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Macbook Owner With Defective GPU Beats Apple In Court
New submitter RockoW writes "A few years ago, Apple sold defective computers of the MacBook Pro line. They had the defective Nvidia 8600M GT GPU. In this case Apple refused to take the computer back and issue me a refund. Instead, they promised to replace the 8600M GT boards when they failed, up to four years from the date of purchase. Three years later, the MacBook Pro failed and they refused to replace it. This guy took them to the court and won by their own means."
Apple is responsible for the products it supplies. It is up to Apple to seek damages from Nvidia, not the consumers.
Nvidia settled a class action lawsuit about these GPUs.
(link: http://www.techspot.com/news/43614-customers-get-shafted-in-nvidia-class-action-suit.html)
Don't be so blind. The customer purchased the computer AND an extended warranty from Apple. The GPU manufacturer said to all parties they will foot the bill for the defective hardware. The repair was free for Apple, but they decided to take this customer to court just because. Then, in court, they lied to the judge, saying that the hardware was different, etc. Apple is usually good with warranties, but notoriously for forcing their way on everybody, be it for good or bad. In this case, they were wrong, and behave like morons, and drag one of their customers to court. It is infuriating.
For more details on the problem check this link. Here's the header:
I'm surprised anyone has been refused replacement inside 4 years. I bet I've repaired around 170 of these units for this problem, and I have only just recently started seeing Apple refuse a warranty repair, because the computers are starting to cross 4 years old. The only time I see problems of this nature is if they purchase old stock and don't register. Apple assumes a computer is sold 30 days after manufacture if you don't send in your registration. If you need warranty service and are on the edge you may need to submit your proof of purchase to update your purchase date on record with Apple to get warranty coverage. Maybe that played into this case?
And this problem stems not from Apple, but from Nvidia. I started seeing this issue on new machines a few months after this model was first released, and Apple started going rounds with Nvidia around the 10 month mark, just before these machines were going to start falling out of the 1 year warranty. Nvidia insisted this was not a defect and refused to cover anything. We had to start refusing repairs for some machines after the 1 year mark. Then about 2 months after that I found that Apple had gotten sick of Nvidia stalling and denying, and decided to cover these repairs, before they had even gotten Nvidia to budge. Apple sent notice to users that had paid for a repair that would now be considered covered, and refunds were issued. Apple started the repair extension program for this issue and covered repairs from that point forward. This was months before Nvidia was forced to accept responsibility and start reimbursing Apple for the defect.
So I find it unfortunate that Apple is receiving a lot of FUD and bad press on this. They do tend to go the extra mile for their customers, they're consistently rated at the TOP for customer service. They were footing the bill for Nvidia's screw-up long before they were guaranteed of getting anything back. Try to find an example of that from any of the other computer manufacturers out there.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
The repair to replace the logic board that contained the defective GPU was a $1700 repair from a third-party authorized repair center and I did an average of 2 to 3 a week for 2 years.
From the article: "At one point, the judge asked Apple how much it would have cost them to have simply replaced my logic board when I had taken it in, and one of the Apple guys said “Oh, it wouldn’t have cost us anything, Nvidia foots the bill for each board we replace.”"
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
The terms of the class action suit were not favorable for the consumers, as your link states. For replacements from HP, everyone got the same Compaq budget 15" notebook, which retailed at around $270 at the time that the notebook owners received their replacements. Many of the consumers, including myself, had purchased notebooks which cost well over $1000. It is argued by some, that since prices have lowered since the initial purchase, the replacement notebook was comparable to the one initially purchased. This was untrue in my case. It also doesn't take into account that many of these notebooks were unusable during the years it took for a class action lawsuit to take place, and replacement notebooks awarded.
In my case, it is basically as if I purchased two $1200 notebooks, and didn't have them shipped to me until 3 years later. By the time I got them, I found out they weren't even the correct specs. Since it was 3 years later, I could have gotten much more for $1200.
The suit pitted the consumers against nvidia themselves, bypassing the computer manufacturers. I don't think this was an appropriate action. The manufacturers share some blame. They took the payoffs from nvidia to replace the GPUs under warranty, until the warranties ran out and it was all swept under the rug. At the time, the manufacturers knew the replacement parts were a time-bomb waiting to fail. They didn't care, because nvidia was funding them to do the repairs anyway. So, the manufacturers were making money by *not* replacing the GPU with a non-defective GPU.
In the case of HP, they lied about replacing the GPU with another defective GPU, and slapped a 90 day warranty on the service work. When I complained to them, and the BBB, they lied and said they replaced it with a different model GPU. My own eyes and lspci spoke a different story.
Well, when all the litigation amongst the companies shook out, it turns out that Nvidia is footing the bill for their own screw-up.
As much as it pains me to defend Apple's corporate behavior in any matter, Nvidia was clearly in the wrong. Apple had no advance knowledge of Nvidia's bad engineering and dishonest documentation. The GPUs failed after time and use, so only an unrealistically long engineering evaluation period by any customer of Nvidia's parts would have uncovered the issue. Apple was boned, and Nvidia did the boning.
This little peccadillo on Nvidia's part is how they wound up on my "never buy" list.
The Inquirer chased the story quite intensively back in the 2009 timeframe. This query will give you the list of the articles there that might provide a bit of context to this story.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
So I find it unfortunate that Apple is receiving a lot of FUD and bad press on this.
Because they don't deserve it for refusing to honour the promise they made and having to be taken to court over it?
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This reminds me of Toyota refusing to replace engines that had failed after only ~25,000 miles. They claimed the blame belonged to the customer, and forced owners to shell-out ~$6000 on new engines for their 1-2 year old cars/trucks.
Nope, never happened. You have failed twice now to back up that claim with proof (and been called out both times, and not just by me), therefore we are forced to conclude that you are lying.
And if the only "proof" you can provide is another lmgtfy link, don't bother. I told you before I'm not doing your work for you. You make a claim, back it up or be prepared to get called out for it. You wouldn't turn in a research paper without properly citing your sources, would you?