Taking legal action against Lenovo

Question

TLDR: After three repair attempts, Lenovo have been unable to repair my laptop back to the original standard.

I have a Lenovo laptop where I have purchased an extended warranty (Premium Care On-site support, terms and service page 25) and an accidental damage plan.

On the 14th August 2023, I sent my laptop off for repair under the Accidental Damage Plan. This was to repair a minor crack on my laptop. This was purely a cosmetic repair. This laptop was sent to their repair depot. On return, the laptop performed poorly, causing overheating issues and for the laptop to regularly overheat. I also received paperwork with the laptop saying the depot conducted performance testing on it before shipping it back to me. Note, this repair was purely cosmetic and should not have interacted with the inner working parts during the repair process.

I notified Lenovo of this on the 28th August and received on-site support on the 4th September, much later than the required "Next-business day onsite support" as stated in my T&S of my extended warranty. They had to ship a spare part to my house as the technician didn't hold it, thus the delay. Only next-day onsite support is subject to availability of parts, second day on-site support is not. Therefore, they should have had onsite support available to me no later than 2nd September. When the on-site engineer arrived on the 4th September, he noted that the last person to repair my laptop didn't screw down the heatsink fully, therefore causing the overheating. On the first repair, Lenovo did not conduct the repair correctly, and they lied about their testing passing quality control.

The on-site engineer repaired my laptop with the new heatsink. This heatsink (the spare part sent to me) had thermal paste missing from it as a result of transport, causing thermal issues from the start. During the repair, the on-site engineer accidently shorted my laptop, causing it to be unserviceable as the laptop would not boot up. At this point, my laptop no longer worked. Note, the original repair was for a cosmetic problem.

I notified the Lenovo team and requested it to be escalated to a case manager due to poor service to-date. The laptop was sent off and received by Lenovo's repair depot on the 13th September for a third repair. The laptop was returned to me on 23rd September, where my repair expectations were not met. This was because the laptop still operated with worse than expected thermal performance. For context, I requested the heatsink be replaced as the new heatsink delivered to me for the second repair had thermal paste on it missing. The repair center stated on their repair note that they used MX-4 paste to repair the missing thermal paste where appropriate. This isn't acceptable as (1) MX-4 is not a genuine or original paste used in Lenovo laptops, nor does it perform similarly to the genuine part used in Lenovo laptops. PTM 7950 is the thermal conducting material used. It performs much better than MX-4. MX-4 is also much cheaper, where MX-4 is approx £5 and PTM 7950 is approx £40-£50 to cover the required surface area. (2) Engineers should not mix different types of thermal paste, it can have detrimental impacts.

Since this, I have been in contact with Lenovo to try and resolve this. They have not offered a solution to address this performance problem as they believe MX-4 is a genuine part and used as standard in their repair centers, yet MX-4 is not a original part used in Lenovo laptops. They have since, as of the 1st October 2023, not responded to any communication by myself. I have requested a replacement of the unit as (1) I do not have any trust with their repair center to conduct the repair adequately (2) I have been without my laptop performing to expected standard since the 14th September for what should have been a cosmetic, not hardware repair.

Note, this is the only ref to what parts are appropriate in their T&S:

Products and parts presented for repair may be replaced by refurbished products or parts of the same type rather than being repaired. Products and parts that are repaired may be repaired using refurbished parts.

What I would like to know is:

1. What rights do I have as a consumer in regards to this?
2. Is legal action appropriate?
3. Would I be entitled for a replacement unit or refund?

Any advice would be of benefit. TIA.

Answer 1

The two questions about the appropriateness of legal action and entitlement to a replacement or refund are completely off topic, being a request for personalized legal advice. The first question about your legal rights might pass muster. It isn't clear whether you have non-contractual rights (i.e. they sold you a non-functioning brick therefore never satisfied their sales-contract obligation). Assuming that you have an extended warranty, then that document says what they must do and what you must do, and basically they have to fix the computer at least as long as it is under warranty. Sifting through the details, you believe that you have a problem with the computer and that problem is within the scope of the warranty contract. If that is true, you have a right to have the computer repaired. It appears that they contend that there is no problem (they did the repair, they are not contractually required to make you happy), therefore they have fulfilled their part of the contract.

In a lawsuit, you would have to prove that their fix was unreasonable, not simply substandard.