Genius Bar turnaround time: your experiences

[dolphin842]

Hi all,

So this past Monday I brought my 2010 Mini to my local Genius Bar for the second time: Despite running DiskWarrior during my first visit, the machine kept on kernel panicking. As the tech checked the Mini in for repair, she said that they'd run some tests on it and get back to me the following morning (Tuesday) with the results.

Thankfully I didn't need to use my computer much, as they declined to contact me all week. When I called them on Thursday, they said that it was still in the repair queue and didn't even have the tests run on it yet. Another call this Saturday revealed that the tests were finally done, but they were now waiting on a backlog of repair parts, so it'll be another few days before they can actually do the repair.

Both times that I called, they blamed the delay on 'the holidays,' so I'm curious to hear of other people's turnaround times at the Genius Bar this holiday season. Is a week-long turnaround time out of the ordinary for a current-gen Mac repair?

 

[wordoflife]

It really depends on the store and traffic of need-to-be serviced Macs.
When I took mine in, they said that it would be ready in 2 days (in fact it would probably even be repaired the same night I turned it in!) but they called 2 days after saying they ordered a new logic board and screen which would take 3-5 days to arrive. I finally got my computer back after I week.

 

[ucfgrad93]

I have had to take my iMac in for repair on 3 separate occasions (harddrive crashed, logic board failed, bad superdrive). Each time, I got it back the same day.

 

[Apple OC]

I am in Toronto ... I brought MBP in on a Tuesday 6pm ... picked up next day at 10:30 am ... with new logic board and new Ram replaced.

 

[steve2112]

When I took my 2007 MBP from work in earlier this year due to the infamous self-destructing video card, I had a similar experience as the OP. It was in the shop for about two weeks, and I got little communication from the store. They kept telling me they were waiting on parts. I realize it's an older machine, but the Nvidia 8600 issue is a well known problem and I found it odd that it took that long to get parts.

 

[helptheold]

When I took my mini in & they had to install a new HD, I had it back the next day. While not at Christmas, it was over Labor Day weekend and I was very impressed with the turnaround.

 

[NickZac]

The actual time it takes to get the product fixed may or may not be acceptable to users, but at least for me, they frequently over-quote the time and get it back to you earlier, which is something I really like. The WORST thing is when they say something will be done by a certain day and time and they fail to deliver.

Them dropping the ball on time is not acceptable holidays or not. If you are more backed up, you change your quoted turnaround times, period.

 

[Stella]

During busy periods when there's lots of repairs its taken 7 days ( logic board replacements IIRC). On each of these '7 days' occasions they quoted me between 3 and 5 days.

Quiet periods, 3 days ( display replacement ).

 

[dolphin842]

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences. It looks like there can be a good deal of variation in turnaround time, but it's interesting to see that it can be as quick as same-day or next-day for major repairs.

For those of you who did have to get repairs, does the store generally contact you to give a status update (i.e. 'hey, we ran the tests and are going to swap out the logic board')? I think what's frustrated me the most is not the longer-than-stated wait but the fact that they've never gotten in touch once they knew the timeframe had changed on their end (both the wait before testing and the wait for parts). Is it normal to leave the customers in the dark like this?