MacBook Pro A1706 : stay away from it and all soldered on Logic board SSD

[gnasher729]

which is why Apple got pulled up by the EU for selling customers extended warrantees (AppleCare) that were not needed, as customers already had consumer protection

Actually, they can sell AppleCare. But the user actually pays for (what AppleCare offers) minus (what legal rights the user has without AppleCare), so when selling AppleCare, Apple must tell you carefully what you get through AppleCare what you wouldn't get without AppleCare.

 

[gnasher729]

You are indeed right to point out that I would stand a better chance if I were in the US . I lived , studied and worked in California from 84 trough 86 and I remember it was a real culture shock coming from Belgium where I had lived all my life till then . Surprised how normal it was to stand up for your commercial rights and obtain satisfaction when one thought the product was inadequate.

WTF? In Belgium, you have strong protection through EU laws, in the USA, you have none of that. If I have problems, in the EU, I go to the store, I politely point out to the staff why they have to fix the problem (no need to shout which is what they do in the USA) and I get what I want. In the USA, the customer has no rights once warranty is over, and people go to the stores and scream and shout to get something that they have no legal rights to.

 

[gnasher729]

I'd be telling Apple that I bought a premium quality product from a reputable company; took good care of it; & yet it failed after 2 1/2 years - surely there must have been a hidden defect. Of course, it's up to the consumer to prove that : but here anyway, an expensive, 'quality' item from Apple is expected to last more than a couple of years if looked after, & Apple know that.

Your rights in the EU and UK are against the seller, not against the manufacturer. Now obviously you might buy an Apple product at an Apple Store and they are both the same, but generally you have to go to the seller by law. (Apple Stores will handle problems as well if you bought elsewhere, but that's them being nice, no legal or contractual requirement).

If it fails after 2 1/2 year, maybe there was a hidden defect, but legally the seller has to fix the problem if it occurred within 2 years. Not 2 1/2 years. Plus there is a variation how long products last without defects, you'd legally need to prove that your problem was caused by a defect and isn't just bad luck.

Now on the positive side, the staff at Apple stores are told by Apple not to use the rule "fix it if the customer can prove it's Apple's fault" but to use the rule "fix it if you believe it might be Apple's fault".

 

[robotica]

I would definitely contact apple about the misdiagnosed problem and the fact you felt pushed into buying a new laptop. At the very minimum I would expect an apology and some kind of good will payment, preferably for the amount it cost to get your laptop fixed by the third party. Pretty shocking but not surprising.

 

[ouimetnick]

cheaper to send off to China than to have local skilled labour work on it?

That just sounds wrong on all levels, hope Apple employs more ethical and environmental practices in the future

Regards
Martin

Why would they? Apple is in the business to maximize profits. The training and skill needed to diagnose and do board level repair would exceed what they pay their so called “Geniuses”

When I was an ACMT, I’d check the serial number of the replacement logic boards (old serial was covered by black tape) and the turn around time was 6-8 months. A replacement refurbished logic board came from a MBP with a bad backlight. It was replaced, that board sent to a sweatshop in China, diagnosed, repaired and sent back and was used to replace a logic board with a bad ram slot all in the same year. I’m guessing that they probably accumulate a bunch of bad logic boards at their warehouse and ship a pallet of them to China for repair and rework. The know how, soldering skills and diagnostic ability far exceeds the mental ability of most Genius employees.

 

[lissm85]

Decided to post an update as I think it's quite interesting .
I was really that close on buying a Dell X13 mainly because I didn't want to buy another Apple ever again . Apple Store in Marbella finally offered me a 10% discount on a new A2338 . Something I thought was pretty lousy , but I read plenty of good things on that new model so I thought .. well what the heck give them another chance . The day I decided to get it , and I had in order to enjoy that 10% discount buy from that store in person : What have you .. luckily I checked with them first as they had none in stock . So , a week later I found one on the net for 1350 euro which is only 50 euro more I would have paid at the Apple store , and save me 200km drive up and down to collect it .
Happy with the unit .
More interesting is that my son took my old A1706 ( subject of this thread ) to a independent repair shop in Malaga . They called him 2 weeks later saying they were working on it , and found several faults that seemed to originate from a short circuit somewhere . They estimated 150 to 250 euro labour time to locate fault and repair . Which they did and we ended up paying 215 euro . SSD dead as said Apple Genuis bar and therefor need to replace logic board ? Nothing wrong with it at all . Working perfectly well and all data was still on it . It's now upgraded to Big Sur and I'm writing this post from it . Son is very happy with it .. he actually got it 6 months earlier as he would have .
So before Apple wants to charge you big bucks to repair your product out of warranty .. get a second opinion outside their ecosystem ... may save you hundreds ... it did for us .

Hi Trimapa,

I just found this thread and was hoping to find that Apple offered you a good solution. I'm also a "victim" of this case with the same model A1706. Bought it in France, late 2016. By mid-June 2017 had to take it to the Apple store for a repair in the screen (it had a black stripe, and then it just stopped turning on), they did it for free and the computer kept on working smoothly. Returned to live in Colombia in December 2017 and then in March 2018, my computer just stopped working altogether. I tried calling Apple service both in France and the US, with no solution. In Colombia we only have 3rd party distributors, that offered to change the whole logic board for over US$500. After paying almost 2000€ for a computer I also find it unacceptable, that just 3 months after the guarantee ends it stops working. In the end, what we did was set up an external drive and use it as the main drive. It's slow to start, but once it's running, works just fine. I'm looking forward to traveling again to maybe take it to a repair store in the US to have the SSD replaced, since I believe that's the only damaged part, since the computer is working fine with the external drive.

Just wanted to share my story and tell you you're not alone haha, I know exactly how you feel!

 

[Yebubbleman]

As an long-standing Apple fan as far back from my first Apple Cube to queuing up in the rain to get my hands on a first gen iPhone on release day at Apple store in Bordeaux , France . Over these all these years I have owned nearly every model IPhone , had several IMacs , MacBooks ( the white one always was my favourite ) Pro’s , IPads , IPods , AirPort/ Extreme and so on . This week my MacBook Pro A1706 bought in early 2018 goes from working well in the morning to when returning home staring up with the flashing carpet : Took it to the nearest authorised official Apple repair centre and get presented a 760 euro repair bill as they claim it is SSD fault and the Logic board needs replacing. Now ,as I always treat my tech products as members of the family , I have never had one single problem with any of my Apple products; I mean Genius Bar is something I know that it exists but never had to use it . Perhaps the very reason I never took out extended warranties : I somehow trust the Apple products and was convinced of its superieur quality and reliability and for that I didn’t mind paying premium prices for these products .
However, I can not accept my 2 and a half year old very mildly used A1706 for no apparent reason ( no 3rd party software, all peripherals are genuine Apple , no moisture, not a scratch on the screen nor case let alone shock damage ) dies and I get served a 760 euro repair bill . I simply refuse to pay that and collected my MacBook from the service center ( who charged me 60,50 Euro just for the estimate) as I can’t believe that my beloved Apple product has let me down in such a way . I spoke lengthy with tech and after sales staff of Apple Spain but they stick to the 2 year warranty and for the rest I can basically sod off . I insisted in obtaining an appointment or a possibility to drop off my MacBook at the nearest Genius Bar which is Marbella : New Covid19 related restrictions only allow me to travel to Marbella on Thursday as I happen to have a dentist appointment in the same area . I appreciate that the Apple store also has to comply with Covid19 related restrictions and no slot is available. I requested just 30 second what it takes to drop off the MacBook to get a second opinion at some later stage . No avail . However , on Thursday I could walk in the store without appointment and spend thousands of euros and walk out with a brand new MacBook . That is exactly what I will NOT do . This technical disaster and disappointing Apple service will keep me from buying another Apple product as from now .
I will need a new laptop within the next few days , I know that it would be so easy with my time capsule and ICloud to configure a new MacBook but much more time consuming with a different operating system. Guess that is the price to pay when one no longer has enough trust in the Apple reliability , the competition has cheaper units which will compensate the time spent.
Actually, I was lucky secure a slot from a cancelled appointment at 14:40 on Thursday . All what Genius Bar did was confirm the estimate from the other place but offered to do the repair for 35 euros less . Looks like I got a euro off for each year I have been a Apple client.

I just thought to let you know this
R.I.P Mr. Jobs , what a visionary! Now it is run by financial experts only !

I'm unsure about the policies in the country you're in, but in the states, Apple has a reasonable flat rate repair service for laptops wherein it's usually cheaper than an out of warranty logic board repair. Certainly, for T2 and M1 based Mac desktops, that wouldn't apply, but you might have a cheaper option (though I'd imagine they'd have probably offered it to you at the Genius Bar if it was available).

Otherwise, yeah, drives being soldered onto the logic board, let alone entailing the data not being recoverable in the event of a logic board failure is something I've never been cool with about T2 Macs. M1 Macs take it a step further and make it so that if the SSD is fried, you can't even boot the Mac to even try anything and I'm all the less pleased with it. Unfortunately, that's Apple's trajectory with Apple Silicon and there's probably not much we can do about it other than switch to another platform (Windows or Linux, or merely mass adoption of iPadOS to the point of cannibalizing macOS marketshare). This, among a growing list of complaints, is why I've started scaling back my Mac platform dependency. In the Apple Silicon era, my Mac needs are minimal as my important machines are my PCs and my Intel Macs (with the latter obviously being only important for so much longer).

 

[Trimapa]

Hi Trimapa,

I just found this thread and was hoping to find that Apple offered you a good solution. I'm also a "victim" of this case with the same model A1706. Bought it in France, late 2016. By mid-June 2017 had to take it to the Apple store for a repair in the screen (it had a black stripe, and then it just stopped turning on), they did it for free and the computer kept on working smoothly. Returned to live in Colombia in December 2017 and then in March 2018, my computer just stopped working altogether. I tried calling Apple service both in France and the US, with no solution. In Colombia we only have 3rd party distributors, that offered to change the whole logic board for over US$500. After paying almost 2000€ for a computer I also find it unacceptable, that just 3 months after the guarantee ends it stops working. In the end, what we did was set up an external drive and use it as the main drive. It's slow to start, but once it's running, works just fine. I'm looking forward to traveling again to maybe take it to a repair store in the US to have the SSD replaced, since I believe that's the only damaged part, since the computer is working fine with the external drive.

Just wanted to share my story and tell you you're not alone haha, I know exactly how you feel!

Very sorry to hear you are also experiencing such problems . One has to expect that because of the sheer numbers sold that problems with certain units occur or reoccur : To me the real problem is how Apple handles these individually . It seems that they just use a simple protocol : In or out warranty , no time is invested to examine the cases individually .

Lo sento para ti , un saludo
Yves

 

[Trimapa]

I'm unsure about the policies in the country you're in, but in the states, Apple has a reasonable flat rate repair service for laptops wherein it's usually cheaper than an out of warranty logic board repair. Certainly, for T2 and M1 based Mac desktops, that wouldn't apply, but you might have a cheaper option (though I'd imagine they'd have probably offered it to you at the Genius Bar if it was available).

Otherwise, yeah, drives being soldered onto the logic board, let alone entailing the data not being recoverable in the event of a logic board failure is something I've never been cool with about T2 Macs. M1 Macs take it a step further and make it so that if the SSD is fried, you can't even boot the Mac to even try anything and I'm all the less pleased with it. Unfortunately, that's Apple's trajectory with Apple Silicon and there's probably not much we can do about it other than switch to another platform (Windows or Linux, or merely mass adoption of iPadOS to the point of cannibalizing macOS marketshare). This, among a growing list of complaints, is why I've started scaling back my Mac platform dependency. In the Apple Silicon era, my Mac needs are minimal as my important machines are my PCs and my Intel Macs (with the latter obviously being only important for so much longer).

You did point out something very significantly .. indeed we create our own dependency by going into the Apple sphere and that was the main reason I went back buying a Macbook Pro where I was really decided not to .