personal machine for work purposes), I have altered my philosophy in this instance.

[Tim M]

The 41C9180 is still available from Affinity Systems, Inc. at still at only $150.

I have placed an order for the Affinity Systems warranty extension; I will let everyone know how the process goes.

[Johan]

Perhaps you should really rush in getting the 41C9180, because according to this Lenovo-page (which I just discovered, thanks to you!): Hardware withdrawal: Selected Think-branded offerings — Replacements available the 41C9180 is listed (under "Services") as "Product withdrawals" and Effective December 18, 2007 (!!). As it says in the top of that page: "After that date, you can no longer obtain these products directly from Lenovo. You can obtain these products through authorized remarketers or Lenovo Authorized Personal Computer Dealers while supplies last."

Interesting. I spoke with a Lenovo representative on the phone earlier this week and was quoted $199 for the 41C9180 warranty extension. So, either the representative was in error (possible) or the product withdrawal is not going ahead as planned. I suppose it is also possible that Lenovo is simply selling off its remaining "stock" of warranty extensions with no intention to offer more in the future.

Just a comment/update to what I posted above (a few days back):

... the update being this spooky thing: Today I discovered by coincidence that Lenovo in their Lenovo TopSeller WEB Guide, January 2008 still (?!?) offers the 5-year EZServ exteded warranty (P/N 41C9180) - see page 13.

Looking back on all the troubles I had with having my first ext. warr. arranged (and knowing all the troubles I am still having to have the second ext. warr. coming through), I have just learned through an exceptional helpful friend here at the forum that the following shop is highly recommended; kind, efficient, fast and very reasonably priced ($175): SOS2000 Computer Systems - call Fred Thiergartner (ph. 513-821-2280). The product is seen at their web-site --> here.

NB, and to clearly emphasize: I have no connection of any kind with the "SOS2000" company; all I try here is help anyone who wants to purchase this ext. warr. and in particular wants to have it with the MINIMUM hassle (as mentioned: In contrast to what I unfortunately have to go through, again). Mods: Kindly remove this specific information if against forum rules.

Best regards,

Johan

[Robm]

At the speed of which technology is increasing and software demands are getting, it almost seems like a waste to extend warranty as the machine will pretty much be useless in the next iteration of whatever os and supporting software comes out.

[Tim M]

The 41C9180 is still available from Affinity Systems, Inc. at still at only $150.

I have placed an order for the Affinity Systems warranty extension; I will let everyone know how the process goes.

My new warranty is now active; the process was surprisingly painless. The only hiccup is it took a week and a reminder email to the merchant (Affinity Systems) before I got Lenovo's "maintenance service registration" email. The next day (today), I received confirmation of successful registration and have verified an extended active warranty.

So, at least one person in the US was able to purchase a warranty extension without difficulty.