Need Advice - G53SX Warranty Issues

[Fatmancer]

I am looking for some advice on persistant issues I have had with my G53SX, which have all culminated into a current warranty struggle. I have detailed most of the important details below however I most likely have missed some parts simply due to the sheer amount of service history and dealings with ASUS I have had over the last 2 years. I am just looking for advice from anyone who has been more successful with the ASUS warranty department, or other outside options that I can pursue to get my issues looked into. Thank you in advance for the help.

My problems with the laptop started 2 years ago. I bought an ASUS G53SX with a 2 year warranty, and to be honest it has run great, performance wise it has done everything I have asked for it. Service-wise the record is not so clean however.

This laptop has had to be sent to the manufacturer 4 times over the last 25 months (the most recent time was just out of warranty) for the same issue. The first 3 times it was the DC power jack breaking, and they just soldered back on not properly fixing the underlying issues. This time they have classified it as "defective main board", however I know for certain that it has failed in the same way as it is an issue with power supply. They are saying however this is a completely new issue with the laptop because of this.

In the 26 months I have owned the laptop it has probably been shipping between myself and them for a combined 5 months, one way at my expense each time. ASUS refuses to admit any accountability for not fixing the actual issue any of the other times and asked me to pay an $80.00 bill for the repair.

While $80.00 is very reasonable, with the fact the laptop has broken 4 times at 6 month intervals I wanted a bit more of a warranty concession. Especially given they diagnosed the laptop as containing faulty components. I asked them to reconsider the price, to give me some kind of extended warranty on the replacement part given the circumstances, and quote me a new battery (mine had died about 6 months prior). The new quote amount came back at almost $350.00, with only $139.00 of that being the charge for the battery. When I tried to argue this, the only option I was given was to submit a formal complaint with a separate department.

For those of you who don't know, ASUS RMAs once received at the service center will only hold laptops for 3 days before shipping them back. I had to file a formal complaint which took them two days to respond to, under the threat of having my laptop sent back to me if they didn't work fast enough. Luckily they did give me an extension on it, however only another 3 days.

After bringing up my concerns (and others that came up along the way to do with their reps. and various other hardware issues that I don't remember at this point), the rep came back to me and basically said management would do nothing, and did nothing to refute any of my points. He didn't acknowledge any issues I had brought up, and ignored the fact that after I had complained they raised the price on my repair. They eventually offered me a 10% discount on the total repair price, which was still almost 3 times the original quote I was given, and said they had given me sufficient concessions given my service history.

At this point I'm lost for what I can do, and need advice on how to proceed. They will only hold my laptop until tomorrow without me paying, and I need the data on my laptop as I wasn't able to back it up before sending it for repairs. Is there any kind of consumer board I can contact about something like this? It seems a bit of a stretch, but they never actually fixed the laptop for the same issue until it was me who had to pay for it, which seems like something that shouldn't be allowed under a warranty. I live in Canada (Alberta specifically) if that helps.

Thank you in very much for the help with this, and let me know if you need any other information. If I remember anything else relevant to this I will include it in an edit (if I can work out how).

In summary my ASUS laptop breaks 4 times, the last one a month out of warranty, and it is the same part each time. Looking on advice on what to do next or if i even have any other options.

[C4RN1]

That's just too much for that repair, being that you can get a working g53sx on ebay for about the same price (the last g53sx I bought was around $400). I don't think Asus will repair boards, I could be wrong but the last time I sent a laptop in for RMA they replaced the motherboard when they could have reprogrammed the bios. I also doubt that their techs have soldering equipment on their bench available.

With that being said, if you can't get the price knocked down send it in to a pc repair shop that knows how to do dc jacks and get it repaired. Once it's repaired get this adapter, it helps take the stress off of the dc jack.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Right-Angle-90-Degree-Converter-for-5-5-x-2-5mm-Power-Connector-BiXPower-LC5...

I had a G53 for over 2 years, secretly I was waiting for the dc jack to break so I could do a good tutorial on how to replace it. Though since I bought the right angle adapter I never had any issues with the dc jack. I ended up selling the laptop in the same condition I bought it in. Every G53 that I've sold I have bought the adapter for (I just bought my 5th one a few weeks ago).

Also keep in mind that the customer loyalty team is usually around and if they can help you with your situation they will let you know.

Good luck with everything, I hope you get it all sorted out.

[Fatmancer]

Thank you very much for the suggestion! That will be a good start after I end up getting this repaired so I can get my data and everything back. Unfortunately its looking like I dont have much recourse but to pay to get it fixed as I dont know anyone locally who can, and since it wouldn't stay on long I couldnt do any backing up. I'll definitely get one of those adapters though at least to help alleviate the stress, and hopefully that will keep it running a bit longer.

As for the soldering, I could very well be wrong on that, but I've been told on previous repair occasions that the DC adaptor was specifically swapped, and not any other components relating to it.

I wish I'd had a chance to talk to the customer loyalty team as the service center reps and escalation mailbox reps would hardly even answer my concerns.

Thanks again for everything, I genuinely appreciate it.