Ikea Galant corner tabletop warped

Hello,

I bought a galant corner table ("right").

After setting it up, I put a spirit level on it and adjusted the feet so that the table stands level (I have an older floorboard, so there are some uneven spots).

So far, everything was fine.

Then I set up my LCD monitor and with the naked eye you could already see that it was tilted (left corner higher than the right). I put the spirit level on again, and indeed: on the side with the shorter depth of the tabletop it was tilted, on the side where the table top is 1.20 meters deep, it was level.

How could that be if it’s the same tabletop? It’s either straight or it’s not. At some point I noticed that on the side where the LCD monitor stands, the aluminum spirit level had space in the middle from the tabletop. The spirit level rested on the left and right edges of the tabletop, but in the middle there was a gap.

In other words: the tabletop has a "dip."

I then went back to the local Ikea store and complained about the tabletop. I got a new one yesterday and had the same result: dip on the side where you sit. The metal frame underneath is straight. If I remove some of the screws between the frame and the tabletop, you can clearly see that the tabletop bulges away from the frame.

When I made the complaint, I asked whether the tabletops are possibly stored standing up (that would explain the dip, for example). This was denied; the tabletops are stored lying down. Now the only other possibility (speculation) could be that although they lie down, they lie on battens, so the tabletops are not supported everywhere.

Question for you: Could you check with a spirit level on your tabletops whether you can discover any “dips” on the tabletop?

I am interested to know whether this is possibly a general production defect or rather incorrect storage / mishandling at my local IKEA store.

It was also noticeable that the screw holes in the tabletop did not match 100% with the holes in the frame. You could get the screws in, but it was not a perfect alignment.

Hello IRX, the problem you described must be related to a faulty production batch or incorrect storage. For both reasons, an exchange might not help you if it happens too soon. We have several Galant desks in use, including both types of legs, and I just quickly took a spirit level to hand - with neither the simple rectangular nor the corner tabletops can we detect any warping greater than a fraction of a tenth of a millimeter with a perfectly straight spirit level. Also, the holes for the mounting screws are pretty much exactly where they should be, so this is absolutely not normal, especially not this huge gap…