3 years Warranty, its value?

[ibmfreak]

Hello

I bought R500 from UK, the seller sold it with 32 months Lenovo warranty, but now it has been revealed that laptop only has warranty up to 2009-08-21. Seller is willing to compensate. What would be reasonable compensation, location is UK.

thanks

[underclocker]

Sounds like it had a 1 year vs. 3 year base warranty. To upgrade from a 1 year to a 3 year for machines still under warranty (as is this one), would be about $150 in the U.S. It's even less at the time of purchase. Good luck.

[ibmfreak]

I have emailed Lenovo. They wrote back and said that warranty extensions must be bought within one month when new machine. Is this true? Otherwise Laptop life have been crippled from 32 months to 6 months.

[dr_st]

No, that's not true. The person replying clearly did not know what they were talking about.

Warranties can be extended at any time as long as the machine is in warranty. In fact, often you can even purchase post-warranty service after it has ran out (which naturally costs noticeably more).

The only thing that, as far as I know, can only be bought within the first 30 days is the damage insurance (aka Thinkpad protection). This is to prevent people from purchasing this insurance after they wrecked their machine.

[Johan]

I have emailed Lenovo. They wrote back and said that warranty extensions must be bought within one month when new machine. Is this true?

What you are mentioning here is partly incorrect information given by Lenovo; the Truth is that you must buy initial upgrades within 30 days of Thinkpad purchase, but there are also 1-year warranty extensions available which much be purchased (and registered) before the base-warranty has expired... see Lenovo/Denmark Warranty Upgrade Selection Guide for your options or see e.g. the thread Warranty extention questions.

You may e.g. find the cost of the various warranties in the Lenovo-Denmark TopSeller pricelist of 24 Feb. 2009 - translate from the prices given in DKK there to Euro's. Alternatively, you could try find some UK web-site listening the same R500 with a 1-year base-warranty, and with a 3-year base warranty, and then subtract these two prices... difference simply being the 2-year warranty difference.

PS: A small hint (very smart if it works!): Try see this post pointing to the apparent existence of the 41C9180 five-year warranty extension in the UK (!!). Now, if this is a fact that that 41C9180 is really available, and if Lenovo-Finland would actually honor this warranty-extension, should you ever need a warranty repair, you would most likely be the single person in Finland with the longest in-warranty R500! An interesting idea, but make sure to obtain confirmation in writing from the Finland-Lenovo "country-warranty-manager" of you may find yourself fooled such a I once did, as explained in the lengthy thread IBM/Denmark deny to honor warranty confirmed by IBM-Support. Be very vigilant when it comes to IBm/Lenovo warranty-coverage

Johan