Selling MBA: Broken LCD: To Fix Or Not To Fix?

sapsjr said:

LCD recently cracked on my late 2010 Macbook Air. I want to sell it; everything else works fine.Do you think it would be worth replacing the LCD and putting it up on ebay or as is? Either using th Applestore or buying an lcd trying to fix it myself via ifixit.com.

The online sites like Gazelle aren't offering what Id like for it.

If anyone can help me guestimate a good price Id be really grateful

Its the basic late 2010 Macbook Air 11 inch. 1.4 GHZ & 64 GB HD. No upgrades.

Sellyourmac.com is offering $229 as is. Id like $350ish

Click to expand...

I thought iFixit had parts they sell? You can't expect what you'd like out of it if the LCD is busted. Either you have to fix it or the buyer has to fix it, one way or another that'll cost money. So, really, it doesn't matter. If you fix it you'll be out that cash, and if you sell it as is you'll be out what a perfect condition one would sell for, see what I mean?

If you price it out, especially if you put a valuation on your time, you'll probably find it would be more profitable to sell it as-is, and price it accordingly.

There's also an element of risk, as you replace the screen that something else will get damaged, that the new LCD could be damaged, the motherboard, etc...

Rob

Too be honest I would take the $229 and walk away.

The screen replacement probably would run maybe $500 if you took it to the applestore maybe more. Maybe you could call an store and just get a price range. Doing it yourself may save a bit but I think the first two generations of the MBA had more difficult screen replacements.

Not sure how much you could pick a screen up for, even if at a reasonable cost plus your your time and effort to replace, I think you would be hard pressed to break even.

Just my opinion.

Screen can be had ~$150 (from 247laptoplcd) but then you need to factor in the time to replace, particularly if you pay someone else to do it, possible other needed parts once you open it up, etc. It's also not OEM. It's not necessarily a huge chunk of money, but probably a couple/few hours of labor plus the part(s). If you pay someone you're probably looking at a $300-500 investment, depending on the skill and speed of the technician and cost of the parts.

So the question could be, do you want $229 now or would you rather fix it and attempt to sell for more than the repair cost + 229? With a base model, to me it'd be worth taking the $229 and let someone skilled with them worry about fixing it.