Broken MacBook Pro: Your Experience with Apple Service as Negative as Mine?

[Esel Theo]

Hi,

it's now almost three weeks ago when all of a sudden my MacBook Pro (early 2008 model) stopped working (when I push the power button, the white LED would go on for one or two seconds, then the whole thing is off again).

No problem, I thought, it is still under warranty and there is an Apple Store right here in Zurich, Switzerland with competent "Geniuses". They'll fix it quickly.

Or so I thought. Since almost three weeks now there presenting all sorts of funny excuses, and there is no indication that they are making any progress with the repair of my MacBook. It's a device that I need for my job, so having to wait for weeks for the repair really hurts.

Are your experiences as poor as mine? I am currently seriously re-considering my plan to by a new Apple toward the end of the year.

(Besides the long repair time, what I find really odd about the Apple service is that they asked for my user password when I left the machine there. And they even printed the password on the receipt with which I may or may not be able to pick up the device eventually.)

 

[QTime]

you should have had deleted or even removed the harddrive before handing out the mbp.
yy, 2 late now, for the next time..

 

[kppolich]

I've had zero problem with any customer service at my local apple store. must be an overseas thing.

 

[MH01]

you should have had deleted or even removed the harddrive before handing out the mbp.
yy, 2 late now, for the next time..

sorry, I do not see the point of that..... if I send in my device in for a service I do not expect to have to remove the HDD or delete the data off it. You should remove anything your consider to be sensative but not had in a laptop missing a HDD.

 

[MH01]

My experience has varied from awesome to awful. It depends on who you get to be honest. Generally I find the "genius" have little idea and just follow the scripts, but I have no idea who the actual people that work on the computers are. Seems you just got unlucky with whoever is dealing with your machine and is struggling to repalce the logic board... Though this will happen in any organisation, its a gamble who you deal with, some people are awesome and some suck each org has them.

 

[palpatine]

Without any specifics about your experience, it's tough to say. What did they actually say?

 

[Eddyisgreat]

Local genii usually return my box to me in about 48 hours with 1 day being the norm. This is regardless of repair level (i.e. logic board vs cd drive).

 

[tcphoto]

I have had problems with my last two MBP's. The first was shipped off to the Service Center by Apple Care and returned within two days while the hard drive in my current MBP was replaced at the local Apple Store. The store experience consisted of poor communication, lack of replacement hard drives and was finally returned after two weeks. I called Apple Care and complained and they sent me an iTouch for compensation.

 

[Just "Vinnie"]

I don't understand why you're being so passive about this. Why are you "allowing" them to take so long without creating some havoc within Apple's system?

Sorry but I can't sympathize with people who don't help themselves. Yeah, it shouldn't work that way but sometimes it just does.

 

[Darien Red Sox]

Always had great service at my local Apple Store.
Pros
Most of the Geniuses there are true geniuses and know a lot. Knowing that I am an IT person they don't ask me the questions because they know I would have tried something, they are better than dealing with Dell's premium support at work.

Cons
I do need to say that they are over worked though, the Genius that was fixing my sisters laptop HD was at the same time replacing someones optical drive and also a track pad whale being pushed by his manager to hurry up.
Apple also picks the worst times to update there servers (at least for the people on the east coast), which slows things down right around noon for the geniuses trying to answer the support system.

 

[DoorMouse]

I guess it just depends on who you get/whats wrong with the computer. I had a really good experience with the apple store genuis (Sydney store) last week (I'd never been so I wasn't sure how long it would take/what would happen).

My MBP (mid 2009) was having frequent kernal panics, beachballing and i'd run the smart utility test which showed my hard drive was failing - the genius looked at the computer for 5 minutes, agreed that my hard drive was dying and replaced it within the day. I had warranty, so I didn't have to pay anything, and the service was fast!

Plus I am truly amazed at how many staff they have wondering the store - there generally always seems to be someone free to talk to/ask questions - beats the staffing level at most shops by a mile.

 

[jonnysods]

Every experience to do with Apple directly has been amazing.

As for resellers, well they aren't so great in my opinion. But our nearest store is two hours away.

I would call Apple directly and have them send you out a replacement machine. They are fantastic to deal with on the phone.

 

[Ladybug]

I would probably first call the repair center where you dropped it off and find out exactly why they are taking so long. Take note of who you are speaking to, date and time. Then I would call Apple and tell them what is going on... Perhaps they can put a rush on it for you or something.