What warrants a replacement?

In my experience Apple really hates to replace computers for some reason. They will go to great lengths before they replace it. The only time I ever got a replacement from Apple was when I bought a PowerMac 400Mhz. It worked well for a few weeks but then went completely dead. I sent to Apple and they had it for about a month, replacing virtually every part inside, yet it still didn't work. So they sent me a new PowerMac 466Mhz, since a new model had been released while they had mine

Why they didn't just replace it after the first few repair attempts is beyond me. You'd think replacing every part inside would be just as expensive. Good luck, though.

I agree with jamdr... Getting a replacement from Apple is tough, but doable... Just look at the iBook fiasco... I finally got a replacement out of them after 4 dead logic boards- but believe me, if I didn't politely insist, to many different people on many different levels, they'd still be fixing this thing every 6-8 months...

I got a replacement as well after 4 dead logicboards. All it took was a call to customer care after the 3rd replacement saying i didn't ant to send the unit back if it was going to fail again. At that point they said they would probably replace the unit if it were to fail again. (i requested that in writing when they told me, but they wouldn't do it) Sure enough it failed again, and they had my complaint on file and they sent new ibook g4 1.2ghz. This was the day after that unit was announced. (i sold the ibook new and used the money for a G5).

I would call customer care and explain the situation politely. They are usually fairly understanding.

jemeinc said:

I agree with jamdr... Getting a replacement from Apple is tough, but doable... Just look at the iBook fiasco... I finally got a replacement out of them after 4 dead logic boards- but believe me, if I didn't politely insist, to many different people on many different levels, they'd still be fixing this thing every 6-8 months...

Click to expand...

You have to press your luck with as many people at Apple as possible, but don't be rude. My tech told me a story about two individuals with PowerBook 5300s. Both of them had DOA machines. The one politely talked to as many people at Apple as possible, told them what a high quality of product they consistently had, and pushed that this was their problem, that the machine had fallen below their standard. They replaced her machine. The other customer called Apple, and was very rude. The head of Apple Service in Canada called up the tech and told him that even though it was more expensive for Apple, he was to replace each individual part that had failed. No matter what it took, that customer would not get a new machine.

I bought a refurb 17" 1GHz PB in March. The battery was faulty and was replaced a few weeks after I got it. Then the logic board went out. Apple had it for a month. I kept calling and was always polite. After 2 weeks they let me talk to customer relations and they sent me a 512MB stick of RAM to up me to 1GB when I got my PB back. 2 weeks later and they still did not have the parts to fix my PB so they sent me a new (not refurbished) 1.33GHz 17" PB.
If you talk with customer relations I suggest you be polite, but be very detailed about what you bought, what the problem is, what the inconvenience is, and how disatisfied you are with the problem.

jamdr said:

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Why they didn't just replace it after the first few repair attempts is beyond me. You'd think replacing every part inside would be just as expensive. Good luck, though.

Click to expand...

Part of what happens when they repair a troublesome system is they learn what issues might crop up that they hadn't expected.

You can bet that they still worked on your old system for a while to try and figure out the issue. And they probably did figure it out eventually.

The extra troubleshooting can save them a fair bit of money in the long run.

dferrara said:

After talking to some tech support guys, I eventually got to someone with authorization to do replacements/upgrades. I asked to escalate the case (politely) but he said that wasn't really possible. So I'm going to send it in for repair, and hopefully they will be able to fix it. For some reason he wasn't convinced that my keyboard is not up to standard, and I'm not confident they can repair it. We will see.

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My hope is that they can successfully make the repair on your keyboard. I do imagine that it's true by doing repairs it allows Apple to learn things that will help all of us in the future.