CracBook anyone?
 

I've had my MacBook for over a year now, and I haven't had any real problems with it, besides the occasional hiccup in the hardware or the OS, which you get no matter how good anything is.

However, just last night, I noticed there is a splinter-style crack on the casing, right where you rest your wrists when you type--right on the edge where the magnet is...the one that holds the screen closed. The crack is situated right below the magnet to the edge where the bevel is. I've put a piece of tape on it to prevent it from splintering further down the line, but right now it appears to be the same length as the magnet.

Coincidence?

Apparently not. I've read on a few forums that this is a problem some have had. I can actually see the where the magnets are through the casing. I can't remember if this was always so. Is this from wear & tear instead? Is this a problem any of you have had? If not, you might want to be a bit concerned, because it sucks.

I don't have Applecare, and I didn't buy it directly from Apple, but I've made a Genius appointment with the hope that he or she will tell me it's a manufacturer's defect (some forums have mentioned that) and will replace it free of charge. If not, I might just leave it. God knows what it might cost to replace the whole cover. I'll have to play it by ear. Either way, it's a bad time to have my Mac in for repair. I have books due to the printer in a couple of weeks.

Meh.

What are your thoughts on this?

I know that Apple products are pretty proprietary but is there a secondary market for cases or covers that you could buy to swap out with yours?

Damn. Yeah, the genius bar is the best way to go about this, but you're likely going to pay. My guess is that, assuming your Mac store is as busy as the one here, you'll get it back Tuesday.

I went to the Mac store in the Eaton's Centre in Toronto the last time I was there, because I'm considering a Mac for my music. I honestly wasn't too impressed with them. I may have caught them on a bad day, though; it was pretty busy in there.

Take it to the Genius Bar, but if it's expensive let me know. I'll check with some of my more Mac-wise friends and see if there's any alternatives. My internet gets pulled for the move tomorrow so I won't be online for a day or two, but if you still have my cell phone number you can send me a text message.

Unfortunately, it seems to be a somewhat common problem. My sister and a friend of hers have had the same issue..

I have an update on this situation, and it is rather serendipitous.

I had a pretty bad morning today: I sat down to a rush project in the middle of my busy editorial season only to find my Macbook had suffered a hard drive failure (everything I tried confirmed this).

Now, I have the Time Machine/Time Capsule backup, so I'm not worried. However, I needed to replace my hard drive (or at least prove me wrong that it died).

I made a quick Genius apointment and went downtown for an 11:45.

The Genius happened to be a woman who was a manager at the bookstore I worked at 5 or so years ago, so that was interesting. We always got along, so it made the appointment that much less stressful.

Anyway, she confirmed that the hard drive indeed died. At this point, I'm thinking, damn it, I can't really afford this right now.... My Macbook is about two years past warranty. But I remained cheerful and optimistic. Maybe hard drives are really cheap these days.

However, as it happens, my Macbook model qualifies for a free hard drive replacement until the end of this year. (Yay, Apple!) So she doesn't just replace my dead hard drive---she replaces my 120 GB Seagate HD with a 150 GB Toshiba! Sweet dealio, no?

Also---and here we come to it---she points out that my chipped/cracked faceplate also qualifies for a free replacement, but it will take one business day. So I'll be heading back before the end of the year to get it fixed free of charge!

So I'm quite happy with Apple's service as a company. They replaced my dead hard drive well past the manufacturer's warranty, and they will be replacing the faceplate at no charge too. And the appointment/hard drive replacement took all of 15 minutes despite it being hella busy in the store.

When I owned my mac, I was always pleased with their coverage on their warranties. I got the extended warranty for both my laptop and my ipods. They're more than happy to replace broken parts. Any troubles I ever had were covered. I owned the powerbook, and it does overheat because its an aluminum casing. They had to replace the bottom casing cause it warped from the heat. Also the bevels in the top would lose their threading and pop out sometimes, so they replaced the top screen completely.
I remember having hard drive problems as well, which they fixed.
Macs are good for that kind of thing. :)
Glad to hear they could help you out.

Sweet!

My mom has had great service through AppleCare as well as the Genius Bar, which is good, because I can't solve everything over the phone.

But, you see, that's the crazy thing. The hard drive replacement wasn't even under AppleCare (which I don't have); it wasn't even under warranty.

I'm sorry, but that's pretty impressive.

It probably was under some sort of warranty agreement. The MTBF (mean time before failure) was probably a lot higher than the realistic time of failure. They just figured there was a direct replacement for those that did have these hard dives in their builds. Once out in the wild, they would dare not do any sort of recall, just replace them if they came into the store. Cheap and better PR.

A side of me has thought of this: that the HD wasn't up to par and that's why they replace them, no questions asked.

Regardless, I'm one who believes that warranties are essentially a company's belief in their products. Apple believes, by default, that their products should be relatively fail-free for 1 year. After that, you're on your own for repairs unless you get the extended warranty.

It's been nearly 3 years, I was expecting to pay. I figured it was my responsibility to pay for this repair, not theirs.

They want you to believe that.

Actually many computer parts within the product are actually 3 year labor and parts warranty some are even lifetime direct from the manufacturer. This is especially true for the better components. They are this by default so that they can sell the extended warranty and make cash and NEVER pay out on the warranty repair.

I had some LCD screen die just under the 3 years. I did not know it at that it was still under warranty time but I wanted new monitors, the difference from 19" to 22" widescreen was too great a lure. Like you, I was under the impression it was 1 year parts and labor like most things.

I never buy extended warranties. I've never been caught regretting it before. It's still the case. I don't regret not getting AppleCare.

I feel like I lucked out; but what you're telling me is that I shouldn't have had to buy AppleCare in the first place.

I was looking for some new hard drives this morning... thought of this thread when I read the warranty on them.

Just to give you an idea on warranties for hard drives...

All Apple did was absorb the cost of someone installing it. In a Macbook? Probably total time 15 minutes. They have a happy as shit customer with little to no cost to them.

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/mac...ddrive_diy.pdf

Interesting.

• It took less than 15 minutes.
• Yes, I'm as happy as shit.
• The person who installed it has to be earning retail wages.

that kind of PR is worth paying that tech the retail wages... not to mention future profits because you'll be more inclined to buy an Apple product in the future. Brand loyalty building at it's finest.