I received a lavender bottom cover replacement with an 11/25 date of manufacture. I’m not sure if this is related to the cracking, but my original cover exterior surface was a lot less even than the new one. The flaw was only visible with lighting directed across the face of the bottom cover. Then you’d see that the surface wasn’t perfectly flat but had some raised areas or pitted areas. The new cover was evenly flat across the surface.
In terms of the build, I couldn’t spot any differences, but the only way to know for sure is to remove all of the metal inserts on both covers and compare the bare covers, which wasn’t something I was about to do.
I looked really closely at mine when got it and compared to my old cover.
I couldn’t see anything different. So I’m not sure exactly what the “geometry changes” were.
It could be something as small as making the plastic a bit thicker in some areas.
My new bottom cover was waiting for me at home yesterday, and I did the swap after work today. As promised, here are the high-res shots of my July 2025 cover at its worst:
Little lumpy in that one corner? Whatever; only noticeable under oblique lighting. Props to Framework for including six brand new pre-Loctite-ed hinge screws so I didn’t have to run to Lowes for a fresh tube of blue Loctite to re-use the old screws (don’t touch the red stuff unless you hate yourself).
Silver lining: glad to get some practice taking the machine all the way apart and putting it back together, which I hadn’t had a reason to do. The one step I cheated on in the guide is that I left the antenna wires connected to the Wi-Fi card and left the card hanging there by the wires after pulling it from the mainboard. Probably not great for it but I hate hate hate hate those MHF4 connectors and can never seem to get them re-attached without help. That’s just me though lol
Like others have mentioned, the new cover lacks the stickers on the underside expansion card bays. Maybe that will make the expansion cards stick less. My lavender-colored USB-C cards were always a pain to remove.
The only noticeable difference between the two to me is that the keyboard feels more physially robust (no more flex when pounding on the center keys) when attached to the new bottom.
I had cracks in the top cover, and I got a replacement really quick. Unfortunately the imprints indicate that the replacement was manufactured in exactely the same batch as my orignal top-cover. 03/25
So I expect the new one to crack soon as well. I explixcitely demanded one from the new manufacturing, but that did not work out.
In the meanitme my bottom body finally developed a crack near the rear module bay. I will only order a replacement when it’s guaranteed from the new molding process.
Is there any estimation, when FW will ship newly molded parts, that are unlikely to crack?
Hello FW12 squad, reporting in for tracking. I noticed cracking around the screws today, and use this laptop almost daily for a few hours a day. I keep it in a padded backpack pocket and baby it, but I’ve also had to open this a LOT over the past few months because of an issue with the touchpad.
About to open with support and I feel bad because I’m wrapping up a touchpad replacement, but I figured they probably want the data. This is a Batch 11 that arrived at the start of October.
Oh no… this looks like it sucks, but I would have faith in Framework to look after you guys. Might take a while to re-engineer and mass produce a fix part?
Anyone remember the white MacBooks that used to crack and Apple would just perpetually replace them with the same crackable part? lol
Welp, my presumably new batch bottom cover has cracked lol. I have two cracks by the bottom left “foot”, one to the side of the laptop towards the left and one “upwards” towards the rear of the laptop.
I will probably wait a bit again until it’s better visible on camera before submitting a ticket.
On or just before the 7th of November. I didn’t look at the build date because I was in a bit of a rush when swapping it, but I guess I can look when the next one arrives lol
I wonder if that was right before the new version started shipping. I didn’t think the new version started shipping out until around the beginning of December. But maybe some colors went out earlier. Weirdly, I sort of hope it was one of the original parts that was inadvertently sent out for some reason. It would be a major shame all around if the new version was already cracking.
Either way, here’s hoping you can get a new one quickly, and the third time’s the charm.
My batch 1 Sage unit finally developed a small crack a little over a month ago (so that took about 4 months - but yeah, I did jinx it). I opened a ticket, was told they’d wait for the new-and-improved bottom cover to be available before sending a replacement (as expected), and I received one last week. That was quick, yay!
Except… today I was going to proceed with the replacement, checked the date on the new bottom cover, and it’s from 2025-05-23. The original one on my laptop is from 2025-04-25, so the replacement is newer, but it’s still from before the first batches shipped (June/July).
I contacted support to check whether there was an error when they sent the replacement.
Or, a possible (though 100% speculative) explanation: The issue was discovered during beta/dogfood testing and a fix was already being developed by the time the first batches went out, but needed more testing before getting the green light.
UPDATE: Support came back saying “while the manufacturing date may appear earlier than expected, the part you received is not affected by the cracking issue and is safe to install“.
So, in short: Don’t be surprised if you get a replacement bottom cover with a manufacturing date from even before the Laptop 12 started shipping, it should be fine.
(and this time I will NOT jinx it by saying I’ll keep an eye on any cracks forming on this replacement bottom cover… oh, wait…)
It’s not too late now to reach out to FW support and ask about a replacement cover is it (batch 8)? I noticed cracks forming on my bottom cover maybe 2 months ago after almost a month and a half of daily use, and being honest I forgot about it for a while and it’s not gotten much worse since the last time I checked but I was wondering now what’s the best way to move forward from here. Should I just keep waiting, should I contact them, or just move on with my current case?
I’ll honestly probably forget about the cracking thing again in a weeks time but I’m thinking the best thing to do is probably get that sorted…
If you haven’t already, I would recommend contacting support. Obviously, it’s up to you, but you might as well get it taken care of. It’s certainly not too late.
Was the outer box marked 11/2025 or the part itself? I received a replacement lavender bottom cover with 11/2025 on the box and 05/2025 on the part. @Eagle let me know that there was an internal mixup which caused some non-redesigned lavender covers to ship as replacements by accident. (Edit: now I see that apparently this happened with sage as well, which leaves me wondering, alas).
You might want to check the date sticker in the middle of the inside of your new lavender bottom cover…
[quote=“yapakipe, post:798, topic:72827”]
“while the manufacturing date may appear earlier than expected, the part you received is not affected by the cracking issue and is safe to install“.
[/quote
Considering we were waiting for the problem to be figured out, a fix to be developed, and then fixed cases to be produced, I’m not super comforted by this statement, lol. I’m getting ready to swap out bottom cover they recently sent me for my sage unit, and the replacement is also dated 5/2025. The sticker says 5/22/25 and I’m pretty sure the mold markings are 5/18/2025. I haven’t opened mine up yet to see what the date is on the bottom cover that is currently cracked.
Maybe after doing their investigation, they found that some bottom cases were out of spec in various ways, but after a certain built date/batch (of cases, not machines), they were okay. Either way, I’m going to go ahead and install the bottom cover they sent. But I’ll still be keeping an eye on it after.
