Thread: computer warranty

That's a very good point, may be I'll try the double whammy - send mr jobs's secretary an email and contact applecare see if they'll fix it. As soon as I get my data out of it and I'll see if anything can be done.

Perhaps I'll get to keep all my razors

Originally Posted by Quick Orange

Hey, if you have open bug reports that date to before the warranty went out, you have standing to get things done. Call applecare and try to get them to put through a work order for you and let them know about these open disputes.

If you can get the Mac to boot, you can try using the OS install disc to do a Recover and Archive to an external drive. Instructions are out on Apple.com. Basically, it makes a copy of your old system in it's entirety. Then you can try and reinstall OSX and after it is back, copy the files you need to from the archive. It takes awhile to do.

If that isn't an option and you have bug reports that were not properly resolved, then the issue is still open....raise holy hell.

1. Email Stevie Jobs.
2. Contact customer support and immediately ask for a supervisor (don't take any crap that they can't get one - the customer care department isn't a commune - someone is in charge). Advise them of the dates/times and problems and that they are still unresolved. If they give you the "it's out of warranty" song-and-dance, let them know it was not working while under warranty....and that you have let Mr. Jobs know this.

If, after all of the above, they still give you crap, the next step is sort of a shotgun blast approach which will ruin their day...but it will take some effort on your part. You can do as much or as little as you feel necessary.

3. Draft communications to the following, including a CC list of all addressees on each copy of the letter:

- Apple Board of Directors (one letter for each one of them)
- Your State's Attorney General Consumer Division
- the Better Business Bureau in the city where you bought the Mac (did you get it at an Apple store?)
- the editors of MacWorld, CNET, Ars Technica, etc.

I had to do some of the above with a laptop I purchased from ASUS the make motherboards and boutique laptops....they should stick to motherboards)...which overheated to the point that I could not touch the case. One of the idiots in Support told me that I had too much software on it (!!!!!). I was RMA'd 3 times, replaced entirely one time. After the performance continued to deteriorate, I switched to a Mac.

The above may sound ab it rough, but I do it with a great amount of charm.

If you haven't gone to an Apple store, you may try that...the guys at the store I got to are great...they helped me get an archive of my old system (after the firmware update made it go splat) and even stayed late after closing to get the archive out on my external drive. Do you do backups? I have 2 externals attached to my MacBook, 1 for manual archiving and one for Apple's TimeMachine back up, for a total available space of 750Gb.

Originally Posted by WireBeard

3. Draft communications to the following, including a CC list of all addressees on each copy of the letter:

- Apple Board of Directors (one letter for each one of them)
- Your State's Attorney General Consumer Division
- the Better Business Bureau in the city where you bought the Mac (did you get it at an Apple store?)
- the editors of MacWorld, CNET, Ars Technica, etc.

I'd actually split that #3 into two parts... and add consumerist.com to the second part.

reporting things like this to the bbb and consumer advocate websites is a threat well used, but if they see it's been cc'd to such the damage is done. they want to prevent you from contacting those places. So I'd suggest blasting the board of directors with a mention of hitting up the consumer advocate sites so that they feel that thy are under pressure to prevent it from going big time.

Granted hitting them all up at once will probably work too, but I think they'd be more anxious about preventing rather than containing a complaint to the big guys.

Originally Posted by gugi

- do you expect your computers to last more than 1 year?

I expect my computers to last until the apocalypse. The only thing I accept is that a hard disk dies from wear on the ball bearings, and laptop batteries losing capacity.

I have a dual PIII in the basement that is 7 years old, and which works without a hitch.

I have a laptop that is just as old, with a busted battery and on its 4th hard disk, but otherwise working fine.

I see no reason why a computer should die of old age.

Originally Posted by gugi

- do you purchase the extended warranty?

No, but then again I build my computers myself, and pay for quality components instead of no-name kit.
Also very important: pay attention to cooling. High quality CPU coolers and case fans are worth their money.

I know mac minis have significant heat problems.

Originally Posted by gugi

- is 1/4 of the computer cost acceptable amount for a 2 year warranty, beyond 1st year?

No, because given the rapid devaluation of computer parts, if you have to replace parts after a year, that money will buy you a lot of components.
Of course, this only applies if you build your own computer.
Brand PCs usually can be maintained pretty easily as well, as long as the motherboard doesn't fry.

Originally Posted by Bruno

I see no reason why a computer should die of old age.

Yup. I used to have an old 233 that was actually a pretty mean little sucker. It could run photoshop CS well and pretty much do anything but cpu intensive operations extremely well. You can imagine my dismay when I went to look for it in storage and it was GONE! I could subject that computer to damn near anything and it'd just keep truckin'. Let's hear it for home made pc's

I wish we could build our own laptops. That'd be awesome.

Originally Posted by gugi

Well, since my computer died for no good reason whatsoever and there's no cheap way to repair it, I thought I'd check whether I am expecting too much.

So, my mac mini just died, few months after the 1 year warranty expired. Fixing it is as expensive as buying a new one. I had refused to purchase the optional 2 more years of warranty for 150, since this is 1/4 of the cost of the computer itself. In fact I was pretty pissed off at Apple because the several times I've called them with a problem they didn't seem to care at all what I'm having issues with, but were quite pushy to sell me the extended warranty. In fact the last time the douchebag tried to tell me how great of a thing it is, my response was 'If Apple cannot make a computer that lasts more than a year I am just going to have to find a company that can'. Now I have the opportunity to live up to my cockyness.

I have built (or ordered to be built) computers from commodity parts by the tens and the hundreds and that has been quite successful, but specialized brand name computers (e.g. laptops, and the mini is really a laptop w/o the screen) are a whole other thing.

So, my questions are:
- do you expect your computers to last more than 1 year?
- do you purchase the extended warranty?
- is 1/4 of the computer cost acceptable amount for a 2 year warranty, beyond 1st year?

I had considered these questions when I was deciding on it and my answers were no, so I have taken the risk and I'm paying for it now. I am just curious what others do, as I may be misunderestimating that risk.

1 yes, definately. I expect EVERYTHING that I pay over $200 for to last more than a year.
2 no. If the things doesn't break down DURING the normal warranty then it's probably not going to break down during the extended warranty but after that as well.
3 NO. I do not. By the time the extended warranty is needed most computers will only be worth about half what they were when I bought them. So by that time the extended warranty will be almost 50% of the price.

I understand however that Mac's keep value very well so it might be different for those.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

I understand however that Mac's keep value very well so it might be different for those.

Yeah looking on ebay it seems that by the time the initial warranty expires the macs loose 1/4 of their value and the extended warranty is 1/3 of the price.

The system boots, however it has gotten to the point where it doesn't see the harddrive anymore (from the BIOS), so the way to get my data off it is to take it apart, and connect the harddrive to an external enclosure. I have some old backups of it, the stuff on that drive isn't critical (most of my stuff lives on the much larger external drives), but I see no reason to give it up, when the disk is perfectly fine. The test from the system install/restore DVD stops at the first error it finds and that is problems with the harddrive.

And I won't be able to go the an apple store as the closest ones are about 2 hour drive from me.

Looks like the collective wisdom is indeed far superior than my own, thanks for all the advise, guys. Looking at this again I am convinced that this mac had hardware issues from day one - the problems were intermittent though (using bluetooth will cause the computer to crash after a while) and after not getting proper attention from apple I just used workaround (disable the bluetooth).

I like the plan you guys suggested - call apple/email sjobs, if that doesn't help contacting the consumer advocate groups may do, (hopefully threatening with it should be enough).
I don't think that's rough at all - I've been extremely good customer and very helpful with investigating the problems, if they'd had paid attention the computer should've gone for service long ago and I wouldn't have to be doing this now. And I'm usually pretty nice with customer service as long as they are doing their job and don't try to BS me.

Will post how things go.

Originally Posted by jaegerhund

It's too bad you're having problems with the Mac Mini ----- do you think this is a fluke or do you think Macintosh is starting or has been producing lower quality products -- I want to like them and hope this isn't the case.

I've heard quite a lot of Mac trouble lately, a friend thought it might because demand is increasing and they're dumping quality to churn out more units.

I have an extended warranty on one laptop I own, but not the second. I need to guarantee access to the internet so I have some redundancy. The extended warranty has paid for itself 3 times over.

One thing to consider is "typical use". As with all things if you drive a car farther than "typical" you might want to consider a better than standard warranty.

My laptops are on atleast 8 hours a day, what I would consider way beyond typical use.

I would bet the statistical typical use of a laptop is 8 hours per week, meaning that essentially I abuse my poor little laptop.

I've really been impressed with Dell. I live out in the boonies and when my computer has broken down (twice now) they have sent out a repair technician directly to my home to replace all the components that were not working within 24 hours. I honestly don't see this type of customer service much anymore.

I had an extended warranty through Ford (which was not actually Ford it was subpurchased) and when my truck broke down with repairs beyond the cost of the extended warranty they said "Screw you, were not going to fix it. What are you going to do, not buy another Ford?"

Originally Posted by gugi

Looks like the collective wisdom is indeed far superior than my own, thanks for all the advise, guys. Looking at this again I am convinced that this mac had hardware issues from day one - the problems were intermittent though (using bluetooth will cause the computer to crash after a while) and after not getting proper attention from apple I just used workaround (disable the bluetooth).
.

Bluetooth is notorious for messing up systems. I've had nothing but trouble from it on computers. Bluetooth...very handy for mobile phones and such....not very good for computers it seems.