Apple Repair / Quality Control - Bad experiences - venting post

[Diatribe]

Unfortunately I have to write this.
My new powerbook went in repair 2 days after I got it to fix the fan and the keyboard. 4 days later I got it back with nothing repaired but with a newly added scratch with regards from the repair team.
After 6 hrs. of talking to a dozen people at Apple they wanted me to send it in again. 4 days later, which is today, I get it back with nothing repaired, not even the scratch they promised to remove.
The fan issue I have, with the fan running loud when the AC is plugged in, the keyboard, with the cursors not responding properly, are, as Apple says, within specification.
I guess it's ok when keys do not work properly or the fan is louder than usual. But on top of that the scratch is still there.
Ok I called Apple AGAIN. What they want me to do now is send it in again or go to a Apple tech in my city. LOL. As if I would send it in again...
So I call an Apple Service Center... they tell me this could take over a week till the parts arrive, probably longer. But I am off to Spain next week...
Then I call customer service to see whether they could give me some sort of compensation like a little gift certificate towards my ipod purchase since the notebook was there for over a week, I had to call them 10 times for over 6 hrs, they did not repair it, etc. And what do they tell me? No, can't do. LOL.
Aaaaarghh. Sorry but this has to be the most annoying thing I had ever to go through with a company I bought sth. from. Especially at this price.
If I didn't like Apple's products so much, I'd say this is it and call it quits.
And if this continues to go on like this and continues to be a problem with Apple I might just do that and go for better customer support than better products. Because Apple's support stinks.

If anyone feels defiant by this post to write how awesome Apple is and what drives me to write this... save it and suck it up. I'm in a bad mood today.

 

[jimsowden]

Take it to an apple store. There turnaround is a max of 3 days, and they sometimes can do it on the spot.

 

[seamuskrat]

I have had very good luck with Apple service. Often they say it will take a week, but its back in days. I think they give you the worst case scenario. That said, if you count on it being 3 days, it COULD be up to 7.

As for scrathes, etc. I sent in an original TiBook for the DVD Rom sticking, it came back with a small crack in the bezel around drive. They sent me a fedex box, took another 3 days and upgraded my RAM for free for the hassle. Not too bad.

I think it depends with whom you deal with. I do not know if this is the case with Apple, but I just learned that UPS actually handles all repairs on Toshiba and Dell laptops in the US. So, you call Toshiba or Dell for a repair, they send you a UPS box, it goes to some factory where UPS employees (trained by Toshiba no doubt) repair your laptop and send it back. So, poor quality could be some partner Apple uses, and they need to be aware of the problem.

 

[Elbeano]

I had a similar problem with my 12" PB. It's the newest revision, and after about a week of having it, I sent it in for having a less than semi-functional latch. It would rarely close, and when it did would pop open when I would carry it around, or do something crazy like touch it. I sent it in, and it took a week and a half to get back, and they hadn't changed the latch. As best as I could see, they just bent the latch a little bit, but didn't replace it. I was on the phone with customer service prior to getting it back (trying to get a shipping number) and they told me some story about kernal panics and bent ethernet port pins (which isn't what I sent it in for). Obviously, I was a little peeved. The latch bending trick was good enough to make it close a little more than seldom, but within another week it was back to the way it was before I sent it in the first place. At this point, I wasn't very keen on sending it back in again, but I did. This time I was assured it would go somewhere completely seperate for things that don't get repaired the first time they are with apple. Personally, I don't know what bothered me more, the fact that I had to send it back in for the same problem that caused it to be away from me for longer than I had owned the computer, or the fact that they have somewhere in another state SPECIFICALLY FOR PROBLEMS THAT DON'T GET FIXED WHEN YOU SEND IT IN THE FIRST TIME. That situation should not arise frequently enough for that to be neccesary, in my opinion. Well, it did come back to me (this time in about 3 days) with a new latch. However, now the screen has the infamous smile when it's closed, and because of that, the little bumpers on the corners on the screen don't always touch the palm rests so they rattle if it's closed and i'm moving about. Despite all of this, I still love my first mac, but I'm already a little peeved with applecare.

Oh, as a side note, I've written this entire post while on hold waiting to talk to someone in applecare to get my hinge fixed on the same powerbook. The thing clicks like the aliens in Signs when I try to do something absurd like opening the screen, or adjusting it an inch or something, and I feel like I'm about to snap it right off every time. I have to say apple makes a nice product and a great OS, but they definately have some QC issues they need to work out, especially when we pay the premium that we do for their machines.