Hello all,

I own a Dell XPS 2-in-1 9310 laptop, which I bought for work in late Nov 2020. 

In mid-Nov 2021, one of the internal fans started rubbing against the chassis and was making a terrible noise. So I thought I should get it fixed as I only had a few weeks of warranty remaining. This was the beginning of a painful saga which hasn't been resolved yet.

1st visit - November

A technician turned up to my house to replace the fan. He called me 10 mins prior to arrival asking me if I'd backed everything up! I said no because it was just a fan. At that point he informed me that the fan was part of a motherboard assembly and in fact they were replacing the whole mobo/cpu/ssd etc as part of this procedure. Thanks for the heads up Dell! Oh and he didn't have any OS replacement media. 

I needed it fixed, and I'm fine with IT stuff, so was able to reinstall the OS myself and retrieve all my data from the cloud.

So he did the work. But he said he'd never opened "one of these before" so clearly blagged it. He brought no mat to work off on my dining table, no anti-static equipment and did the operation. Turned it on, and left. Obviously couldn't show me the OS as it was a blank SSD. Anyway, he said it was okay so I took his word for it.

I managed to get Win 11 reinstalled and noticed that the case wasn't reassembled correctly. It was open down one side and I could see inside the laptop! The mouse trackpad was also higher one side and wouldn't click. He'd also managed to scratch the lid and back of the case in the process. I had to go through many attempts at speaking to Dell technical to get the next visit.

2nd Visit - December

This time, another chap came armed with a new screen, keyboard, mouse, and backplate. On opening it, he found a loose screw under the trackpad, which is why it was elevated in one area. He was replacing anyway so went ahead and effectively rebuilt it. Much better guy this time, with all the necessary equipment. However a couple of weeks later I noticed the TAB key had a hairline crack in it. It also felt strange to press so I complained as the repair was generally okay but they'd installed a faulty keyboard. This took some effort because my original warranty was expired and they make it hard to get in touch once this has happened. Nonetheless I found a way.

3rd Visit - January (at the time of writing)

Another technician arrived today. This time he took it apart, in a very slow and diligent way. He was having trouble however reassembling it. Sadly he put a screw into a hole that was too small at the top left and started to push through some of the plastic on the top plate, so now there's a small dent. He also said, a previous technician had dethreaded some of the screws because they no longer held in the holes. 

Anyway he reassembled. I said I wanted to check it thoroughly before he left (with all due respect of course!) That's when I noticed the screw issue above. However. the space key and the mouse are not working properly!! The mouse doesn't 'click properly' and only the top right hand side of it actually works. The bottom left hand side sends the mouse into some kind of crazy motion, or doesn't do anything. I think the way it's all internally seated relates to the broken mouse and spacebar issue. As an aside, I checked the fresh keyboard before it was installed and the spacebar was fine at that point.

I said to the guy that I was annoyed by this (not at him) but that I can't have this repaired and broken even more once a month. He said that with it being opened and closed so frequently it's caused these issues. He thought that it should be replaced - and I agree. He spoke to Dell on the phone, who just kept asking him if they keyboard was fixed (ie why he was there) and not overly concerned that there were new issues.

If you've read this far, thank you. 

TL:DR - How do I get a replacement?

I need to know how to go about this because some have said yes in the forums, but I've been told on the phone that it is policy not to ever replace a machine.

I've given Dell 3 opportunities to fix this and I feel I've been reasonable. How can I get out of this mess? I can't go for a 4th repair, it's draining my life out of me!

Thanks

*Update*

The mouse has started to work intermittently, but I just had two episodes of the screen turning off mid-use. Something is definitely not right inside.