Warranty pack - Buy or not buy, that's the question!

[CarlJanssen]

Hi,

In december, my one year warranty on my Vaio A215M will be finished.

Sony sells a warranty extension pack for two years, which costs a lot of money: 265 euro.

Now, I was wondering: is it worth the price? I mean, let's say I will have some troubles with my notebook, after the warranty has expired. How difficult is it to repair ir yourself or, to find someone who can repair it for you? Can you easily replace a CD/DVD station, harddisk, etc. by yourself? Or is there no other choice than contacting Sony for it (who will probably charge a whole lot of money)?

[robpaxton]

There are very few things that you can change yourself, the hard drive and memory are relatively simple although the former does need you to be confident enough to partially strip down the notebook.

There are a lot of independant notebook repairers around but it is impossible to predict how much a failure will cost. Suffice it to say that failure is normally pretty expensive and doubly so if you return it to Sony for an after warranty repair.

In my experience, a lot depends on how reliable the notebook has been up to now and how much use it gets. I'm in the lucky position of being able to switch from notebook to notebook and none of them get particularly heavy use so I've never bothered with an extended warranty.

Either way is a gamble although I would tend to save the 300 Euro and use it as a basis to save for a new one . . .

Whatever you do, look to see if anyone has experienced any particular problems with this model and use that information to help you decide.

With any luck you will get more opinions on this as I would hate to be the one who advised you not to buy the warranty only for the notebook to die on you in January.

[tonybeard]

Cha ching Sony......I just bit the bullet and I'm in for the extended 2 year warranty......I hear Sony need the money....hehehe.....a bit strange that in a 3500 million per annum turnover they only managed to balance the books thanks to the PSP. It usual to strip back employees when these kinda cows come home.

[jumpsuit]

They could always just pay the Eskimo children who assemlble their products less herring

[ant1uk]

Hi,

In december, my one year warranty on my Vaio A215M will be finished.

Sony sells a warranty extension pack for two years, which costs a lot of money: 265 euro.

Now, I was wondering: is it worth the price?  I mean, let's say I will have some troubles with my notebook, after the warranty has expired.  How difficult is it to repair ir yourself or, to find someone who can repair it for you?  Can you easily replace a CD/DVD station, harddisk, etc. by yourself?  Or is there no other choice than contacting Sony for it (who will probably charge a whole lot of money)?

well this is abit of a hard decision because the warranty within the first year is bad enough but the sony vaio has a good chance of breaking down so they have you us in a situation of having to buy it if we like it or not. i would say buy it

[kee-lo_]

If you can put it on your home insurance then you're quids in, but if you can find a good deal on the VAIO + then do get it

[CarlJanssen]

Thanks for the replies, all.

Kee-Lo, home insurance isn't an option. Neither is 'finding a good deal'. 265 euro is a loooooot of money (more or less GBP 179).

I have to say, maybe I can expect some problems with my notebook. The fan is making a lot more noise than a year ago (CPU temperature is getting to 55° C and above sometimes), my harddisk makes some 'tic' sound from time to time, and my CD/DVD also has some weird behavior (like on a lot of Vaio A notebooks).

Yeah, I'm still doubting, but I still have one month to decide of course.

But I was wondering: how many people on this forum do have their notebook for more than a year? And what did they do?

[kee-lo_]

Hi Carl,

Had mine for 3 years now, and very happy with it still (and hope to continue *touches wood*)

I've not got VAIO+, at the time I couldn't afford it as I'd paid a lot for the GRX, so I've been careful with it and it's been great.

I know this isn't the way - and I'm probably living on a prayer but other than really getting VAIO+ it's a bit of a gamble.

For example if a specific Sony part goes, then a local dealer will have hell getting that part for you: even on eBay

It's up to you, you could put that 300+ euro into a new machine for 3 years time, or you could get VAIO+ and use it to sort out those hickups you mentioned

[CarlJanssen]

Yeah, it just feels so strange... paying and receiving nothing in return (well, at least not immediately and maybe never).

On the other hand, I can look at it as some kind of insurrance.

Fact is, if I buy the warranty, I'll feel terrible if there will have been nothing wrong with my notebook in two years (djeez, sounds like I WANT some troubles). If I don't buy it, and my notebook will pass out... yeah, then I'm in deep <profanity removed by moderator>.

Hmz... will have to think about it again...

But is a damn much money!

[tonybeard]

I bought the extension pack purely because of the feedback here concerning the <profanity removed by moderator> optical drive and worries about the x black screen going south like the 'Lo's red abnormalities. I have had good information from Microsoft teckies on how to keep the HD well maintained and the fantastic guys here at CV like Tyger Tyger, Rich, GBS and the 'Lo on third party software, finally settling for Perfect Disk so that is covered by good user management. The other aspect is bolstering this equipment for as long as possible waiting for the marriage of 64 bit and duel core componants to settle into Vista bliss. As Rich points out when XP came out it woke up the neighbours and the cat got kicked. I like to learn from the mistakes of others.:smileywink: