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Apple Businesses Hardware

AppleCare - How Many Problems is Too Much? 200

Posted by Cliff from the customer-support-nightmares dept.
steeviant wonders: "I live in New Zealand, and have been dealing with AppleCare Australia over issues with my PowerBook G4, which has needed three replacement power supplies, one battery, two motherboards, a top case, and a screen replaced under warranty, and it now has another hardware problem. I'm not satisfied that AppleCare Australia think it is acceptable for my PowerBook to have nine problems in two years, and want the machine replaced, but they are refusing. I have scoured the apple.com.au, and apple.com websites trying to find some way to contact anyone to try to get AppleCare to reconsider their stance on this issue. If New Zealand had an Apple branch office, I would simply take them to court, but even that is not possible as their computers are sold through a local distributor. Surely Apple don't consider this appalling number of failures to be acceptable for a computer which cost over NZD $9000. Can anyone suggest an avenue through which I can contact Apple in the U.S. for help?" Sometimes handing technical issues defect-by-defect works, however it seems to me that there are many cases where it would seem to be a waste of time...both the manufacturer's and the customer's. Should manufacturers be required to replace an entire machine after a certain number of defects in a specific time period, or might there be a better way to handle these kinds of technical issues? Update: 03/31 3AM EDT by C : steeviant wants to let everyone know that Apple has offered to replace his machine with a 'like for like' model before this article was even posted. So, "All's well that ends well." for some, how about you?
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AppleCare - How Many Problems is Too Much? More

AppleCare - How Many Problems is Too Much?

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  • The machine's been replaced twice over now! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbear@@@pacbell...net> on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @04:02PM (#8718523) Homepage
    Screen: Check
    Motherboard: Check check!
    Battery: Check
    Top shell: Check
    Power supply: Check

    The only thing on that machine that may still be original is the bottom shell cover! Well, maybe the modem, optical drive, ram and airport card are still original too.

    The video card is on the motherboard, as is sound, CPU, and all the ports. The only thing separating this machine from a new one is this one has known issues and a new one has unknown issues.

    I would wonder if perhaps the owner has bad power at his house? Maybe that is causing all the issues? It seems curious to go through batteries, power supply, and motherboard and not suspect dirty power.
    • I would wonder if perhaps the owner has bad power at his house? Maybe that is causing all the issues? It seems curious to go through batteries, power supply, and motherboard and not suspect dirty power.

      Dirty power? Lemme guess, you work for Monster don't you? In charge of the Monster PowerStrip division?
    • I would wonder if perhaps the owner has bad power at his house? Maybe that is causing all the issues? It seems curious to go through batteries, power supply, and motherboard and not suspect dirty power.

      This is a laptop, with a switching external power supply unit. I should be easily capable of handling dirty power coming in, clean it up and send it to the computer w/o any problems. Then, once at the computer, you have a power control unit that should be capable of handling this and buffering low power t
      • There is a threshold to which any device will operate, including switching power supplies and power control units.

        Perhaps he has a faulty laptop, but after *two* motherboard upgrades... maybe it's a faulty power supply? Still, the issue isn't only "What is wrong with the laptop," but "What is killing the laptop"?

  • Lemon law (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Evanrude ( 21624 ) <davidNO@SPAMfattyco.org> on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @04:03PM (#8718535) Homepage Journal
    In the US there is a "Lemon Law" for automobiles. After 3 major defects you can return your car and get a new one.

    I've always been of the opinion that there should be a similar law for electronics/computer systems. Sometimes you just get a bad equipment and the best course of action is to replace the entire thing.

  • OT: how it works at dell (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @04:09PM (#8718588)
    I work at Dell, and typically, if a person has 3 services within a week and is still having problem, or several within the past month, or a long standing history of problems, we usually replace the system if the customer requests it. the service calls cost somewhere around 200 each to our cost center, so as soon as a machine has a service done, we've lost our profit on it and are taking a loss. apple care sounds like its insurance though, so I guess they don't care how many times it gets fixed, since it doesn't come out of apple's pocket.

    posting anonymously for obvious reasons
    • Um, that's not been my experience with Dell.

      Dell will replace the system within the first 30-days (usually with a refurb), but I've clocked in too many "Saga" entries into the helpdesk database where a lemon Inspirion has had every piece replaced and Dell will not replace it. They would rather keep sending out new motherboards for the @#$%## thing. I can think of only one exception to this, when we got Dell to ship a refurb replacement after the first 30-days.

      Although, I must say, I don't belive all the

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I work at dell too, but that part about dell coming out to do the troubleshooting being in the contract is usually not true. most service contracts are such that dell will dispatch a part after troubleshooting over the phone WITH YOU. if your contract dictates that you're supposed to have a tech come out to do the troubleshooting, you shold mention that and they'll look it up. if you have an onsite resolution contract, i.e. you paid for that privelege, then a tech gets sent out to troubleshoot. that's h

  • "Required"? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @04:13PM (#8718629)
    So, my 2 cents... They shouldn't be "required" to, but they ought to, if only to keep their customers happy. The notion that the customer is always right seems to have been misplaced in the recent past.

    I don't know if there is the concept of the "lemon law" in NZ. But here in the US, I'd pursue it under that. For those of you that think the lemon law applies only to cars, you are wrong. ;)

    • Re:"Required"? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jwthompson2 ( 749521 ) * on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @04:39PM (#8718923) Homepage
      I worked retail for a few years out of high school and this idea that the customer is always right is silly. If the customer was always right they would pay $1 for everything they wanted and it would all assemble itself while they sipped some drink of their choice and then did all their work for them. The average customer is stupid, lazy and above all cheap. The customer, in my experience, is hardly ever right and needs to be told what they need and how to do it, problem is that most sales and support folks are crooked or stupid themselves making the whole problem exponentially worse.

      Lemon laws are great, and should cover almost everything made in my mind, and unless the author is leaving out some important details Apple should replace the unit and should have done it after problem #3 or #4 in my estimation, but what you gonna do?

  • This is Apple's weakest point (Score:5, Informative)

    by quantax ( 12175 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @04:14PM (#8718636) Homepage
    One thing I've noticed about Apple is that once you've gotten one of their computers, they don't want it back. Take for example my one friend who bought a G4 Cube a couple days after they were released. Now, we all know the issues that these systems had, but obviously my friend wasn't going to be aware of them with the system being a matter of days old. So he went and (imho, foolishly), spent about $3500 on a new Apple G4 Cube. He recieved it and started having the normal problems; randomly resetting/shutting down as well as instability. This was caused by the neato heat-sensor power button where you don't need to actually touch it, but merely pass your finger in front of it. Cool idea but a flaw execution. So he naturally called apple and after spending about 6 hours on the phone with them, they finally agree to let him ship the machine in. Move forward several weeks, he gets a refurb (they adamately refused to give him a new system), and it too has the same problems. Long story short, he eventually sold it on E-bay for $2,400 after 2 refurbs and gained a finely-tuned loathing for apple and all its products from this consumer experience.

    Maybe apple has gotten better? Not really. My boss and I were at an Apple Store buying 2 new dual cpu G5 systems for Maya, to both act as render stations and actual workstations. We get back to the office with said computers, unpack, etc, and the first one is running fine. The other however, just refused to stay up; we'd start the OSX updater, and it would reboot not too long after. Anything really we did, it would reboot or freeze eventually. Given that the system was 100% new, we didn't have time to fix a new computer tha we just paid $3,000 for. So we repacked it and brought it down to the Apple Store, and after arguing for quite a while that it was not indeed the software (the system wouldn't stay up long enough to have anything installed), and after blocking their polite attempts to say it was our fault, and an hour later, we had a new system that worked just fine when we plugged it in.

    So in summary, I'll say that Apple systems generally work great and usually do not have these types of issues, but if something does happen, Apple will probably be the last to really care. You can see these attitudes reflected in the problems the iBook and iPod has had regarding their hardware. I rather doubt the US applecare people will be any better, but it might be worth a shot.
    • I work at a public university and we have a very good working relationship with Apple even though we don't buy nearly as many Macs now as we once did. Every Mac we buy comes with AppleCare and we almost always get a tech support person quickly. A faculty member here had some trouble with a new Powerbook and had the local Apple authorized repair place look at it a couple times and when the problem couldn't be worked out Apple replaced it. He had to demand they do it, but they did. That seems to be par for th

    • Re:This is Apple's weakest point (Score:5, Insightful)

      by phatsharpie ( 674132 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @04:41PM (#8718949)
      ...if something does happen, Apple will probably be the last to really care. You can see these attitudes reflected in the problems the iBook and iPod has had regarding their hardware.

      Considering the number of iPods shipped since its inception and the number of people who actually complain about battery issues, it is a very small percentage of iPods that are affected. Furthermore, it's also debatable if the battery problems are indeed problems or just normal wear and tear. I have a first generation iPod and despite its age, its battery still works fine (I use it daily). In fact, I probably put more wear and tear on my iPod than average users since I've travelled with it around the globe.

      I am not saying the iPod issues raised by some users are non-existent, but simply that it's a small percentage of users. Furthermore, Apple offers a one year warranty on iPods and extended AppleCare for it too. There are also 3rd party iPod battery vendors. So in terms of support, there are plenty of options.

      Regarding the iBook, Apple has implemented a logic board repair extension program (http://www.apple.com/support/ibook/faq/), so I don't quite understand what "attitude" Apple has that's deplorable in this circumstance.

      -B

    • I Disagree (Score:3, Interesting)

      by BensonLeung ( 667506 )
      Your problem in this situation is that you immediately demanded that a brand new machine be entirely replaced. I've had the exact opposite experience with Apple support. After being on the phone with Apple support for about 10 minutes about the appearance of dead pixels on the screen of my Powerbook, the woman had me signed up for service. About 2 days later, packaging came in the mail with Airborne Express return postage already on it, and everything was taken care of within a week.

      My brother had run the

    • That doesn't really match my experience with Apple support. I dropped my iPod onto a concrete sidewalk. Soon after there were songs that the iPod couldn't play and would just hang if you would try. So I used the online iPod service form and reported the problem (I may have neglected to mention the fact that this started happening after I dropped it). Two days later I got a package to send the iPod to Apple in. Four days after that I got a package with a new iPod. The whole affair was really painless an
    • I've gotta disagree. I just received a G5 Xserve that my company had ordered, and it was missing the optional video card. The guy at AppleCare had to fight the other folks to have a card shipped to me. SOP was to have me ship the Xserve back to Apple and they'd ship me an entirely new unit. So, YMMV.

    • Re:This is Apple's weakest point (Score:4, Interesting)

      by madgamer ( 766925 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @11:33PM (#8722173) Homepage
      When my first generation iPod was getting only 1 hour of battery charge, I went down to the Fashion Valley Apple Store with a long list of things to say and possible rebuttals to refusals that I was prepared for them to give me. To my surprise, all I had to say was, "My iPod only gets an hour charge now." The guy asked for my serial number, then went to the back of the store. A few minutes later, I was a proud owner of a new refurbished first gen iPod with 10 hours of battery life. I think when it comes to customer service, your attitude and tone with the CSR will determine the response you get. Not fair, I know, but it pays to be nice to people.
    • This was caused by the neato heat-sensor power button where you don't need to actually touch it, but merely pass your finger in front of it

      Just an FYI, but it's light-sensitive. Those machines will come on and off like a clapper when the power gasket starts wearing out. Every time you turn a lamp on and off. It gets old fast.

      Just an FYI

  • Yeah, I know, this may actually be useful... (Score:5, Informative)

    by DAQ42 ( 210845 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @04:28PM (#8718794)
    so it'll getted modded to -1. But here goes.

    Call Apple Corporate. Ask to speak to a customer care specialist. Explain to them the basics of your problem. Before you call, collect all the "evidence" you can. I don't mean finger prints and dumb stuff like that. I mean, names, case numbers, repair dates. Make sure you have that in order and the first thing you are going to want to do is walk through the details of each and every repair.

    Now here's the kicker. Also find a copy of the Applecare Agreement and have that with you. Find as many relavent terms and phrases in that document as you can. Example; "repaired or replaced", and "under contract", etc, etc. Also try and think back to all the dealings you've had with the customer reps you were dealing with. Yes, it's pedantic, but being civil and having common courtesy and letting them be the unruly ones can win a lot of times, especially with the customer care specialists, because they've only got one job, and that's to diffuse pissed off customers. If you make it easy on them, they'll probably give you things, like spare batteries (though that's a rarity).

    Oh, and also send of a polite letter to sjobs@apple.com. He doesn't read them, but someone does, so get in line. Your patience may be rewarding. But if your all in a fit and pulling your hair out, feel free to suck on a egg.
    • I've owned Apple products since Apple ][, including many Macs. Had a bad modem on a G3 once. Sent it in, they sent a new one. Recently had a bad remote control on a very new iPod. I went to the web site, entered the problem and had a new control in the mail within 3 days. They didn't ask for the old one back or anything. I know it's only a $40 item, but was nice to have such quick service.

      Bottom line, my experience has been that Apple very rarely breaks, and the few times it did break I was given prompt se

    • so it'll getted modded to -1. But here goes.

      I'll probably be modded off topic for asking, but why is that whenever a post starts of by predicting it will be modded down, it ends up with a 5?
    • I would like to second this comment. I had a bum PowerBook that had problems from almost day one--it was back in the 1400 days-and eventually, after documenting all the problems and being polite I got them to replace the whole unit. This worked great. Unfortunately, I am probably about to do all this again as my PBG4 is also in for repairs. I suggest that we might want to try to get a sense of just how big this PBg4 problem is (on apple.slashdot.org maybe?) as that would give all of us some leverage.

  • powerbook woes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by truffle ( 37924 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @04:31PM (#8718820) Homepage

    Apple has agreements with their parts manufactuers to warrenty parts. I learned this while talking with an apple CSR after my brand new powerbook arrived with a defective screen. Because the screen was flawed, apple wanted to capitalize on their warrenty with the screen manufacturer (Samsung). I don't know if this means they got the new screen for free, or what.

    Given this kind of arrangement I don't think you have much chance in convincing them to give you a brand new machine.

    My own powerbook (15" 1.25Ghz) has been in for servicing 3 times since I got it in November. In general apple's customer service has been terrible. I'm trying not to let it get to me though, but I'll think carefully before I buy my next apple product.
  • My first dealings with apple was when I decided to switch and get a powerbook alum. It was a great machine, even though the battery life was 1.5 hours. I started having the white spot problem and the screen died. I talked with apple and sent the computer back. Since they fixed it I haven't had any problems, but like someone else said it's just like any other computer maker. All products have problems, but it's all in how the company deals with it.

    It seems like apple's arm must be twisted to react to proble

  • Consumer Guarantee's Act (Score:5, Informative)

    by joe90 ( 48497 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @04:46PM (#8719023) Homepage
    IANAL, YMMV etc.

    You can get remedy through the Consumer's Guarantee Act, which requires that either the retailer or importer/wholesaler (if the retailer is out of business or no longer in a position to remedy the problem) must provide goods and services fit for purpose, and be of a sufficient quality to work correctly. Note that this act is usually (unless you get a good lawyer) relevant to goods and services purchased for consumer use rather than for business use.

    It sounds like the device in question is not particularly reliable.

    Do everything in writing, including providing them with a summary of the issues and remedies already attempted. cc the supplier (I think in this case it's Renaissance Corporation Limited).

    If rarking them up this way doesn't work, for the small cost of ~NZD45 you can file a claim with the small claims court which will allow damages of up to either NZD3000 or NZD5000 (I can't remember which) to be awarded (which won't be enough to cover your losses), or you can engage lawyer and take them to court, and possibly settle for the amount you are out of pocket, plus consequential damages. In NZ you would be surprised how fast a company remedies a situation when a bailiff turns up with a court summons for a company director. You can get the names of the director(s) from the New Zealand Companies Office [companies.govt.nz].
    • around here(Finland) at least he should be able to bring up the issue with the retailer. here the retailer is the one who is responsible to the customer(not some faceless corp thousand miles away), so when something breaks you go to the place you bought it from, or if it has gone bankrupt, you go to the importer and if all else fails try to contact the manufacturers themselfs. also when something breaks and the warranty repairing is starting to take unusually long you can try to get a replacement(maybe diff

  • This bloke is a friend of mine... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Colitis ( 8283 ) <jj@walker.outlook@co@nz> on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @04:48PM (#8719043)
    I've heard the whole sorry saga straight from the horse's mouth. He's come over more than once wanting to borrow my iBook PSU to confirm it's his PSU that's dead not his PowerBook; I've seen the ugly flaking paint that resulted in his top case being replaced, and heard the stories about the other failures. Recently I had him round to target-disk a backup image of his HD onto my G5 (which incidentally has the power supply chirp issue, and my iBook has had a logic board replacement) in the hope that his machine would be replaced soon.

    Apparently Apple were suggesting that maybe he was abusing it, which is somewhat ironic considering I'd expect the HD and optical drive to be suffering in that situation, and those two *non-Apple* parts are still working fine. About the only ones that haven't been problematic, in fact.
    • Is he using a (relatively new) surge protector with his laptop? All the time?
      • Is he using a (relatively new) surge protector with his laptop? All the time?

        Setting aside the fact that his house is full of all sorts of other electronic equipment - ADSL modems, switches, wireless base stations, TVs, videos, stereos, other laptops, desktop computers etc - that aren't blowing up, why should he have to? And how can power contribute to a battery that comes loose or paint that flakes off or a hinge that breaks?
      • Mate, if I had a digital camera I'd show you a picture of my power supply. It has a surge protector cable tied to the plug because people kept nicking them whenever I went out anywhere. So in answer to your question, YES. ALL THE TIME.
  • Somehow I doubt this is anything specific to Apple. It happens to damn near every electronic device you can buy. I've never heard of someone having this many problems with any product. What type of an environment do you use it in? It seems like there's probably some external, perhaps unknown, factor at work here. Try to figure out if that could be the case, like perhaps you do have dirty power as was suggested by another reply.
    • Me too, I'm certain that most of the PowerBooks that Apple sell don't have half as many problems as mine. I'm not trying to suggest that Apple rampantly sell crap as a matter of course.

      What I'm saying is that my Powerbook is not up to scratch, that Apple have had their chance to try to repair it, and that I think it's only fair that I get a replacement machine, so that I can get the same experience that most other Powerbook G4 owners have had.

      The problems have occurred in different places, under different

  • How to do it... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I have had one of my powerbooks replaced and I have lobbied on behalf of my customers on a few occasions sucessfully for replacements. There is no firm threshold, but usually after 3 major repairs (logic board, HD, etc) you can argue successfully for a replacement if you are still under warranty. 1st, like previous posts, gather all prior case numbers etc.... If you took it to a shop get their SRO numbers from your repair. Apple can look up the case history on your machine, but it is more important that
  • and they both got them replaced with newer models after three problems over the course of many months. One girl had her Pismo replaced with a TiBook on her third return in ~6 months and a guy had his 5300 replaced by a 1400 (that doesn't look like it would have been an upgrade, does it - even crazier model numbering than Winblows 95 - 98 - Me or NT 3.5 - 4 -2000) when he'd had the 5300 for well over a year.

    From what I've heard about Apple repairs, it's the luck of the draw as to how you're treated. :(

  • Compusa TAP (Score:2, Interesting)

    by lullabud ( 679893 )
    Reasons like this are why I skipped out on AppleCare and went with a CompUSA warranty.

    http://www.compusa.com/tech_services/serviceplans. asp

    Notice the "No Lemon Guarantee" which says that the product will be replaced if a single component fails three times. I've had several amigos with laptops that have failed who have ended up with a better generation one, such as going from a G3 PowerBook to an original G4 TiBook, at no cost over the inital price of the warranty.
  • No offense to the original poster, BUT THE MACHINE IS OVER 2 YEARS OLD. I've dealt with Apple, Dell, HP, over similar issues and none of them want the machine back, and they will each make you jump through hoops to get the machine taken back.

    It varies from vendor to vendor but typically here's how it works. If within the first 60-90 days after you've purchased your machine, and you've had enough significant repairs, all the vendors above will take the machine back and replace it. The kicker is this rarily
    • No offense to the original poster, BUT THE MACHINE IS OVER 2 YEARS OLD. I've dealt with Apple, Dell, HP, over similar issues and none of them want the machine back, and they will each make you jump through hoops to get the machine taken back.

      Offense taken!

      As I've mentioned, this machine cost nearly ten grand. I'd expect a bit better service when my machine has suffered (since the battery) a string of debilitating failures that have rendered it unsuable, or unportable for nearly four months now. I'd expec
  • I may now [osdir.com] be just getting this resolved.

  • Don't forget that whenever you buy anything that goes wrong, you're primary comeback is against the store that sold it to you, not the manufacturer. Your contract is with the store, and part of a consumer contract is that the goods have to be of merchantable quality. It sounds to me as though your powerbook fails that test. So forget Apple - take the machine back to the store where you bought it and tell them that unless THEY replace the computer, you'll sue them for breach of contract.

    • I have a moral problem with this approach, the store that sold it to me may be a bunch of unscrupulous arseholes, but I won't take them to court unless I really have no other options. It just hurts the store and does nothing whatsover in the way of modifying Apple's behaviour.

      • What's the problem? You bought the machine from the store. They made a profit selling you the machine. Isn't it immoral for them to make money selling machines that don't work? And if it's not their fault that the machine didn't work, well then they can sue Apple for supplying them with a dodgy machine.

        I don't know about NZ and the US, but in England it's only been a year since they passed a law requiring manufacturers to stand by their warranties. Previously the law was that the customer only has a legal
        • I'm in New Zealand, which has a wonderful piece of legislation known as the Consumer Guarantees Act, and a system in addition to Small Claims Court called the Disputes Tribunal which is a tribunal and not a court, basically I would go up against the manager of the store, no lawyers would be present, and we would explain our case to an adjudicator, whose decision would be final.

          Appeals are only permitted if new evidence comes to light, that it can be proven was not available at the time. Like if, for instan
  • Your problem might be that your not getting exactly NEW parts to begin with. I worked out nintendo for a bit, and their refurbished/re-manufactured/repair models were always pieces and parts from other gamecubes that passed certain tests. You may be getting parts from other defective powerbooks, but the parts have passed the preliminary checks. So, it may not be costing apple all that much to replace your parts, because they just switch out working parts from defective models. Now, I have no idea whatsoever

  • Apple replacelemnt policy (Score:3, Informative)

    by abacsalmasi ( 643483 ) <adam&stableresearch,com> on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @07:10PM (#8720589) Homepage
    A few years ago I had major problems with a G4 tower I had purchased. I sent it back through aplpe care and they fixed it, supposedly. The machine kept giving me problems. After about 8 months of dealing with apple and with my apple seller, I was getting nowhere. I had a machine that wouldn't work. By chance I happened to read a very small blurb on the back of one of the apple booklets that came with my tower and it stated that if I wasn't happy with the machine I could return it for a new one or get my money back. My apple seller called apple right away and told them I wanted my money back. Apple then offered me a free upgrade to the top of the line machine. I cannot remember on what piece of paper this was written on, all I know is that it was one one of the original documents that came with my tower. There is hope my son.

  • Case Closed (Score:5, Informative)

    by steeviant ( 677315 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @07:24PM (#8720696)
    Since I submitted this story Apple have agreed to replace my PowerBook because of what appears to have been a typo in the email I recieved from Renaissance, Apple's NZ distributor.

    They still do not accept that nine failures in little over two years (25 months) is enough to warrant the replacement of my Powerbook. They agreed to do this before this article ever saw the light of day.

    Apple were supposed to be contacting me today to inform me of what machine they would be offering as a replacement, but as yet I have not heard. Perhaps they changed their mind about offering a replacement after recieving bad publicity. I'll keep everyone posted.
    • What was the typo? You're kind of light on details -- it seems odd that a typo is what did it.

      • Re:Case Closed (Score:5, Informative)

        by steeviant ( 677315 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @09:02PM (#8721350)
        I'm being deliberately vague about exactly what it was that was said because it is really a matter between Renaissance and Apple, and I don't want to publicly go around saying things that might have legal repurcussions.

        For the record though, someone at Renaissance accidentally typed "including" instead of "excluding" when talking about what would constitute a "replaceable" repair.

    • I ran into a similar situation with Apple, and writing a polite letter to sj@apple.com resulted in getting the situation cleared up. My advice is to do your homework, document everything objectively, and to clearly state what you want the company to do for you.

      Having worked in customer support, I can assure you that too many letters consist of someone venting without saying what their problem is, or how we can help them. Most CSR's just want to know how they can solve your problem, within the limits of wha
    • Hi Steeviant,

      Updated update. Renaissance were supposed to contact me today, and haven't. I wrote an email to Applecare asking what was going on, and they said it's being handled by Renaissance.

      Will see what happens upon the morrow, and post more details here when I get them. Even though nobody is probably interested. :)
      • I now have in my clammy little hands, a brand spanking new, and very shiny PowerBook G4 1GHz/60G/256Mb RAM PowerBook

        I will be taking it in next week to have another 256Mb RAM and an Airport Extreme card added to bring it up to the spec of my old machine. (at no cost to myself of course)

        So all's well that ends well.

        Well almost all. It still disturbs me that the only reason this machine was replaced is because someone made a mistake at Renaissance. Not because they feel that I've had so many problems with

  • My Recent AppleCare Experience (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nalgas D. Lemur ( 105785 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @10:35PM (#8721914)
    I just went through the process of getting my iBook replaced quite recently (the new one should be getting here tomorrow, actually).

    In the past year (I've had it for 15 months, but the problems didn't start until a year ago), it had been in for repairs five times, and not long ago, it started having issues again. Nearly everything in it had already been replaced once already, if not more times than that.

    The previous couple times I'd called in, they'd hinted that they'd do something about it if it had any more problems. For a while it was doing fine, I suspect because I got a new logic boards after they'd resolved the problems they had been prone to. The new logic board was fine, but other stuff started to go.

    In my case, I didn't even have to ask them about getting it replaced this time. I think it had enough frequent flier miles from travelling back and forth across the country from Boston back to Apple that I must've earned a new one. Although it had been fine for a few months after getting the original problems resolved (after a few tries and a few logic boards), they agreed it was ridiculous that it had had so many problems, and they voluntarily replaced it for me without me having to suggest it. I had a few problems with FedEx taking forever to ship the old one back to Apple so it could be processed and the new one sent to me, but everyone at Apple has been extremely helpful about it.

    Without exceptions, everyone I've talked to on the phone has been friendly and professional, and they've generally gone out of their way to get stuff taken care of as well as they could and as quickly as they could. The past couple days, as I've been calling in to check up on the status of the whole process, I've amazingly been on hold for a grand total of under five minutes before getting a real person, and that's over three different calls combined. Except for this most recent time, I've been shocked by how quickly my computer has been returned to me. I call one afternoon, the shipping material arrives the morning, Apple receives and repairs it the next day, and the morning after that, I have a computer again.

    Of course, I would prefer that nothing had gone wrong with my computer in the first place, but this is the first Apple product I've had this kind of trouble with (I was using my Quadra 950, from 1992, as a router until a month ago, when I replaced it with something that could handle 802.11b, and I have stuff older than which still works fine). If anything of mine breaks again that I have to talk to any tech support people about it, I hope it's a product of Apple's again.

    I probably sound like a complete fanboy whoring myself out for Apple, the Great and All-Powerful, but I've really been that impressed with the people working there, even if I've been kind of frustrated by the whole thing (thanks, Josh, Glenn, Greg, and everyone else I've dealt with there).

    (As an added bonus, the model I had (the iBook with an 800MHz G3 from a year and a half ago) was out of stock, so they're replacing it with the current model iBook G4. So, for putting up with everything that went wrong with the old one, I get a new toy. Huzzah!)

  • Apple replaced my TiBook after 4-5 visits.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by ewwhite ( 533880 ) * on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @11:26PM (#8722151) Homepage
    .....for flaking paint (delamination), heat issues, etc...

    I was able to force the issue by going public with my Apple experience [djedwhite.com]
    I eventually received a full replacement, apology and a new, speed-bumped unit that's been extremely-stable since.

    See the various stages of repair below....

    http://www.djedwhite.com/photo/photo.php?dir=Defec tive_Powerbook [djedwhite.com]
    http://www.djedwhite.com/photo/photo.php?dir=Fixed _Powerbook [djedwhite.com]
    http://www.djedwhite.com/photo/photo.php?dir=Old_P owerbook [djedwhite.com]

  • ... and tell them you're the original poster of this /. article.

    Beat them over the head with the clue-stick.

    I for one have been contimplating buying a nice shiny new PAIR of Apple laptops, one for me and one for my wife, but after reading about all the problems people have reported with both the laptops themselves and AppleCare online, and considering that some very small nice laptops in the x86 world go for about $1000 less...

    I can buy a lot of repairs and/or vendor extended-warranty insurance for $2000
  • I bought my iBook from a UK retailer (authorised dealer), who automatically gave me a two year warranty free of charge. So, I didn't buy AppleCare (I'd probably be replacing the thing after two years), when the product breaks it still goes to Apple, and I deal with the retailer (not AppleCare). This has meant I've been given 200 for a single dead pixel (I argued the retailer hadn't told me I might get one), and had another battery (which is currently on the way out, so hopefully it'll die before my warrenty

  • No complaints here.I (Score:3, Informative)

    by tbone1 ( 309237 ) on Wednesday March 31, 2004 @12:40PM (#8726747) Homepage
    I've purchased five new Macs since 1994. In that time I've had one bearing go bad on a fan and a hard drive give up the ghost on a then-five-year-old 6500; a bearing go bad on an 'Superdrive'; and one bad stick of RAM. The first problem was hardly a knock on Apple; that 6500 was used to death (and is still going strong). The RAM was replaced immediately for free, with apologies. Ditto the Superdrive, with ditto. All the service was friendly and quick.

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