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Although online you can buy the parts separately, in apple's service channels the hinges come attached to the displays assembly which apple sells at $900~ premium plus they quoted him the upper case so there's your $1,200.

OP open the mbp before replacing parts and make sure The hinge is ok if not the work you will do will be half done since the display will never close like its supposed too.

yep, sounds like apple. i took a sony vaio to afghan with me and replaced the screen before i came. lcd was separate and went into a bracket with 6 screws. so im not surprised apple would do something like that. too easy for people with common sense to repair so they make something you have to buy specifically for apple. i love my MBP but im prepared for this kind of thing with a cheap pc just in case. sorry OP, sounds like its $1200, or a gerber and some dings forever.
 
Went through nearly identical situation on my (now primary) 17" i7 2.2Ghz MBP; dent looked nearly the same, maybe a tad less than yours. I went into the genius bar and owned up to stupidity right out of the gate (MBP was in a well padded case, just took a slow-motion awkward tumble out of my car about a foot onto a corner where it was less padded). They quoted me the same thing, $1200 which included the full screen. I asked why; and they just tried to talk me into buying a MBA or a 13" MBP for less or close.. After explaining to them I wasn't looking to own any of those, I needed the 17" for my purposes while on the road; but stayed calm and polite (and persistent) long enough.. the Apple Gods somehow gave me a "manager's one-time" allowance; mumbled much under their breath... I had to ask them twice what was happening to be sure I understood their offer, and they weren't exactly trying to say it out loud.

They charged me for the bottom case (around $240 or something), and replaced the monitor/hinge as a one-time courtesy and told me not to be an idiot again. I happily took the berating, and scored the hookup. About 10 days later I was back in biz and never looked back.

I can't say that your local apple store will have that cool of a staff, but I would suggest you do your best to befriend someone senior not just at the genius bar, but one of the actual techs in the back; who will go into a huddle w/ the manager and decide if they're going to make an exception for you.

>> seems like you might have taken the plunge to buy the parts and do it yourself so props and good luck. Maybe this thread will help someone else in the future. I've since gotten it back and had no problems and love my MBP more than ever. I just have a 2nd nearly matching one that I bought in the interim that I'm stuck with and going to sell soon at a loss.. but that's a whole other story... ahhh. and the apple beat goes on..
 
I've looked at this post every day since the OP shared with us these tragic events.. and today I began to cry. I really hope you get it fixed and share more pictures with us, now that we have all seen your battle scars.
 
...They charged me for the bottom case (around $240 or something)....

Meant the "top half" of the case; not the bottom.. I think that would cost less. Sorry. Anyways, Yeah - please do update and best of luck.
 
Parts have started rolling in - the new bottom case and the specialty tools I ordered from ifixit.com have arrived. Top case should arrive this week, and if it's in good shape, I'll be aiming for a rebuild this week some time.

It may take some time for me to complete, but I promise photographs of the repair when I attempt it.
 
That is considered to be Tier 3 Accidental Damage at a cost of $855+$100 for labor bringing the total to $955+tax.
 
Ouch... sorry to hear that. This information is new to me and I am surprised by the fact that $1,200 is the cost to replace that sort of damage. In this case, (if the laptop did not work or you were OCD), I'd probably purchase a new 13" for around the same price.
 
Parts have started rolling in - the new bottom case and the specialty tools I ordered from ifixit.com have arrived. Top case should arrive this week, and if it's in good shape, I'll be aiming for a rebuild this week some time.

It may take some time for me to complete, but I promise photographs of the repair when I attempt it.

You can do it, we believe in you. ;)
 
Well I know it's been a long time, but today I finally sat down to tackle this job. While there are many parts, it's really not as difficult as you might think. At least, if you get the right parts.

To remind everyone, here are some photos of the damage - you can see the case around the ports is bent up and the lid is pretty badly misaligned:

ade2388e.jpg

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I ordered replacement top/bottom cases, new hinges, some specialty tools (which are absolutely necessary) and finally sat down to do the job today.

This is midway through:

IMG_3934.jpg


Hours later, after nearly completing the job, I discovered the case that I was sent was subtly different than mine (the MD port was on the opposite side of the USB ports and I hadn't noticed), and thus would not work. I was SUPER pissed. But since I use this machine daily for work (and am currently in the middle of a freelance web development project), I decided my only choice was to try to tidy up the old case and put everything back together, so I did.

It's a long way from perfect, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out:

IMG_3935.jpg

IMG_3937.jpg

IMG_3936.jpg

IMG_3938.jpg


The job is certainly tedious, and requires plenty of space to keep parts organized, but it's far from difficult. If you're at all technically savvy, this shouldn't be a job you shy away from. Just make sure you have the right parts!!
 
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And those are pics of your old case? Wow! You did an awesome job. It would have killed me to have that much damage to my mbp. Great job bud. :apple::apple:
 
And those are pics of your old case? Wow! You did an awesome job. It would have killed me to have that much damage to my mbp. Great job bud. :apple::apple:
Yessir - that's the old damaged case that I tidied up as best I could. I'm pretty happy with it, and now that the lid isn't misaligned, I'm really happy with my computer again!
Well done. It looks pretty damn good!
Thanks!
Have some beers... it looks great!
Thanks!

It's definitely time for a drink - I'm thinking something single malt. :)
 
You did a fantastic job on the original case. Aluminum is very tough to work with, as it is so malleable. It looks great !
 
I'm impressed. So are you going to get the right parts and redo it, or just leave it as is? Seems good to go... tough call. I'd have to flip a coin, haha.
 
Congratulations on the repair....Really good job. If it were me I'd be very pleased, and would be easily able to live with the remaining dings and dents as battle scars.
 
Wow that "repair" of the old case looks like new. I could barely see the damage and I had to zoom a bit on my phone to notice the bent parts. (My eyes are perfectly fine)

Excellent job!
 
Thanks all for the kind and encouraging words..

For those asking, I'm not going to order new parts - this looks good enough for me and I'm perfectly happy to use it as-is. The thing that really bugged me the most cosmetically was the misaligned display - now that I got that sorted out I'm all good.

Thanks again for the kind words. And if ya'll ever need a MacBook worked on, hit me up and I'll help if I'm able!
 
CD slot bent

Hi everyone,

I have a similar problem - dropped MBP *sooob* - but my dent is just below the CD slot. It took me a while to realize because I don't use CDs that often anymore, but I haven't finished uploading all my old CDs onto my computer yet and I need this to work. Plus, if this means no more DVDs, no more burning CDs, that's a little sucky...
Problem = CD won't go in, it is blocked about 1/4 in" (0.5cm) in. The "sucking-CD-in" motion doesn't even start because I imagine it is blocked mechanically. I guess a quick fix would be to get an external CD/DVD read-write usb cable device, but I thought I'd post here to see if any of you thought it would be possible to get away with just fixing it by hand like done above (impressive work btw!!!). I'm not afraid to try it out. I'm just not sure that this isn't a job that needs more precision than just manual bending and I'm afraid of making more damage..

thank you very much for the help and here are pictures:
 

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