BEWARE! Compaq's underhanded battery recall!

albie81

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BEWARE! Compaq's underhanded battery recall.

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml06/06007.html

On October 14, 2005, HP/Compaq issued a recall (user is responsible to contact HP/Compaq for info/replacement) for 135,000 notebook batteries, located in machines manufactured between March 2004 and September 2004. There have been reported instances, in which the faulty batteries have caught on fire, overheated and/or shorted out. There have ALSO been instances, where as a result of the defective batteries, that additional damage has resulted to other components within the notebook unit.

I draw your attention to the dates here.

1- Start Date of Manufacture: March 2004
2- End Date of Manufacture: September 2004
3- Date of recall announcement: October 2005
4- Length of HP/Compaq Warranty: 12 months

HP/Compaq issued a recall for a defective product, after the warranty for 100% of the affected units had expired. HP/Compaq offers to kindly replace your defective battery, but to assess/fix damages CAUSED by said defective battery, to the other components in your laptop you must pay for HP Customer Support, since your unit is out of warranty. This is underhanded, cheap, and stinks of being completely sleazy.

I could understand, if I was trying to get a repair out of warranty, because i dropped the laptop, or got it wet. I am simply attempting to get my laptop fixed, due to a problem that was caused by a defective product, that HP/Compaq admits is defective and can cause further problems, that I was not even made AWARE of until AFTER my warranty had expired.

My problem is this: On Saturday, Jan. 7th, 2006 - the battery in my R3000 laptop shorted and died. That same day, my laptop crashed and would not even POST. So I reinstalled Windows, losing all my data in the meantime. (I had most of it backed up.. not all of it.) Even after a reinstall, the PC took 10 minutes to boot, and then within 5 minutes of booting, would crash with some form of a BSOD, relating to explorer.exe, or kernel errors. So I ran Hirem's Boot CD, and everything related to the hard drive failed. So I replaced the hard drive with a spare. Same thing. So, my deduction is, the battery fried, and took the IDE Controller, and possibly more on my motherboard with it.

Now, I work for a large, multi-million dollar Engineering/Architectural Firm on the east coast. I have purchasing power for all software and hardware purchases for the New Jersey branch of my company. After this personal experience with HP/Compaq, I will not be able to do business with them in the professional realm, if this is how they are going to demonstrate they deal with consumer relations. That being said, I have recommended HP/Compaq products before. We have a ProLiant Server, we have large format HP printers/plotters, we have several older Compaq business computers. And when the time comes to upgrade, which it is approaching something during 2006, I will not be replacing any of these devices with HP/Compaq products.

So, here lies the last words, of a dying Compaq fan...
 
Sad to see a HP/ Compaq fan go....:(

I was, and still am, a fan of their products. They have not messed up on me yet.
 
Again, more power to the people. That is a good decision on not upgrading and continuing contract with them. I just hope I can get some good years out of my laptop.
 
same here... until now, i have always had good experiences with HP/Compaq...

but this is a horrific display of general consumer relations, and how much they respect the users of their products...

it's truly sad.
 
albie81 said:
same here... until now, i have always had good experiences with HP/Compaq...

but this is a horrific display of general consumer relations, and how much they respect the users of their products...

it's truly sad.

Shut up, shit happens.

Look at it this way. Free battery and/or new laptop.
 
kev said:
Shut up, shit happens.

Look at it this way. Free battery and/or new laptop.


i know shit happens...

shit happens = i drop the thing
shit happens = my kid throws it in the bathtub
shit happens = HP/Compaq recalls a part, replaces the part, and fixes the damage THEIR defective part causes to my laptop
shit happens DOES NOT = HP/Compaq screwing over every person that bought a laptop with a defective part THEY manufactured, by issuing the recall after the warranties are up, and refusing to cover damages.

and how much good does a "Free battery" do me, when the laptop i would put it in, is FRIED???

and yeah, i already bought a new laptop, since i need this for work... spending $1,100 right after christmas, unexpectedly is a real joy.

so take your "Shut up, shit happens" and shove it up your self-righteous ass.
 
If a part is recalled after warrantie they will still cover the damage. If they dont they will get sued and losse just like Toshbia
 
kev said:
If a part is recalled after warrantie they will still cover the damage.

if i heard that come out of the mouth of any of the various people form HP/Compaq i had spoken to, i would be a happy camper, and i wouldn't be ranting about it here.

what they have told me, is quite the contrary, hence my frustration.
 
They don't stock Recovery CDs in New Zealand for my older PC... closest is teh USA i think THAT STINKS!
 
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