early 09 17" saves kid from falling speaker... now it needs help

[galstaph]

Ok, so my 2 1/2 year old just pulled a speaker down on her (I have some ~40 lbs ones wall mounted in my living room) and thank goodness my laptop broke the fall, it was open so the display took the brunt, allowing the speaker to fall to rest on the couch instead on my daughter

BUT now I am sad for my lappy, I'm sure grateful for the aluminum construction, as I'm sure if it'd been my wife's vaio it would have been destroyed. The only damage appears to be to the display case, the screen isn't cracked or damaged as far as i can tell, BUT the aluminum is bent and the lid won't close properly now.

SO does anyone know how much apple might charge to replace just the aluminum or do they have to replace the whole assembly (899 on ifixit )? I was hoping to sell this for a decent profit when the sandy bridge mbps came out in a few months... now I'm not sure how much the value went down... and my applecare is basically void....

and since I know "this thread is useless without pictures" you can see the lid askew, the warped area of the lid near centre, and the offending speaker (the one closest to the wall)...

 

[UltraNEO*]

Just a suggestion... but did you check ebay for water damaged, faulty MBP's? Most of them have faulty working screens with little or no physical damages to the cabinet other than a dead logicboard.

 

[SidBala]

Any chance you can bend it back into shape? You might want to try this since most probably, you would have to replace the whole assembly.

 

[galstaph]

I'm pretty sure I cannot bend it back... Taking UltraNEO's advice i looked on ebay, I can buy a new display casing for $125, but I cannot find any instructions on how to disassemble the display assembly, ifixit indicated it is full of glues and other things that make these hard to take apart now, meaning I may have to buy the entire assembly... dang
any other suggestions? or links to cheap assemblies?
wow found the info (the power of the internets amazes me!), instructables has a page on taking apart the display assembly... now is it worth trying to do it myself or buck up and pay apple or sell at a (steep) discount?

 

[UltraNEO*]

Any chance you can bend it back into shape? You might want to try this since most probably, you would have to replace the whole assembly.

Umm... But replacing the display assembly in Unibody isn't such a difficult process when compared to older MBP's.

 

[Kyffin]

disclaimer: sorry, can't really help but...

just had to look after that title and have to say good effort on your lappy taking the bullet; looking at your speakers I actually gagged on the mental image- glad everyone's alright and all the best with getting it fixed!

 

[Gr80Likes2Boogi]

I'd think it's time to re-route your speaker wires!!! Thank goodness no humans were harmed in the making of this thread!

 

[galstaph]

I'd think it's time to re-route your speaker wires!!! Thank goodness no humans were harmed in the making of this thread!

yeah I'm definitely going to have to reroute them...
I guess this also goes to show the quality of construction that apple has achieved with the unibody design

 

[aimbdd]

Your computer still works after getting hit by one of those? oh wow... what about the flat rate for apple to have it sent out to be fixed?