[Satchmo]

Just another story where Apple comes to the rescue.
My trusty white 2006 iMac suddenly without notice, died last week. No power whatsoever. I suspected a faulty power supply or switch.
As did the guy at the Genius Bar.

I expected the worse, with costs running into the hundreds. But despite my AppleCare having expired, they repaired it without charging me for labour. I just paid the cost of the power supply which was $90 and I was reunited with my iMac 7 days later.

[psmith2.0]

Awesome to hear. Yeah, I think they're given some leeway and can often approach situations in a human-like, case-by-case basis (maybe they check your purchase and repair history to gauge if you're a constant pain-in-the-ass with repairs and gripes, etc. ).

I personally experienced this very thing on an out-of-warranty iMac last year...Apple covered the parts and labor after an initial local "repair" job was anything but. I was so impressed and happy.

They certainly didn't have to throw me that bone, but I'm grateful they did. Maybe they saw where I've been buying Macs, iPods and iPhones since 1994 and have only had a single AppleCare issue (back in 2002, a broken USB hub on my iMac G4) and decided "this guy's not trying to wear us out...let's cut him a break".

The guy I talked to on the phone was fairly high up in the service/repair section and he told me they've got some wiggle room, based on various circumstances, products, timing, etc. So I figure they take a bunch of things into account. Also, not acting like an abusive, accusatory a-hole on the phone probably helps a lot too.

You get more flies with sugar (or whatever that old saying is). Acting like a screaming, you-owe-me! nutball on the phone while seeking help never results in anything good...

[Chinney]

As I have written about a couple of times here, Apple did the same for me with my iMac G5 a few years ago when the logic board fried post-warranty....and the iMac has not stopped chugging along since*, so I have received a few "free" years. Time to replace it soon though, since, as well as it continues to work, it has now fallen a bit behind on the technology front in terms of what I need a computer to do.

*Typing this on the G5 right now.

[thegeriatric]

Awwww gee I feel all warm and kind of fuzzy inside.......................Wait................. ....NO.........................It could be a heart attack.............................Nope it's just love for Apple and the Nova.

[Eugene]

I took my iMac in today for the same repair. It was $66 for the PSU and $30 for labor. They did the repair work in less than an hour, but unfortunately it wasn't just the PSU.

There was a brown scorch mark on the MLB where the PSU plugs in, so it looks like the entire system is shot. Repairing it would cost $700, so that sucks.

In recent years, I haven't really cared about the lack of a headless mid-range Mac. Now that my iMac is dead, I have a perfectly good 20" IPS LCD panel going to waste. I won't be buying another iMac, so I guess it's down to the mini for me.

[Brave Ulysses]

Apple has been more flexible with the white iMacs because they had a lot of significant design an quality assurance problems. I just got an LCD replacement for a 17" iMac several years out of warranty as well. The 17" screen is destined to die prematurely.