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Apple Expands (Again) iBook Logic-Board Program
JMZorko writes "Apple has extended the repair program to widen the serial # range yet again for iBooks experiencing the dreaded, dreaded (and did I say dreaded?) video problems. It now includes serial #s up to the UV342 range (which, sadly, mine is in .. here I thought I finally got one that would stay with me for awhile, sigh)."
Man, I feel lucky that I had my iBook problems well before apple "announced" the issue. My iBook failed for the fourth time around September of last year, and rather than just blindly send it in again, I got on the phone with a customer representative and bitched my way up the phone chain until I got in touch with someone who could help.
After a bit of discussion (namely that I no longer trusted in the worry-free operation of my laptop), I got them to refund the money I paid for my then year-old iBook and use the money to purchase a new PowerBook. Of course I also had to send them a cashier's check for the difference, but I feel that the upgrade was worth it.
Ever since the iBook repair extension was announced, it seems that Apple has changed their stance on this issue. Had my iBook died a few months later, they would have just replaced the logic board again instead of letting me come up with some other options.
AFAIK only the G3 dual USB's were affected.
You should be good with the current batch of G4 iBook's.
Get one, you won't regret it...
If your iBook is not actually experiencing any problems, what's there to be sad about? Since the entire line is several months old now, you should be well into the safe area of the bathtub curve.
It looks like Apple is really going out of its was to honor the quality of the product, even outside the 12 month warranty. I think this is admirable.
But Apple is sort of in a damned if you do/don't situation. They don't have a large market share to begin with and they obviously have a defective product so if they did NOT repair them, it would probably lead to negative publicity (both for not repairing them and having a poor quality product) and they would most likely (in my opinon) lose customers.
My Ti PowerBook (400Mhz G4) was a first gen Ti book and I love the thing but it is starting to show signs of aging (booting the computer always takes a couple trys...odd) but over all, I am very satisfied with the workmanship of this and other Apple products I own. Compared to my Dell, Gateway, and Sony consumer devices, I am happy to spend the premium for Apple's quality and service (when the quality doesn't suffice).
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
I am an ex-Genius, so let me tell you how we handled this kind of situation:
All that said, generally if a customer had worked with us through three repairs of a unit, especially of the same component, we escalated the issue and generally that customer's unit was replaced. My inclination is that the ability to secure a replacement had something to do with product refresh cycles--you're much more likely to get a better unit if the line is about to be refreshed and they want to clear inventory, for example. Otherwise, you'll get a comparable unit in specs or the lowest new model that still meets those specs and features.
Bottomline--after three repairs you should explain your case, describe your patience and willingness to work through the issue, but that your willingness has now come to an end. Polite but firm is the order of the day--don't whinge, don't scream and shout and call people names or impune their ancestry and professionalism, but you also should resist being bullied, and if they've already tried three times, they'll ask for a fourth attempt, but if you're firm and polite you should be able to refuse that. Ask to speak to a "Customer Service" Rep, as there is a group at Apple that does this full time and is a different group than either the AppleCare agents or the Geniuses. They can facilitate this for you, but you need to ask to talk to them, ask to talk to them directly, and are very relunctant to help if you haven't given Apple three chances already. However, if you have, I think that they'll satisfy you.
I can say that these instances were pretty freakin' rare--while certainly Macs break, we pretty much always got it fixed on the first attempt and then did our damnednest to get it done on the second. I think I can count on one hand the number of times a unit failed after three attempts, in the 18 mos that I worked as a Genius. And for those, we helped the customer with CR best we could, so if one is available they may prove to be a valuable ally. Good luck.
--
$tar -xvf
FYI, the opening characters in the serial codes Apple uses indicate the product class & manufacture date of the product.
The initial letters of the serial string indicate the class of product. The letters "UV", for example, seem to be the code for iBooks, while iPods may start with "JQ" and a Powermac G5 may start with "XB". (I haven't yet figured out how often the letters are changed -- if, for example, the original iBook or the later G4 iBook had codes other than "UV" -- but whatever.)
More interestingly, the three digits following those first two letters indicate the year and the week during which that device was manufactured. So, for example, by setting the recall range to iBooks with codes from UV117XXXXXX to UV342XXXXXX, what they're admitting is that they had a problem from the 17th week of 2001 -- that is, the week starting Sunday, 22 Apr 2001 -- through the 42nd week of 2003 -- that is, Sunday, 12 Oct 2003. Approximately -- I'm not sure what day of the week they start counting on, or if Wednesday 1 Jan counts as being part of the 53rd week of the previous year, but again, whatever.
So, what they're saying is that all iBooks manufactured over a 30 month range had at least the possibility of a severe manufacturing defect.
Ouch.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
I do have a question, though...they reinstalled Panther (10.3.2) and gave me specific Panther CD's (again, 10.3.2) because the new logic board is apparently incompatible with anything lower. Also, the "Details" section of the repair certificate says "Diagnostic, PCBA, MLB, 700Mhz, OASIS, iBook,,A12". I interpret the first two acronyms to be Printed Circuit Board Assembly and Main Logic Board; does the A12 at the end refer to the 12" aluminum G4 PB? Is this motherboard, which only supports 10.3.2 and may be common with a PB mobo, perhaps upgraded or faster than the original? (sounds too good to be true...it probably is) Is there any way I can tell?
Call a lot, and if need be yell.
I hope you tried being polite first. And by "call a lot", unless they are stuffing you around/missed dates, once a day is tolerable.
As someone who's worked on tech support, a rational explanation of your history and situation can command respect without the need for any yelling, abuse, or threats.
Does Apple track support accounts using support IDs? If so I can guarantee that from now on, every time you call, they punch your number in, your past behaviour will be flagged on their system. On our system, customers flagged AH were prioritized at the end of the queue for their support category when the shop is overloaded with work.
If the customer starts abusing/swearing at any staff, policy was that the boss could order jobs to be reverted/cancelled, the account to be settled and closed. Seen that a few times; even refunded/re-acquired systems and networking hardware, labour etc. to take their trading value back to $0. In other words, no longer our customer. At all.
We're just not interested in doing business with abusive arseholes. On the other hand, Apple has a legal obligation towards your warranty support so they have no choice in what customers they can get rid of.
If they were the ones that were being rude to you first, try and speak to a different operator. This might just mean hanging up and trying again. They're not all the same - their HR department/colleagues may even be interested to hear what you have to say about Joe Operator if he was being deliberately unhelpful or incompetent. They won't know until you tell them about it.
Did you provide any history/details or talk to anyone handling the repair job? I'm not sure how Apple works, but with Canon/HP/Oki/LGe/Acer etc. the actual repair job may be dispatched to a 3rd party general purpose repair centre with different job system.
Is it possible Apple was not providing repair history to the repair centre? Perhaps even sending it to different repair centres each time? If the first phone call you made was after the 4th job, that may be why it had seen 4 attempts.
But you're right Apple saves pennies by jerking customer's chains when they want them replaced, and they really shouldn't.
In your case, four times, same fault - sure. At our shop, though, we had some customers demand complete replacement systems even on the first failure (simply because it's new, it surely can't fail!). If your system has had two or three unrelated failures, it can be quite hard to convince you that the repaired system is no more likely to fail than a whole new one.
It's a big decision to replace a whole system, since you've essentially got rid of 2 systems + parts + labour for the price of one.
Just remember that the poor schmuck on the other end of the phone is just trying to do their job, yelling and screaming will rarely help your situation, you need to co-operate and help him/her help YOU.
If up-front abuse does work, that's probably at the expense of standard operating procedure, dignity, and the support guy being intimidated (wants you off his back).
I have been outright lied to, I have been transfered, put on hold for hours, and the whole nine yards...
Was this before or after the yelling? If before, I hope you made a complaint. They want to know if their system is working, but those that have the power to fix things won't know unless you provide FEEDBACK.
If after you lost your temper, well, they were probably overloaded and had hundreds of other callers who were being polite and helpful. If you could pick and choose, what would you do? Do you think your yelling helped your situation in a positive way?