Friday, July 9, 2004
Fujitsu: Great Laptops, Horrible Depot Support
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 03:00 PM
Nearly a year ago, I purchased a Fujitsu P5010D. It rocks. I have a half-finished review somewhere that I should just publish. ;-) Over the past few months though, things haven't been going so great with the laptop. It started out with four dead pixels in close proximity to each other, all near the center of the screen. The strange part was that they were white and still visible when the power was turned off (which I don't think is normal for dead pixels). Over the course of several months, I came to realize that there was debris and dust getting under the screen - I initially thought it was on the surface, but after a thorough clean job that wasn't the case.
So I called up Fujitsu and explained the problem. They indicated that I'd need to take it to a local warranty depot, and from owning my second Fujitsu notebook, I knew it was a company named Decision One. The problem is that their depot hours are from 8 to 10 AM and 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM. Small window of opportunity to get it there, especially when they're a 30 minute drive away from me. My first attempt met with failure - the guy who was working there was new and didn't know how to take the laptop and process it for a warranty issue. He said to come back later when the other two technicians were there, so I returned an hour later only to receive the same story again. Frustrated, I left. A week later I managed to make it there 10 minutes before the depot time ended, only to find the doors locked and lights out - another strike out for me. I knew I only had one month left on the warranty, and that I needed to get the laptop in for repair ASAP. I called Fujitsu and discovered (by accident) that there was another warranty depot I could take it to. Excited, I drove down that day and dropped off my laptop at AB Microtech.
That Was Then, This Is Now...
It's now been over three weeks since I did that, and I still don't have my laptop back. When I showed them the problem, their tech said he could just try to clean out the dust. I could tell that they had no clean room, and knowing that I only had one month left on the warranty, I didn't want to risk having more dust come back (since the real problem was the broken seal on the LCD screen). I told them I wanted a new LCD panel or at the very least the assembly replaced and a new seal. They agreed and I left. One week later I called to check on things, and they told me that they tried for several days to clean it, and only the day before I called they ordered the LCD part. They had no explanation for why they didn't do what I asked in the first place. I called back a week later, and now they told me that Fujitsu had asked them to send them the laptop, so they did.
Yesterday I called to check on the status, and they were unable to tell me anything more than "Fujitsu has it". I called Fujitsu's tech support line to learn where my laptop was, only to discover there was no RMA associated with the serial number on my laptop, and that no parts or warranty work could be performed without an RMA. I called AB Microtech back again and they couldn't explain what Fujitsu was telling me, but they were able to provide me with an RMA number. I called Fujistu back and they told me the RMA number wasn't the correct type for their system, and they had no record of it. 8O
So Who Has My Laptop Exactly?
They told me that it might be an RMA from the Fujitsu office in Ontario, so I called them and managed to find someone who confirmed that my laptop was at their facility. Hooray! I left a voice mail for Ameer Khan, the person I was supposed to contact, and waited for him to call me back. He did just that within a few hours, but the results of our conversation were less than positive. The bottom line from Emir was that because he's never seen another P5010D with a dust problem like this, someone must have opened mine and broken the seal. He didn't come out and accuse me of doing this, but he said "someone" enough times that he thinks I'm guilty by association if nothing else. He said they would try to clean it and re-seal it, but that they would replace no parts. I told him that if this wasn't an issue they had seen before, then logically is must be a faulty part, but he didn't agree. :roll:
So now I sit here, more than three weeks without my laptop, waiting to get it back and knowing that, more than likely, within a few months it will develop the same dust problem again. I hope I'm wrong, but I've had enough experience with dusty Pocket PCs to know that once dust gets in there, it will keep coming back until something drastic changes. There's a slight chance that they'll see the dead pixels and replace the LCD panel, but I'm not hopeful based on the lack of customer support I've seen from them so far. Fujitsu's 1-800 tech people are great, and the laptop is amazing, but dealing with their warranty depot/repair people has been a nightmare. If you're considering getting a Fujitsu notebook, consider yourself warned. :?:
July 15th Update
Yesterday morning I received a phone call from AB Microtech telling me that my laptop was back in their possession. :D And late yesterday, after teaching my college class for the third straight week without my laptop, I finally had it back. The repair paperwork was a little vague - it said that Fujitsu had cleaned the dust out from under the screen, but didn't indicate if they had replaced any parts, found a physically broken seal, etc. So while it's nearly perfect now - no more dust or strange stuck pixels - I'm left wondering if this will happen again.
After a careful cleaning of the screen, if I look at it from an angle, I can see several small particles under the screen along with a larger spot that I initially thought was on top of the screen, but seems to be under it. My one-year warranty expires on August 11th, so I have a few weeks to see if the dust will return. I really hope it doesn't, because based on my experience with Fujitsu, their repair process takes far too long.
I can't help but think that if Fujitsu really cared about quality as much as they say they do, they would have replaced the whole upper assembly - something is clearly wrong with it, yet I have no indication that they did anything other than clean out the dust. As much as I like my P5010D, this is the last Fujitsu notebook I'm going to purchase - I can't risk going through another round of warranty hell.
August 10th Update
My worse fears for this "repair" have come true - roughly tough weeks after getting the laptop back, dust started to appear under the screen in the lower right portion of the central zone. It was light in colour so I thought I could ignore it, but on August 4th a large (4-5 pixels wide) white piece of debris appeared under the screen in the upper left, and I couldn't ignore it any longer. I called back Fujitsu tech support in the US, told tech named Kevin my story (including the fact that Ameer Khan basically accused me of opening up the screen and getting dust in it), and much to his credit, he said he'd pass me on to second level support who would be calling me within four hours, or the next day at the latest. I waited two days, then called back and was patched through live to tech support - at the same time they gave me instructions on how to update my warranty expiration to the correct date of August 11th, 2004 instead of July 31st...and you can figure out why that was important. ;-)
I spoke to Toby in second level support, and Toby informed me that my case was passed on to Brent Barkhouse, a manager. I waited several more days and called back again on Monday the 9th, only two days until my warranty expired. I spoke to several helpful people, and I was informed by a call back a few hours later that Brent was away on vacation and that if I wished, I could send the laptop back to Fujitsu USA at no cost, and they'd do the repair. Since I'm planning on leaving for a one-week vacation at the end of this week, and I wanted to have the laptop with me, I informed the techs that I'd be in touch with Brent when I returned. I have an RMA number that's good for 30 days, so in a worst case scenario when I return from my vacation I'll ship the laptop down to the US where hopefully my problem will be fixed.
I'm not pleased that the laptop has developed the dust problem again, but I blame that on Ameer Khan's insistence that no parts needed replacing, and it just needed cleaning. That clearly was not the case, and now I'm once again going to be inconvenienced by not having my laptop. I start teaching my college class again on September 2nd, so I'll have a small window of opportunity with which to get the laptop repaired. And I can only hope that this time, Fujitsu listens to me and fixes this problem once and for all - I'm not going to get a third chance now that my warranty will run out tomorrow... :?
September 25th Update
I'm pleased to report that this story has a happy ending. Fujitsu returned my laptop after a cleaning and a replacement of the outer screen, and after three weeks it's still dust free. They also extended my warranty by an extra three months for added security against this problem. While they weren't able to explain how the dust got under the screen, they were confident that the problem was not permanently fixed. That seems to be the case, but I won't be 100% convinced until another month has gone by and the laptop is dust-free.
In the end, I'm happy that Fujitsu stepped up and fixed my problem once and for all, and the extended warranty was a gracious touch. The weak link in the chain is their local warranty depot support, which I dearly hope is less dysfunctional in other cities. Would I buy a Fujitsu laptop again? It would depend on how unique their offering was - I've owned two Fujitsu laptops, and both have required warranty support, so my confidence in their product quality isn't exactly bubbling over. Still, some of their products (such as the P5000 and P7000 series) offer benefits no other OEM can match - so I won't rule them out in the future.
So I called up Fujitsu and explained the problem. They indicated that I'd need to take it to a local warranty depot, and from owning my second Fujitsu notebook, I knew it was a company named Decision One. The problem is that their depot hours are from 8 to 10 AM and 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM. Small window of opportunity to get it there, especially when they're a 30 minute drive away from me. My first attempt met with failure - the guy who was working there was new and didn't know how to take the laptop and process it for a warranty issue. He said to come back later when the other two technicians were there, so I returned an hour later only to receive the same story again. Frustrated, I left. A week later I managed to make it there 10 minutes before the depot time ended, only to find the doors locked and lights out - another strike out for me. I knew I only had one month left on the warranty, and that I needed to get the laptop in for repair ASAP. I called Fujitsu and discovered (by accident) that there was another warranty depot I could take it to. Excited, I drove down that day and dropped off my laptop at AB Microtech.
That Was Then, This Is Now...
It's now been over three weeks since I did that, and I still don't have my laptop back. When I showed them the problem, their tech said he could just try to clean out the dust. I could tell that they had no clean room, and knowing that I only had one month left on the warranty, I didn't want to risk having more dust come back (since the real problem was the broken seal on the LCD screen). I told them I wanted a new LCD panel or at the very least the assembly replaced and a new seal. They agreed and I left. One week later I called to check on things, and they told me that they tried for several days to clean it, and only the day before I called they ordered the LCD part. They had no explanation for why they didn't do what I asked in the first place. I called back a week later, and now they told me that Fujitsu had asked them to send them the laptop, so they did.
Yesterday I called to check on the status, and they were unable to tell me anything more than "Fujitsu has it". I called Fujitsu's tech support line to learn where my laptop was, only to discover there was no RMA associated with the serial number on my laptop, and that no parts or warranty work could be performed without an RMA. I called AB Microtech back again and they couldn't explain what Fujitsu was telling me, but they were able to provide me with an RMA number. I called Fujistu back and they told me the RMA number wasn't the correct type for their system, and they had no record of it. 8O
So Who Has My Laptop Exactly?
They told me that it might be an RMA from the Fujitsu office in Ontario, so I called them and managed to find someone who confirmed that my laptop was at their facility. Hooray! I left a voice mail for Ameer Khan, the person I was supposed to contact, and waited for him to call me back. He did just that within a few hours, but the results of our conversation were less than positive. The bottom line from Emir was that because he's never seen another P5010D with a dust problem like this, someone must have opened mine and broken the seal. He didn't come out and accuse me of doing this, but he said "someone" enough times that he thinks I'm guilty by association if nothing else. He said they would try to clean it and re-seal it, but that they would replace no parts. I told him that if this wasn't an issue they had seen before, then logically is must be a faulty part, but he didn't agree. :roll:
So now I sit here, more than three weeks without my laptop, waiting to get it back and knowing that, more than likely, within a few months it will develop the same dust problem again. I hope I'm wrong, but I've had enough experience with dusty Pocket PCs to know that once dust gets in there, it will keep coming back until something drastic changes. There's a slight chance that they'll see the dead pixels and replace the LCD panel, but I'm not hopeful based on the lack of customer support I've seen from them so far. Fujitsu's 1-800 tech people are great, and the laptop is amazing, but dealing with their warranty depot/repair people has been a nightmare. If you're considering getting a Fujitsu notebook, consider yourself warned. :?:
July 15th Update
Yesterday morning I received a phone call from AB Microtech telling me that my laptop was back in their possession. :D And late yesterday, after teaching my college class for the third straight week without my laptop, I finally had it back. The repair paperwork was a little vague - it said that Fujitsu had cleaned the dust out from under the screen, but didn't indicate if they had replaced any parts, found a physically broken seal, etc. So while it's nearly perfect now - no more dust or strange stuck pixels - I'm left wondering if this will happen again.
After a careful cleaning of the screen, if I look at it from an angle, I can see several small particles under the screen along with a larger spot that I initially thought was on top of the screen, but seems to be under it. My one-year warranty expires on August 11th, so I have a few weeks to see if the dust will return. I really hope it doesn't, because based on my experience with Fujitsu, their repair process takes far too long.
I can't help but think that if Fujitsu really cared about quality as much as they say they do, they would have replaced the whole upper assembly - something is clearly wrong with it, yet I have no indication that they did anything other than clean out the dust. As much as I like my P5010D, this is the last Fujitsu notebook I'm going to purchase - I can't risk going through another round of warranty hell.
August 10th Update
My worse fears for this "repair" have come true - roughly tough weeks after getting the laptop back, dust started to appear under the screen in the lower right portion of the central zone. It was light in colour so I thought I could ignore it, but on August 4th a large (4-5 pixels wide) white piece of debris appeared under the screen in the upper left, and I couldn't ignore it any longer. I called back Fujitsu tech support in the US, told tech named Kevin my story (including the fact that Ameer Khan basically accused me of opening up the screen and getting dust in it), and much to his credit, he said he'd pass me on to second level support who would be calling me within four hours, or the next day at the latest. I waited two days, then called back and was patched through live to tech support - at the same time they gave me instructions on how to update my warranty expiration to the correct date of August 11th, 2004 instead of July 31st...and you can figure out why that was important. ;-)
I spoke to Toby in second level support, and Toby informed me that my case was passed on to Brent Barkhouse, a manager. I waited several more days and called back again on Monday the 9th, only two days until my warranty expired. I spoke to several helpful people, and I was informed by a call back a few hours later that Brent was away on vacation and that if I wished, I could send the laptop back to Fujitsu USA at no cost, and they'd do the repair. Since I'm planning on leaving for a one-week vacation at the end of this week, and I wanted to have the laptop with me, I informed the techs that I'd be in touch with Brent when I returned. I have an RMA number that's good for 30 days, so in a worst case scenario when I return from my vacation I'll ship the laptop down to the US where hopefully my problem will be fixed.
I'm not pleased that the laptop has developed the dust problem again, but I blame that on Ameer Khan's insistence that no parts needed replacing, and it just needed cleaning. That clearly was not the case, and now I'm once again going to be inconvenienced by not having my laptop. I start teaching my college class again on September 2nd, so I'll have a small window of opportunity with which to get the laptop repaired. And I can only hope that this time, Fujitsu listens to me and fixes this problem once and for all - I'm not going to get a third chance now that my warranty will run out tomorrow... :?
September 25th Update
I'm pleased to report that this story has a happy ending. Fujitsu returned my laptop after a cleaning and a replacement of the outer screen, and after three weeks it's still dust free. They also extended my warranty by an extra three months for added security against this problem. While they weren't able to explain how the dust got under the screen, they were confident that the problem was not permanently fixed. That seems to be the case, but I won't be 100% convinced until another month has gone by and the laptop is dust-free.
In the end, I'm happy that Fujitsu stepped up and fixed my problem once and for all, and the extended warranty was a gracious touch. The weak link in the chain is their local warranty depot support, which I dearly hope is less dysfunctional in other cities. Would I buy a Fujitsu laptop again? It would depend on how unique their offering was - I've owned two Fujitsu laptops, and both have required warranty support, so my confidence in their product quality isn't exactly bubbling over. Still, some of their products (such as the P5000 and P7000 series) offer benefits no other OEM can match - so I won't rule them out in the future.
