Dell Battery Recall

Nothing is perfect in life. Accidents happen and products get recalled. No one likes it when his or her car breaks down or has a problem. But this is part of life. It affects everyone from time to time. Product recalls are done as an active part to ensure your safety. Looking back in time, I can remember many products recalls that hit the news. Some of these include Firestone Tires and Baby Strollers and Baby Cribs, McDonalds toys. In this paper I am going to discuss the latest headline news recall, the rechargeable battery's that were being sold in Dell laptops.

When you purchase a laptop, one of the accessories that come with your laptop is a rechargeable battery so that you can have free movement with your computer. That is the whole purpose of spending extra money on a laptop vs. a desktop computer. As a consumer I expect the life expensing of a rechargeable battery to be from two to five years depending on how much I need to completely drain my battery, and my personal use over that time. A rechargeable battery is an essential part of usage for a laptop. In the case of the Dell Batteries, consumers purchased these batteries as add-on's to orders for additional battery backup, and when they purchased the laptops them selves. When I purchase or any consumer makes such a purchase of a rechargeable battery, the last thing we expect is for the batteries to caught fire and/or overheat in any fashion. As a consumer I expect to get a working battery that will need to be recharged on first use. If there is any problems or known problems with the battery I expect to get a speedy exchange of the battery so that I can make use of my laptop.

In the case of the Dell battery recall, not only did these effect dell products but as the battery manufacturer discovered these battery issues, it was found out that both Apple computer and Sony had also purchased these same batteries and had to recall their products as well. "Dell's battery recall-the largest battery recall thus far in computer history-may not get much bigger" (Spooner, John G, 2006) The cost of doing a recall on a product is great. We have seen many movies made about this subject, whereby accountants do the math of which is greater, paying off on lawsuits or going though the expense of having to recall all these products and replace them. In the end, it is the consumer who always pays for this, by having to pay more for products. This recall brought to the attention of other large distributors of computer products such as HP. Due to the high cost of recalls, in the Dell case, since Sony is the manufacturer of the rechargeable batteries they are helping share in the cost of the recalls.

Due to the large problems of these laptops starting fires due to overheating the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is currently researching other big potential problems with laptop computers and rechargeable batteries. It's the big headlines such as ""Dell battery issues known eight months ago; Sony implies overheating related to Dell charging process" (Mitchell, 2006) that causes problems for companies. It's the laptops fire issues that people remember, not where the company purchased the batteries or the improved process and quality control that is implanted due to this mishap. This recall also caused a frenzy of jokes on late night talk shows, primetime TV, and over the Internet that included video's being passed around of laptops on fire.

As a critical consumer, my expectations of ethical advertising would include that products look like what your purchase and work like they say that work. I can remember as a kid seeing toys working so great on TV growing up then getting them for Christmas and they don't work like they showed on TV. I felt cheated out of Christmas. Another example of unethical advertising is when you see a nice big juicy burger with fry's then when you get your food from the same fast food place, it looks smashed and unappealing.

When a product is recalled, three possible implications to the consumer is the great disappointment of having to wait on your replacement to use your products. The second would be the lack of respect or faith in the company that manufacturers and/or distributes the product. Third implication is people remember the hassle they went though or the scare in the case of the Dell Battery Recall, and will think before purchasing from that manufacturer again.

As we go through life, we are going to come to passes of problems and issues as consumers we need to remember this. I would much rather be inconvenienced by a recall, then to have something serious happen to my family.

References:

Spooner, John G, December 16, 2005, "Dell Issues Notebook Battery Recall", Eweek.com [Electronic version] retrieved on September 15, 2006 from http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1902669,00.asp

Spooner, John G, August 16, 2006, "PC Makers Say Battery Problems Limited", Eweek.com [Electronic Version] retrieved on September 15, 2006, from http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2003826,00.asp

Mitchell, Robert L, August 24, 2006, "Dell battery issues known eight months ago; Sony implies overheating related to Dell charging process", Computer World, retrieved on September 15, 2006 from http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/3309

Matthew, August 21, 2006, Geek News "Dell battery problem known about for 10 months
Dell and Sony discussed the problem last year.", [Electronic Version] retrieved on September 15 2006 from http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2006Aug/gee20060821038100.htm

Consumer Affairs, August 29, 2006, "High Tech Summit To Address Hot Battery Problem", [Electronic Version] retrieved on September 15, 2006 from "http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/08/dell_battery_summit.html