Every time Apple has been great. It goes away to Memphis and coes back super fast. This time, is different. It has been in repair for three days. Still in repair. Normally it would be back by now. When I called Apple this morning I did not have my service request number. They could not find it! Turns out some glitch kept it from appearing on my email addy. I went and borrowed a friends PC EWWWWW and setup an email account for myself. I retireved my case ID from the mail in request.

I just got off the phone with a very sweet girl from Apple. She called the Depot. It is in Engineering and will be there few more days? OK look, I love my Mac but it has been broken so many times and in for repairs so many times. At what point will they swap it out?

We had one of our G4 ibooks that was in for repair alot. They replaced it the third time. I guess they dont do that anymore? IN the meantime…… I have reports due to the FEDS. We already lost time and asked for an extension with the Ice storm. Wanna bet I lose this grant over it??

Ugh

Came back, problem solved. The only issue was that the techs in the back room must cover their workbench with sandpaper, because the bottom of the Macbook was pretty scratched up. (heh, heh – of course, Apple is still in denial that highly polished acrylic scratches at all) But I didn’t buy it to be pretty, I bought it to use.

I’ve since scratched it up further myself, so recently covered it with an Incase Hardshell case. Not bad, and the Apple logo looks kinda cool glowing thru the translucent, matte black plastic on the lid ;)

like flickr, when it says

Yasou yorgos.athens!
Now you know how to greet people in Greek!

Long, long story short, my primary machine broke down, and it took over 80 days for me to get it back in working order.

Needs to be fixed. Hopefully it will.

While spending a week out in Hawaii to chill with the guys I now work with, I managed to spill some delicious Hawaiian Guava juice all over my keyboard. I tried my best to clean it up and absorb all the sugary gook but resistance was futile and eventually the keyboard resembled that of a teenager who just learned how to beat the meat to online porn. Keys were sticky, and it sucked to use. Plus, (unrelated to the guava spill) the little teeny bit of metal between the inside keyboard surface and the top of the latch release button had foob’d itself and was protruding outward.

They seriously did an impeccable job fixing the laptop. Replaced it under Apple Care 100% free even though it was clearly my fault for spilling the juice on the keyboard (The Apple store denied me service… suggesting that since the logic board wasn’t damaged they couldn’t do anything, even if I paid to have it done). I was so fed up with the sticky gook and the inability to efficiently code that I was even prepared to pay whatever it might cost to replace the KB.

I called on a Tuesday afternoon, and after explaining my dilemma and my willingness to pay to have it fixed, like an old friend, they told me they would do it free under AppleCare without a cent out of my pocket and that I needn’t worry about it. They ordered the replacement keyboard that day and a few days later gave me a call letting me know I could bring it in any time.

After being awake for wayyyy too long hacking all night long on some web projects, I took the laptop in and headed home for a nap. They would call me when it was done. Not an hour into my snoozin’ I got a phone call and the thing was ready. I managed to get my lazy ass out of bed and drove down there to find an entirely new keyboard, an entirely new trackpad (ah yes failed to mention my trackpad button was totally foobar… and would click occasionally but sometimes would double click… it was totally a gonner), plus they fixed the bulge in the front of the case (which I didn’t even ask for).

I signed one document stating that I was picking it up and that the repair was complete, and headed home with what felt like a new laptop, and feeling like a million bucks. I’ve never had such an amazing customer service experience in my entire (short 19 year old) life. I love my gadgetry, as most Apple people probably do, and felt that Di-no certainly understood that.

Subsequently not too long ago my laptop was stolen. Miss that thing dearly :( I do love my brand new unibody though, excellent machine.

And heh, no I do not work for Di-no… but I have popped two adderalls in the passed 24 hours plus a 5 shot latte a few minutes ago and have been working like a feind all night long. Amphetamines FTW!!

Since that swap out, Apple seems to do more and more of the repairs in the stores. I believe the only thing they send out the laptops for now is if the main logic board needs to be replaced.

Sorry you’ve had such a craptastic experience. May I suggest dropping an email to someone on the executive board? Nudge nudge, wink wink.

The 2.1Ghz machine is a core duo mbp (rev. a), the 2.2Ghz is a core 2 duo machine. The difference in terms of the amount of heat they produce, and thusly the amount of noise the fans make, is like night and day. the 2.1Ghz is more than likely completely fine.

as for the air, did you check the serial on the back with the serial in the system profiler? its possible the back case was taken off and mistakenly put on a different machine. the way those computers are assembled makes that make a lot more sense then them replacing the keyboards.

However, when parts get repaired, each unit is run for 3 hours, sometimes more. What ends up happening is that something will fail during those tests. Thats why you might send in a unit for backlight issues but have to get a new harddrive.

It strikes me as odd that they would have replaced the whole “unibody”, as that’s what they would have had to do change the keyboard. You may have received a new logic board, etc. as well, as they’re screwed to the unibody, and perhaps the whole part was replaced to fix your mini dvi port. Very odd indeed.

I think replacing with a refurbished system is in order. Your argument could be that repairing again would involve so many components, that it would essentially require a full refurbishment (new unibody+logic board, plus screen bezel, presumably, plus labor).

Seeing as you’ve been inconvenienced once thus far by being without your computer for significantly longer than the quoted repair period, I’d as for a mail exchange refurb unit.

Best of luck!

My girlfriend, however, has had numerous minor issues with her MBP (she got it exactly 2 years ago and still has AppleCare). The fan comes on constantly yet Apple says this is normal… but it’s not. My brother has almost the exact same model of MBP, only the version that was released 6 months after my gf’s. The fan on his almost never comes on, even when running them side by side with the same apps, while the fan on my gf’s MBP comes on after 5 minutes of use. I think the only real difference between the two machines (at least on paper) is that hers has a 2.1 Ghz processor and his has a 2.2 Ghz processor or something like that. If anything, the faster MBP should be running hotter and using the fan more!

Something is not right when her MBP fan is running almost constantly at full speed while other MBPs don’t have that issue. We are thinking about taking it back to the Apple Store yet again and hopefully will get a new technician who will be more sympathetic.

iPod Mini (1 repair): Scroll wheel died. Mailed it away to Apple in a provided box and got a brand new one in return. Worked for me!

1.83GHz MacBook Pro (10 repairs):
- Battery x4
- Left fan
- Right fan
- Keyboard
- Optical Drive
- Display
- Logic Board

Batteries were always replaced by mail. A bit of a pain in the ass, because all four of them died just beyond their warranty (one year initially, 90 days from replacement there on out), but I got them covered anyway. Which was nice, no real complaints.

The rest of it was all done at two different authorized repair centers (no Apple store here), the one of which I now work at. The one I don’t work at had awful hours and couldn’t find the issue with my machine with my first failure (intermittent issue w/ logic board), so I tried out the other store. Takes a while to get things repaired, about 1-3 weeks (three if you’re hard to contact), but the work is *always* done right, and not only for staff. ;)

Apple replaced the computer a few weeks ago with a new 2.4GHz system w/ free DisplayPort to DVI adapter, and let me custom order it with a 320GB HDD and 4GB RAM, so hopefully I won’t be taking a system in for repairs again any time soon. :)

Rest:

- iPod Headphones x3, iPhone Headphones x4
- Mighty Mouse (wired) x2

All done over the phone, all a pain because they want a credit card number before they replace the item (which I don’t have), but still pretty easy to replace and provided you give them a working credit card number, they send the new item before you send your old one in.

Now, as for your situation:

Did they agree to replace the bezel initially? Normally problems like that are your problem because it’s not a manufacturers defect (or so I’ve seen).

While I’m sure you have/will contact AppleCare once again and send it off for repairs, it might be worth contacting customer relations first and bitch them out for it, mentioning the nice post on Consumerist. You could probably get a free iPod or something for your trouble.

Sorry you got the crap end of the stick Paul…