12 Broken Laptops from DELL - Any recourse?

kittennose

I have 12 laptops purchased over 18 months from Dell. All of them have broken in one way or another and required a repair at some point - some are now into their second repair. The main issue is the hinges which are breaking, and that's a known issue according to DELL. But we have also had battery, screen and keyboard issues.

Is there any recourse to be had given ALL of them are broken? They are happily fixing them but it's very damaging to our business with employees constantly being without laptops for uptown 3 weeks at a time.

We have a further 4 laptops needing to go back today.

marcia_

 What does your contract say? You have no consumer rights as a business and rely on your contact 

Aylesbury_Duck

As above, you need to see what rights your contract provides.  I'm sure there will be something you can do, but it won't be under consumer rights legislation.

MattMattMattUK

kittennose said:

I have 12 laptops purchased over 18 months from Dell. All of them have broken in one way or another and required a repair at some point - some are now into their second repair. The main issue is the hinges which are breaking, and that's a known issue according to DELL. But we have also had battery, screen and keyboard issues.

Is there any recourse to be had given ALL of them are broken? They are happily fixing them but it's very damaging to our business with employees constantly being without laptops for uptown 3 weeks at a time.

We have a further 4 laptops needing to go back today.

I have used Dell laptops for years, I and my team currently have them for work, all are between 12-24 months old and I have not had a fault with any of them, they are all XPS 15 models. Are you having issues across different models, are they all one specific model etc.?

giraffe69

It doesn't help with the current problem but wouldn't it be wise to have a spare or two to ensure employees could work productively in the event of a laptop fault?

born_again

giraffe69 said:

It doesn't help with the current problem but wouldn't it be wise to have a spare or two to ensure employees could work productively in the event of a laptop fault?

As well as reminding employees to be careful with company property. 
Most broken hinges on laptops are due to mishandling. 

outtatune

The common factor would seem to be your employees.

visidigi

outtatune said:

The common factor would seem to be your employees.

Given it seems Dell is fixing them for free that would be unlikely here (as Dell is really not in the habit of free repairs).

diystarter7

OP

Dell is on par with HP I was advised. We have at home several HP laptops and I use a 10 yr old Elitebook laptop from dell and its been dropped, abused by kids with their tys etc and working 100% I am a bit surprised.

What is the/are the faults - is it software?

Thanks

Alderbank

diystarter7 said:

What is the/are the faults - is it software?

The OP says the main issue is the hinges which are breaking. That is extremely unlikely to be software.

Ectophile

I think you need to look closely at what your employees are doing to those laptops.

My employer pretty much exclusively buys Dell machines for employees.  I have been pretty impressed at how reliable they are - to the extent that when I needed a new home computer, I bought a Dell.

The laptops last for years if looked after.  We have ancient ones at work that are too slow for most things, but still work fine as laboratory kit for controlling equipment.