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I dropped my MBP!!!

M

Mgkwho

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 2, 2005
595
25
So I flew home for Memorial Day weekend, and as I was placing my belongings in the trays before the x-ray machine, my laptop fell onto the ground. It had been in its sleeve, but all of my stuff had to be pushed down the table as the person in front of me moved up. I'm not even sure if it was me or the person behind me that caused it to move and thus fall; regardless that does not matter as Apple does not cover accidental damage. (I do have Apple Care).

So the damage is a dented lower-right corner of the superdrive and the top right of the screen. The plastic edging is coming off as well from being bunched up and pinched. I can't live with it for huge aesthetic reasons and my right palm annoys the bent hardware. I plan on having the computer for another three years.

I have already called Apple, who asked for over $600 without even taking into consideration possible problems under the case.

It's a less-than-9-months-old-three-grand-laptop; should I repair it or sell it and buy a new one? Should I try taking it into a certified repair service?

Please help. :(

-=|Mgkwho
 
If you absolutely can not live with it (and I can understand), you should look into buying a new enclosure yourself from eBay or an online retailer. This way you should save a good bit of money in replacing the enclosure yourself.
If everything works fine then there is likely no underlying damage.

It should be considered that it could sell for a nice price on ebay (ebay has been really high lately). The price difference could warrant selling this one and buying another one that isn't damaged.
 
Daveway said:
If you absolutely can not live with it (and I can understand), you should look into buying a new enclosure yourself from eBay or an online retailer. This way you should save a good bit of money in replacing the enclosure yourself.
If everything works fine then there is likely no underlying damage.

It should be considered that it could sell for a nice price on ebay (ebay has been really high lately). The price difference could warrant selling this one and buying another one that isn't damaged.
Click to expand...

Check out ifixit for guides on doing the work. If you're comfortable working inside it, that's the way to go. If money isn't a huge object, I'd sell it and buy the next generation. At 9 months, in computer terms, it was already getting a little gray around the bezel...
 
This is an example of what you could buy from ebay. As you can see it is rediculously cheap, but has some wear.
Link

iFixit doesn't have parts for the 17" right now, so you may have to wait on replacing it with new parts.
 
Sorry to hear about the accident with your MacBook Pro Mgkwho. :eek:

I would probably try selling it on eBay to try to recoup some of the cost of a new one. :)
 
Mgkwho said:
So I flew home for Memorial Day weekend, and as I was placing my belongings in the trays before the x-ray machine, my laptop fell onto the ground. It had been in its sleeve, but all of my stuff had to be pushed down the table as the person in front of me moved up. I'm not even sure if it was me or the person behind me that caused it to move and thus fall; regardless that does not matter as Apple does not cover accidental damage. (I do have Apple Care).

So the damage is a dented lower-right corner of the superdrive and the top right of the screen. The plastic edging is coming off as well from being bunched up and pinched. I can't live with it for huge aesthetic reasons and my right palm annoys the bent hardware. I plan on having the computer for another three years.

I have already called Apple, who asked for over $600 without even taking into consideration possible problems under the case.

It's a less-than-9-months-old-three-grand-laptop; should I repair it or sell it and buy a new one? Should I try taking it into a certified repair service?

Please help. :(

-=|Mgkwho
Click to expand...

First check if it is covered by your household insurance or travel insurance if you have that.

You could try selling it on eBay. There are always people who will be more comfortable than you trying to fix it. Or they might not care about optical damage if the price is right. Of course, you will lose some money. But since your MacPro is nine months old, you will be able to get an identical model a lot cheaper. If you bought a high end model nine months ago (lots of RAM, big harddisk, fast CPU) you will get the same stuff today in a low end model. So you will lose some money, but not too much.
 
Ouch; sorry to hear about that! I hope everything turns out okay.

A little off topic, but doesn't Dell have accidental damage warranty? Is there an "outside-source" you can buy the accidental damage warranty for Macs?
 
Daveway said:
If you absolutely can not live with it (and I can understand), you should look into buying a new enclosure yourself from eBay or an online retailer. This way you should save a good bit of money in replacing the enclosure yourself.
If everything works fine then there is likely no underlying damage.

It should be considered that it could sell for a nice price on ebay (ebay has been really high lately). The price difference could warrant selling this one and buying another one that isn't damaged.
Click to expand...

But if he buys a new encloser to replace the damaged one himself, won't that void the warranty?
 
psycoswimmer said:
A little off topic, but doesn't Dell have accidental damage warranty?
Click to expand...

Yes, you can get that, but there is no rider to the policy that covers psychological damage from using a windows product. The risk is too high...

Seriously, why doesn't apple offer that. It would be expensive, but so is everything in life. Apple should offer an option for a 4 year warranty, like Dell, and the accidental stuff for a higher price.
 
gnasher729 said:
First check if it is covered by your household insurance or travel insurance if you have that.
Click to expand...

Our deductible is like a grand.

Anyway, I like the "fix it yourself" route. I'm pretty comfortable doing that if I can find the right parts. Does it void the warranty though?

How much cheaper do you think it would be to send it into an authorized repair rep?

Thanks everbody!

-=|Mgkwho
 
Mgkwho said:
Our deductible is like a grand.

Anyway, I like the "fix it yourself" route. I'm pretty comfortable doing that if I can find the right parts. Does it void the warranty though?

How much cheaper do you think it would be to send it into an authorized repair rep?

Thanks everbody!

-=|Mgkwho
Click to expand...

When I dropped my 12" Powerbook the entire right side was warped and wouldn't lay flat when you place it on a flat surface. Apple wanted close to $800.00. I had checked out the ifixit guide, but as many people know, disassembling a 12" Powerbook is not for the faint of heart. I found a bottom casing on EBay and brought the PB and casing to an authorized Apple repair place locally. They charged something like $300, which was much more palatable. And since they were cracking her open, I bought a 100 gig 7200 RPM drive and had them install it. They wanted to charge extra for imaging and reloading the contents from my 80 gig 5400 RPM drive, so before I turned it in, I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the old drive.

When they repaired it, they gave it back to me and I took it home, hooked up the external drive, booted to it, and then copied the image to the new drive.

Anyway, take a look at the ifixit guide. You may be able to pull off doing the work on a 15" MBP. If not, check out the prices for the local authorized apple repair people. You should be able to find reasonably priced parts for it on EBay.

And good luck. I know how it feels man.
 
get on their butts!

Hey Guys. Had a friend who dropped something right on their screen and it shattered it. He called up apple and they told him they wouldn't fix it because it was accidental. Well, he just kept calling for about 3 weeks and asking to talk to higher ups and higher ups, all the while saying applecare's costs should justify the repair, etc. In the end he told them he would never buy apple again and he said he was telling every one of his fellow media arts students the way he was being treated.

Eventually they fixed it for free in 3 days. I think that they eventually realize you won't give up and they'd be better off saving their employees' hours than being strict. Plus, when they sell you applecare at the retail stores, most of their people will tell you Ghandi would still be alive if you took applecare out on him as well as, maybe not lie, but imply how much it covers. So I wouldn't feel too bad being persistent on this one.

Good luck!
 
You should consider the possibility that your warranty may already have been voided by the damage.

As long as the serial number is still in place, should you fix it yourself, there really isn't any way that Apple could tell it's been worked on as far as I know.
 
Try to live with it awhile i bent down to pick my powerbook up and had a phone in my ear...it slipped and dented my book......everytime i looked at it i would get mad
 
You can buy accidental damage warranties for your MacBook Pro, just not from Apple. MacMall sells them, see:

http://www.macmall.com/macmall/shop...ge Protection (Adp).-ServiceNet Service Plans
(~$330 for 17" MBP)

Anyone have any experience with these "Service Net" guys or something similiar? I always prefer manufacturer's warranties and would be worried about getting tied up in red tape trying to get a repair out of one of these contracts but it is available.
 
OK-

So the upper case (the enclosure surrounding and including the keyboard) has some black dots from reacting to the oil on my skin. This happened way back in October and I never did anything about it.

Now, I removed the case and nothing appeared damaged on the inside- only the upper and outer case (thankfully). And albeit with a few scratches and some way less-noticeable dentage it appears as most of the problem now lies with the upper case. The gray plastic that wraps around the edge in its construction is melted onto the case so that the two pieces are one; there is some warping around above the superdrive where the plastic has detached from the case. I figure if I can have the uppercase replaced then the problem is solved!!

Now if I go into the Apple store and complain about the dots, they will surely ask why the plastic is all weird around the superdrive and ask about the corner. I figure I can just say "just fix what is covered by warranty." Because the dots can only go away by replacing the upper case with a new unit, the warping problem is gone!

All that is left is the slight damage on the top right of the case where the plastic is also a little deformed.

Thanks for reading; do you think they will replace the uppercase because of the dots even though it is warped?

-=|Mgkwho
 
Mgkwho said:
do you think they will replace the uppercase because of the dots even though it is warped?
Click to expand...

Not without a fight, I'm sure. The black dots, which are corrosion, would likely fall under the "cosmetic issues" category, which wouldn't be covered by Applecare. I would approach them about that issue, which is surely to be met with "no" and then perhaps write a letter to Steve. Worth a try I suppose.
 
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