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Interesting story about apple care replacement!

D

darknite38

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 18, 2010
224
62
This was interesting! I sent in my macbook pro for a large amount of repairs. I'll tell you what they were just for fun. So my dad carelessly dropped my macbook pro onto the tile from at least 4 feet high and it messed up pretty bad. No physical damage to the unibody but many internal components were damaged. My dad took the mbp 13" 250 gb 2.53ghz to the apple store and because the screen looked fine but the trackpad was messed up pretty bad, they decided to charge us 400 dollars for tier 2 accidental damage. While that seems like a lot, listen to what they repaired.

1x LCD Screen - Eyesight camera not working (WTF LOL?)
1x 2.53 ghz logicboard - Something wrong with the cpu.
1x 250 gb hard drive - They magically replaced the 250 gb with a 320 gb.. for F-F-F-FREE!!
2x 2 GB Ram - Dont know what was wrong
1x Trackpad - Was broken from the fall.
1x Airport Card - Was working fine for me, I guess not for apple.
1x Bottom Plate
Brushed up the aluminum unibody case, removing dents =)

Although this wasn't my fault and the money to replace this computer came from my dad, we were VERY lucky that everything "appeared" to be okay with my laptop. Hence, the $400 dollar replacement fee. Knowing apple, wouldn't they normally charge more than the value of the laptop for these things to be replaced? New screen, logic board, ram, even a 70 GB increase in my hard drive =p.

Has anybody had any positive experiences with apple care? Anything else to share?

Thanks for reading!

EDIT: Penter's post reminded me to say that I am still under the Apple Care Warranty.
 
Last edited:
Awesome!
I've generally had very good experiences with applecare myself.
I've had an iMac, Aiport Extreme, and a Time Capsule replaced.
As long as your apple care is still valid, they should give you no hassles.
What might have happened is that they only realized that your computer required all the extra repairs •after• they had completed the trackpad repair. What that means, is that with the quote finalized, the $400 paid, and the trackpad replaced, you automatically gained a 90 day warranty, which covered all of the other repairs.

Essentially, it sounds like the genius bar worked mis-quoted you; He (or she) guaranteed that your equipment would be fully-functioning with a Tier 2 repair of $400. But because it wasn't, they were forced to keep their word, and do the repairs for free, under the 90-day warranty.
 
Apple OC said:
Did you tell them Pops dropped the MB? ... seems like you pulled a fast one on Apple and caught them off-guard.

and now you are boasting of it on MR :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I honestly did not know of everything that was wrong with my computer. When I took it to the apple store it was apparent that the trackpad was broken and that they were going to fix it. However, I never knew that anything was wrong with the hd, screen, motherboard, or ram.
 
Apple OC said:
Did you tell them Pops dropped the MB? ... seems like you pulled a fast one on Apple and caught them off-guard.

and now you are boasting of it on MR :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

they decided to charge us 400 dollars for tier 2 accidental damage.
Click to expand...

Did you guys read the post???? Sounds like he was upfront and honest with exactly what happened to me.
 
I dropped my Macbook pro but there wasn't any damage. The only thing is that it wasn't aligned with the base when closed and it has a bit of resistance when closing, but Apple took it for repair saying it was a common "defect" and I was like alright. They said they would reposition the screen so it would be fine. Well I got a call today that my Mac is ready, but they replaced the whole screen, logical board and trackpad. Nothing was wrong with any of them. No idea why apple did so.
 
wordoflife said:
I dropped my Macbook pro but there wasn't any damage. The only thing is that it wasn't aligned with the base when closed and it has a bit of resistance when closing, but Apple took it for repair saying it was a common "defect" and I was like alright. They said they would reposition the screen so it would be fine. Well I got a call today that my Mac is ready, but they replaced the whole screen, logical board and trackpad. Nothing was wrong with any of them. No idea why apple did so.
Click to expand...

I was pming you about this a while ago. From what you told me: They took off the screen to realign it. They damaged the connector on the screen itself, and replaced the screen for that reason. Then, obviously the new screen did not fix the issue, so they replaced the logic board (the lcd cable socket is on the logic board). The trackpad was malfunctioning, so they replaced that too... In other words, you got effing lucky on that one...
 
AlphaDogg said:
I was pming you about this a while ago. From what you told me: They took off the screen to realign it. They damaged the connector on the screen itself, and replaced the screen for that reason. Then, obviously the new screen did not fix the issue, so they replaced the logic board (the lcd cable socket is on the logic board). The trackpad was malfunctioning, so they replaced that too... In other words, you got effing lucky on that one...
Click to expand...

How am I lucky though :confused:
Now i'm more concerned about the reliability of my laptop haaha :p

I guess it does count as a major repair though, so two more to go before I could ask Apple for a replacement, if needed. :D
 
AlphaDogg said:
Because you dropped it, Apple should not repair it for free (accidental damage). But they did, so you are lucky. Also, I am lucky that they repaired my MBP after I tinkered with it, and damaged a component of sorts.
Click to expand...

Yeah but the "misaligned base" was an issue that I was having when I got my laptop (I created a thread about that with pictures). When I dropped it, it just got a bit more misaligned/messed up, so I knew I had good chances at getting it fixed.

*Actually you were the 2nd or 3rd person to reply to that thread :)

I'm glad it didn't dent, scratch or fall apart though.
 
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AlphaDogg said:
wordoflife said:
How am I lucky though :confused:
Click to expand...

Because you dropped it, Apple should not repair it for free (accidental damage). But they did, so you are lucky. Also, I am lucky that they repaired my MBP after I tinkered with it, and damaged a component of sorts.
Click to expand...

But they didn't repair it for free...his pop paid $400.
 
Glad to hear about your happy ending, I myself send my son to apple store with my 07 MBP which had issues with the DVD/CD player and a misaligned screen lid which was caused (became noticeable) after Apple replaced the GPU in Sep of 09. Initially I was told that it is considered cosmetic flaw caused by normal wear and tear and it is very common issue (Lid and body warping) but then they decided to do it free of charge and I should be able to pick it up in 5 days.
I had no idea warping body and lid was so common. Let me ask the good folks here who have 15 inch 07 MBP is it?

Garen
 
Garen, definitely - seems to be related to the heat that the macbook puts out. If my early 08 started at 40C, everything was fine. Anything above that and the warping of the bottom lid went from 1mm to as much as 5 - 6mm.

Sent it in for replacement and because my mute key wasn't working and got my top/bottom case, keyboard, logic board and hard drive replaced. :D
 
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