Vaio Warranty - effect of RAM / hard drive upgrade done by the owner

[ozaz]

Hello,

I am considering purchasing a Vaio SB laptop. It would be my first Sony computer. I asked a Sony telephone sales rep if upgrading the RAM or hard drive myself would void the warranty. He said upgrading the RAM would not, but upgrading the hard drive would. I also asked him if he could send me an email of or link to the warranty T&C and he said they were not available for customers to read - which is surely absurd, and suggests to me he might have been plucking his answers out of thin air.

Anyway, I managed to find guarantee terms for the SB laptop at this site:
VAIO : Sony Europe

However, it does not explicitly say anything about hard drive or RAM upgrades. Given the explicit claim of the sales rep, it leaves me feeling the warranty is not very transparent.

Can anyone comment, particularly anyone with relevant experience of using a Sony Vaio warranty?

[ComputerCowboy]

if you upgrade a part just keep the old one so you can put it back in, if/when you need service

[trivolve]

I sent an email to Sony Singapore regarding this before. Their reply was:

"Thank you for your reply dated 07 June 2011.



With regard to your enquiry, please be informed that the warranty would only cover the default original hardware on the Sony VAIO notebook. Warranty service will not cover the repair if the fault is caused by a third party hardware part."

[electronicsguy]

Can anyone comment, particularly anyone with relevant experience of using a Sony Vaio warranty?

In any case, take this with a pinch of salt. No matter what someone else's experience as been - Sony may have different policies for models, place bought, year, etc. etc.. and they are free to change their policies anytime..just the way it works

[Rachel]

There are instructions on the Sony website how to upgrade the SB hard drive, although this is on the US website. However, we can see that you don't need to open your laptop internally to upgrade the HD. As been said keep your original drive and just put it back if you need service.
http://www.docs.sony.com/release/989...es_HDD_CRU.pdf

I live in the EU and sent my laptop to Sony with various upgrades which involved me having to dismantle my laptop. They didn't care, but then i could have been lucky with who i just got.

[ozaz]

With regard to your enquiry, please be informed that the warranty would only cover the default original hardware on the Sony VAIO notebook. Warranty service will not cover the repair if the fault is caused by a third party hardware part."

I realise, of course, that the warranty would not cover RAM and HDD added myself. My worry is, for example, that Sony would claim that any other fault (motherboard, oprtical drive, whatever) is because I have added RAM or HDD. I wouldn't know how to argue against them and it probably wouldn't be worth the effort.

if you upgrade a part just keep the old one so you can put it back in, if/when you need service

I suppose this is the solution, but it is an annoyance. Means I cannot wipe the old HDD to repurpose or sell on.

In any case, take this with a pinch of salt. No matter what someone else's experience as been - Sony may have different policies for models, place bought, year, etc. etc.. and they are free to change their policies anytime..just the way it works

Agreed. But thats why they should make it easier for people to see clearly words, transparent, and binding terms for a particular model / year /region before purchase instead of having sales reps give vague, questionable info.

[ozaz]

There are instructions on the Sony website how to upgrade the SB hard drive, although this is on the US website. However, we can see that you don't need to open your laptop internally to upgrade the HD. As been said keep your original drive and just put it back if you need service.
http://www.docs.sony.com/release/989...es_HDD_CRU.pdf

I live in the EU and sent my laptop to Sony with various upgrades which involved me having to dismantle my laptop. They didn't care, but then i could have been lucky with who i just got.

Thanks for that. A publicly viewable document on Sony's site giving HDD replacement instructions (which does not say it will void the warranty), I think is grounds for arguing that it should be ok.