[turtle]

I had to share this because I'm just very surprised about how well AppleCare took care of me and my Macbook. I bought a Late 07 MB from SpecMode a while back and have been using it everyday since. It's been a great machine though the combo drive began failing back in September. I meant to get AppleCare PP on it but never did. In December when I remembered to buy it I was too late and out of the window.

So on the 30th of Jan I noticed my wife's MB had serious cracking in the ploy case. Mainly near the hinge. There was also the center screw which by this point had grown the size of a half dollar coin. She also managed to have a complete break in the bottom case just below the trackpad. I set the appointment to have it checked out by the local GB and they said it's covered and they'll send it off. Away it went.

On the 4th I took my MB in for the same cracking at the hinge area and noted the failing combo drive. I was upfront that AppleCare had expired on the machine and wasn't expecting the drive to be replaced. The GB told me that it would "likely" be replaced while they are replacing the bottom case since the machine was going to be opened up anyway.

FedEx dropped off my MB today and they not only replaced the bottom case, but they also replaced the top case, combo drive, cable, connector and heatpipe! My top case was in great shape so I was surprised to have that one done. Fact is, I'm surprised any of it was done since it's beyond coverage! I'm very grateful either way. I was going to pull the combo drive and put in an OptiBay but will be holding off now.

So, I dropped my MB off on the 4th and here it's the 6th and I have it back. Where's my wife's MB? I call AppleCare and ask for the status. Honestly, the woman that answered the phone shouldn't be representing Apple, but she finally transfered me to a real support person who was able to help me. They are holding her machine because the HDD failed testing. It's a 500GB I just installed a couple of weeks ago. They were waiting to hear how I wanted them to handle the drive before shipping the machine back.

I was pretty upset because the only thing the support guy talked about was this drive. I informed him that I only sent it in to have the plastic replaced and didn't understand why they were holding up the service because it was a non-Apple HDD. He apologized for not explaining the situation clearly and then gave me the full scoop. (He assumed the original call taker explained the details, she didn't.)

The full scoop is that my wife is getting a totally rebuilt machine! They have already replace the RAM, Logic Board, Top Case, Bottom Case, Monitor Case, and I'm pretty sure he said SuperDrive too! Wow, all this to get the known issue with the poly case replaced due to cracking. Her machine does have 100 days left on APP. At the end of the conversation with the support rep he was pretty sure they were going to replace the drive with an original model (80GB I think) and ship back my 500GB one. Worst case is they put my 500GB one in and leave it to me. No problem really. Seems it had a bad sector! One bad sector and now I'm going to have to RMA it. Better to find it now than later!

Still, I'm shocked that they did all that to her machine and mine when I just wanted the plastic fixed since it's a known issue. Great job Apple!

[Capella]

That's really impressive I always love hearing about how Apple goes above and beyond. It really makes me miss having a Mac.

[Maciej]

Color me impressed, too! I've dealt with Apple's people on the phone before and they have always been very courteous, sorry to hear you got a bad apple. Haha. I haven't always had such good luck with their service tho, my PB had to go back for the same problem more than once. Either way, that's good news.

[Luca]

Wow, amazing that they even did warranty service on a user-installed drive! Nice.

[Mac+]

Great news turtle.

My old TiPB case and screen were replaced when I brought it in because I could not get it to charge - turned out the power adaptor had fried itself. This was especially cool because, aside from a lot of paint "pitting" near the palm rest, which was a manufacturing defect, the right hinge was completely shot and protruded through the metal bezel, due to an accident which was my fault. (I tried to take my computer off the table and the power cord was still plugged in, causing it to slip out of my hands and crash back to the table. The introduction of MagSafe makes me suspect I was not the only customer to exerience this.)

Iirc, this was outside of my tri-care warranty too.

Post-sales experiences are prime opportunities for building brand loyalty.

[Chinney]

As I have related in another thread, I had an analogous experience with a machine that was not even covered anymore by the Apple warranty. I agree with the comment that this is how a company inspires brand loyalty. I use Apple computers for other reasons too, but this is definitely one of them.

[chucker]

Impressive story.

[thegeriatric]

Nice one.

[wecallitfall]

Nice story, always good when stuff like this happens. I too recently had a good experience with AppleCare, well worth the money.

[turtle]

Apple store called and said her machine is ready to pick up. I'll let you know how it turns out.

[turtle]

So I picked the machine up today and was well pleased. New Top Case, Bottom Case, Bezel, Heatsink, Display Assembly, Main Logic Board and a new 80GB SATA HDD. While the system shipped with Tiger they installed Leopard on it.

So now I have an extra 80GB drive out of this with nothing to do. I have 5 2.5" SATA drives just collecting dust now. I need to find a RAID setup for these things just for fun.

What test does Apple use for the HDD? I'd like to test my 500GB and see what failure they see. I certainly don't want to put a bad drive back in service, but I'd swear that apple test first identifies if it's an OEM part and then fails it for a randomly generated reason if it isn't.

All was covered under AppleCare so it didn't cost anything but time away from the machine. One thing that I did notice is that the invoice and receipt says it's a $430 charge that the store associate said was covered by AppleCare. The odd part is that my MB didn't have any charge listed even though it was covered under warranty but not by AppleCare. This just seemed really odd to me.

Nice story to hear. Glad applecare goes above and beyond!

[thegeriatric]

Nice to know, if i ever need AppleCare it sounds like it's well worth the money.

[turtle]

The system is still going strong. I didn't have as updated of a backup as I thought I did. Thankfully the loss wasn't as great as it could have been. Most was recovered but time was lost in recreating.

Also, I had a very hard time getting the TM backup to install. It failed to boot on completing the first restore. Then I did a fresh install and tried to import the old user accounts via Migration Assistant. That failed because it wouldn't accept the original passwords. I then did a new clean install and ran Software Update and got it completely updated. Then did a TM restore and wrote over that install and all was well.

I'm guessing it's because the Leopard install disk is 10.5 instead of 10.5.6 like my backup was. Again, all is well now though.

[RowdyScot]

AppleCare just saved me $1400 today on a graphics card, logicboard, and HD. Thank GOD for fully backing up last week. Today was a scary day.

[Capella]

I'm so glad I got AppleCare for my iPhone. It sounds like they're great. I hope I never need to use it, but it's nice to feel secure.