I was just reading through a thread about the guy who just got a replacement of PowerMac from Apple and I thought people must have a lot of stories about their repairing/replacement experiences with Apple! I've personally had a lot of touble with my purchases and here are some of them:
- Replacement of the same Apple 17" CRT 6 freakin' times! I think it was called AppleVision 1710? Anyway this model had some serious chip problem and they were giving free replacements even after 1 year warranty period. But I was a student in NY then and it was the only monitor I had. I was gone real mad about this. And my friend had the exact same problem. (in the US)
- Graphite AirPort Base Staion melt down: It has a heat problem which destroyed condensers in it. Free replacement, even after the warranty. But the replacement went dead too! I'm wating for another replacement now. (in Japan)
- My first Powerbook G4 had a defective DVD-ROM drive which refused to spit out the disk (well know problem). And got it replaced by an offcial Apple repair shop in Tokyo. Althought it took them a week to get the drive, I brought my TiBook in to the shop and got it replaced in 15 min for absolutely free. And the guys there real tech guys and had a cool conversation about their Mac repairing experience. Yes Apple offers official in-shop repair service in big cities like Tokyo and Osaka. (in Japan)
- The most recent one was an ATI videocard which had a weird behavior with my new 1G-DP Powermac: I was on Cinema display and even if it's digital signal display I was seeing noises and the showl screen going up and down like an old TV. So I called Apple up and they came to a conclusion that it's broken. They offered to replace the whole machine since they didn't have videocards in stock. (It's really weird that they can give me a whole new machine but not the just the videocard!) But I had a very expensive professional Japanese fonts with copy-protection-from-the-hell installed on it (These fonts detect the serials of the CPU and the hard drive to properly run). It would've taken hundreds of $ to get them reinstalled. I told them that repeatedly until she understands my stiuation and this woman said she'd talk with the supervisor and offer me a videocard without issuing me an official Apple repair number. I guess it was a special arrangement. So I guess demanding it with my work-going-down-to-the-hell story worked. (in Japan)
Oh, by the way, is Applecare's phone getting-though time better in the states these days? It used to take me at least 30 min every time I called them up while I was in NY until a couple of years ago. Applecare in Japan has less waiting time but they have a lot of stupid young girls who has no idea what so ever about computer. Once I had a really stupid girl and I almost made her cry with words like "clean install" and "extension manager"!
- Replacement of the same Apple 17" CRT 6 freakin' times! I think it was called AppleVision 1710? Anyway this model had some serious chip problem and they were giving free replacements even after 1 year warranty period. But I was a student in NY then and it was the only monitor I had. I was gone real mad about this. And my friend had the exact same problem. (in the US)
- Graphite AirPort Base Staion melt down: It has a heat problem which destroyed condensers in it. Free replacement, even after the warranty. But the replacement went dead too! I'm wating for another replacement now. (in Japan)
- My first Powerbook G4 had a defective DVD-ROM drive which refused to spit out the disk (well know problem). And got it replaced by an offcial Apple repair shop in Tokyo. Althought it took them a week to get the drive, I brought my TiBook in to the shop and got it replaced in 15 min for absolutely free. And the guys there real tech guys and had a cool conversation about their Mac repairing experience. Yes Apple offers official in-shop repair service in big cities like Tokyo and Osaka. (in Japan)
- The most recent one was an ATI videocard which had a weird behavior with my new 1G-DP Powermac: I was on Cinema display and even if it's digital signal display I was seeing noises and the showl screen going up and down like an old TV. So I called Apple up and they came to a conclusion that it's broken. They offered to replace the whole machine since they didn't have videocards in stock. (It's really weird that they can give me a whole new machine but not the just the videocard!) But I had a very expensive professional Japanese fonts with copy-protection-from-the-hell installed on it (These fonts detect the serials of the CPU and the hard drive to properly run). It would've taken hundreds of $ to get them reinstalled. I told them that repeatedly until she understands my stiuation and this woman said she'd talk with the supervisor and offer me a videocard without issuing me an official Apple repair number. I guess it was a special arrangement. So I guess demanding it with my work-going-down-to-the-hell story worked. (in Japan)
Oh, by the way, is Applecare's phone getting-though time better in the states these days? It used to take me at least 30 min every time I called them up while I was in NY until a couple of years ago. Applecare in Japan has less waiting time but they have a lot of stupid young girls who has no idea what so ever about computer. Once I had a really stupid girl and I almost made her cry with words like "clean install" and "extension manager"!