iMac sent for repairs... they say it's going to cost £450 to repair.

[Alpha-Sphere]

Swapping a HD and possibly a temp sensor plus labor should be around $200 depending on what size replacement drive you buy. 450 pound is WAY! too much.
This is not just an opinion of some random forum guy. I know what I'm talking about cause Ive replaced 5 iMac HD's this week alone.

 

[andy.barron]

Swapping a HD and possibly a temp sensor plus labor should be around $200 depending on what size replacement drive you buy. 450 pound is WAY! too much.
This is not just an opinion of some random forum guy. I know what I'm talking about cause Ive replaced 5 iMac HD's this week alone.

of interest alone, do you charge more for a larger hd capacity because it takes longer to format, or because people pay out of ignorance?

Not having a pop by the way, just interested.......

 

[Luis Ortega]

With Apple maybe, but PC World and the other DSG owned shops, Currys and Dixons have the worst customer service I have ever seen, anywhere. I refuse to buy anything from any of them now.

I would not ever buy anything from PC World that might need to be replaced.
They are useless for anything more than ink cartridges or cables, and those are cheaper to buy elsewhere. Avoid them like the plague.

 

[Alpha-Sphere]

of interest alone, do you charge more for a larger hd capacity because it takes longer to format, or because people pay out of ignorance?

Not having a pop by the way, just interested.......

Cost of HD differs because of size/brand and possible temp sensor.
Cost of labor stays the same. It would be ridiculous to charge more because a drive takes longer to format.

For anyone who thinks $200 is too much this is what needs to be done in order to swap a HD in a iMac (current model).
Take of glass panel, take out screen, take out HD, insert new HD, swap temp sensor if needed, put back LCD, clean LCD, clean glass panel, putt glass panel back, check for dust, clean dust, check for dust again, repeat until absolutely clean, run diagnostics to see if everything is connected back properly, format disk, install clean OS.

Not too exciting or hard but its really hard to get all the dust out in between the glass panel and lcd if your not in a dust free environment.

 

[plumosa]

For anyone who thinks $200 is too much this is what needs to be done in order to swap a HD in a iMac (current model).
Take of glass panel, take out screen, take out HD, insert new HD, swap temp sensor if needed, put back LCD, clean LCD, clean glass panel, putt glass panel back, check for dust, clean dust, check for dust again, repeat until absolutely clean, run diagnostics to see if everything is connected back properly, format disk, install clean OS.

yup, its actually quite simple, and the first time is obviously going to be the longest because you have to make sure you're getting all the screws and locating where everything is. I just followed the guide on ifixit and had a great success. I did have to buy two suction cups (about 10$) and 2 torx screwdrivers (maybe 13$?) and I had another hard drive lying around that I just popped in. But then I ended up finding out it wasn't the hard drive, but the SATA cable.

This all happened about 2 weeks before I moved to Australia and would be leaving the iMac in a box anyways, so I just booted the hard drive externally off of a firewire enclosure. It was fine short term, but was exceeding slow.


So get your iMac, open it up and we'll help you troubleshoot for much less than 450!

 

[Kissaragi]

Swapping a HD and possibly a temp sensor plus labor should be around $200 depending on what size replacement drive you buy. 450 pound is WAY! too much.
This is not just an opinion of some random forum guy. I know what I'm talking about cause Ive replaced 5 iMac HD's this week alone.

The OP cant start up from the OSX DVD tho, so it seems like something more than just the hard drive. Quite possibly an even cheaper part knowing pc world!

 

[Alpha-Sphere]

The OP cant start up from the OSX DVD tho, so it seems like something more than just the hard drive. Quite possibly an even cheaper part knowing pc world!

So they told the Topic Starter that its going to cost £450 but what exactly is going to cost that much? Is the HD dead? Is it the logic board? Whats wrong with it?
Did PC World sent it to a Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP)? If so call Apple and see if you can work out a deal of some sorts because it's just out of warranty. If you can work out some kind of deal with Apple the AASP should be able to see that and adjust the repair costs accordingly.

 

[iMacBoy]

I am going to ring them up tomorrow and ask them to write out a service report, as soon as i find out exactly what is wrong with it, i will tell everyone, then i can work on it from there.

Thanks.

 

[Tricksy101]

Current Apple Specialist at PC World here .

For anyone that says that if something goes wrong after the first year then we have to fix it is incorrect I am afraid.

For us to do this you have to prove the fault was there from day 1 (why you wouldn't of had it fixed within the initial 12 month warranty would be beyond me). You have to have this verified with a independent engineer.

So this is why we offer our own 'What Ever Happens' so you do not have to pay for things like this. The service for the 21.5 iMac is only £11 a month and covers you from everything like breakdowns and accidents, excluding loss and theft. It has no excess, unlimited uses and also we are a official Apple repair provider. £450/£11 = 40 months worth of payments for just one repair, so really does pay for it's self! Also the turn around time for Apple repairs is 7 days!

Alternatively, you could have purchased Apple Care that we also sell.

As for personal opinions for PC World customer service, I obviously can't talk for every store but I know for a fact that our guys are amazing in our store and will do everything to help someone in need. Even if the item is out of warranty we do help as much as possible.

Probably 60% of the staff at our PC World/Currys have a Mac .

I personally would just fix it my self xD.

 

[phpmaven]

yup, its actually quite simple, and the first time is obviously going to be the longest because you have to make sure you're getting all the screws and locating where everything is. I just followed the guide on ifixit and had a great success. I did have to buy two suction cups (about 10$) and 2 torx screwdrivers (maybe 13$?) and I had another hard drive lying around that I just popped in. But then I ended up finding out it wasn't the hard drive, but the SATA cable.

This all happened about 2 weeks before I moved to Australia and would be leaving the iMac in a box anyways, so I just booted the hard drive externally off of a firewire enclosure. It was fine short term, but was exceeding slow.


So get your iMac, open it up and we'll help you troubleshoot for much less than 450!

I think it's a bit of an overstatement to suggest that it's "quite simple". I've been working on PCs for years and more recently my own Mac Pro and MacBook Pro, and I would say it looks like quite a challenge watching the howto videos I've seen. I would even think twice about doing it myself, although I would probably do it anyway.

I certainly wouldn't recommend that someone with zero PC/Mac hardware experience give it a go. There's a good bit of potential for screwing up your system if you're not careful.

 

[orangezorki]

Feel free to ignore my opinion....

If (and that really is an if because of the possible inability to boot from a CD) the only problems are components that can be unplugged from the logic board, I would recommend the OP buying the components, and possibly a very large capacity HD that would last a long time, and trying it him/herself. The quote seems to be not much less than the machine is worth, so I think it is worth a gamble. Of course, read everything you can first, including the great guides at www.ifixit.com

David

 

[gnasher729]

Current Apple Specialist at PC World here .

For anyone that says that if something goes wrong after the first year then we have to fix it is incorrect I am afraid.

For us to do this you have to prove the fault was there from day 1 (why you wouldn't of had it fixed within the initial 12 month warranty would be beyond me). You have to have this verified with a independent engineer.

Well, the fault must have been there, otherwise it wouldn't have broken down. An iMac that is built without faults doesn't break down after 15 months. Original poster should ask a small claims court to decide. Or as I said, go to the store, talk to the sales person, then to the manager, make the biggest stink possible, and never buy at PC World again but go straight to the Apple Store.

 

[s.horsfield]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

There is someone here that sAys you don't need to buy apple care because the laws protect you for the same amount of time. Maybe they apply in your neck of the woods? I live in the US without such consumer protection laws. Search the forum and see if you find the info.

I'd not pay a dime without an actual written estimate of what they were going to do.... So no mystery charges, tell me what it is so I can decide.

Good luck!

Was probably me. I'm not from the UK, so I don't think I'll be much help. But from what I remember the UK do have some consumer protection

 

[iMacBoy]

Got the iMac back now, but apple support are taking the piss by posting the service report! Really annoying me now... debating whether just to go for a top of the range PC instead.

 

[Seraphiel]

Got the iMac back now, but apple support are taking the piss by posting the service report! Really annoying me now... debating whether just to go for a top of the range PC instead.

I personally would not advise this, its not that its a Mac that makes it faulty, its that it's an All-in-One. They are notorious for random failures, and harsh repair costs. If you really want a new computer, think about a Mac mini, top end model. But I digress, my main advice is stay away from All-in-Ones.

 

[John T]

Got the iMac back now, but apple support are taking the piss by posting the service report! Really annoying me now... debating whether just to go for a top of the range PC instead.

You say "Apple support are taking the piss by posting the service report!" even though in post 33 you state "I am going to ring them up tomorrow and ask them to write out a service report, as soon as i find out exactly what is wrong with it, i will tell everyone, then i can work on it from there."

What exactly are you getting "really annoyed" about?

 

[kemperman]

Now you have your iMac back you could just head to Liverpool for a nice day out and try to get it sorted there. You'll probably have to wait till what, tomorrow for the report (I'd like to know what it says as I have a similar age model with AppleCare though). Then head to Liverpool. It'll cost you less than £450 in fuel and you never know some 'genius' might take pity on you as it's only 15 months old

 

[davedee65]

Hi OP sorry to hear about your troubles.

Can I just ask how you knew it was a HDD crash in the first place, what happened, symptoms? I had a situation a few weeks back where mine wouldn't start, nothing was working so in the end I took the RAM chips out and swapped them round and put them back and all was good, no probs since. Did the Apple guys get you to disconnect all things attached and power cord, leave for 5mins then plug in power cord only while pressing the power button?

If it is HDD I replaced one in a same age iMac a while back, it took some time and was a bit like doing open heart surgery but it worked and I now have a much bigger faster HDD for £75. Plus the satisfaction of fixing it myself!!

D

 

[gnasher729]

Got the iMac back now, but apple support are taking the piss by posting the service report! Really annoying me now... debating whether just to go for a top of the range PC instead.

I really don't get what you mean there.

 

[StephenAcworth]

IFixit.com

Amongst others, iFixit has a wide range of very readable and followable manuals for fixing your machine. (no affiliation, but I have used them to do tons of stuff on my macs). Whilst this won't help on diagnostics, if you are getting an Apple service report back, you should be able to work it out.

Most service centers don't like being asked for detailed reports because they make hi margin revenue for low value things: my car service centre (a great company) always want to fill up the washer bottle in my car when they service it and charge around $20 plus tax. So I fill it up before the service. Also I always ask for a detailed understanding of what they want to do and how much it will cost so I can make a informed decision.

Another example: I sent my Canon G10 back to the company as it had dead pixels and they needed to reconfigure the software etc. Shortly after it came back I noticed a couple of the screws holding the body together were missing. I phoned the service centre and they wanted to charge me over $50 for a replacement set. Needless to say I got them free.

My point is, these days we can spend our time getting good information, examine the options andbthen decide what to do.

No disrespect to PC World, but I have consummate experience of their service offering and wouldn't go anywhere near one.

Hopefully, with a little digging around on the net and forums such as this you will be able to diagnose what is wrong and then with the help of places such as iFixit manage to fix it cheaply and well.

Good luck and may the Mac be with you!

 

[Tsuchiya]

If it's really just the harddrive, ask for your iMac back and do the repair yourself. A new drive will cost you less then £100, and you can find guides online to take your machine apart safely.

I've had virtually no experience taking computers apart but managed to fit a 500gb HDD for my Macbook Pro in about 30 minutes.

Though I think with an iMac you do risk getting dust under the screen (or so I've heard) which would be a major pain in the backside.

£450 is a crazy amount to charge, it's the kind of bill I would expect if they were swapping out the logic board or something

 

[mr.steevo]

I really don't get what you mean there.

Me neither.

What's wrong with the iMac?

 

[Lankyman]

Bought an iMac over 15 months ago (i think), it's the late 09' model anyway.

I have sent it away once before for a faulty screen and they repaired that under warrenty (the years warrenty you get). Now i'm 15 month's on obviously my warrety has ran out.

A few weeks ago my iMac had a bad crash and the hard drive failed. I took it to PC World (where i origianlly bought it from)(there is no apple stores or retail stores near to where i live) and they said they could not do anything with it, but they did say that they could send it off for us, so we did that.

A few weeks on we got a phone call saying it would cost £450 to fix my iMac, i mean are they joking?!? That is half the price i paid for it!

So sorry for the life story but does anyone have any ideas how i can get around this?

Would buying a Hard Drive and changing it my self be an option?

Thanks.

Why oh why do people never learn. You could have purchased from Apple online - good warranty, John Lewis online - great warranty etc. etc. but no, you go to PC World instead?

I don't even buy cables from DSG never mind a premium product like Apple - I'm sorry to be so negative but you have brought this on yourself to some degree. Good luck getting it fixed BTW.

 

[webcity]

I had a similar experience to this with a Sony laptop I bought. The hard drive in that died after around 18 months and I went back to PC world and they quoted £270 to repair it. I challenged it under the sales of goods act as that states that the goods must be fit for purpose for a reasonable period of time (15 months is not reasonable).

It's worth noting that under the sales of goods act, the warranty is actually an addition to your legal rights and not instead of. Therefore, regardless of the length of warranty, you should insist they fix it free of charge.

 

[mrsir2009]

I don't think its the hard drive, because:

•£450 for a new hard disk is insane. What are they replacing it with? A 1TB SSD?

•It wouldn't boot up from the CD, like it should do if only the HDD has failed.