iMac Lines, Need Advice on Repair

[jogales]

My neighbor has a 17 inch G5 iMac with the built in iSight. A couple weeks ago, a big, vertical white bar appeared on the right side of her screen. If the screen is on for more than a few minutes, lines start to appear in and around the white bar. This looks to be the classic line issue. It's out of warranty, but she took it to the genius bar thinking that they might repair it for free on the grounds of it having a known manufacturing defect. They told her they'd never heard of iMacs getting lines on the screen before and that it would be $675 to repair. Not willing to pay this, she said she'd get the cable to hook it into an external monitor. The genius told her they had too many kinds of cables at the apple store and that she needed to go to best buy to get it. (As an aside, the apple employee at best buy looked at the port on the back of her iMac and gave her he wrong cable. (miniDVI to VGA instead of miniVGA to VGA))

She filled out a survey after her visit and a manager from the store called her afterward. The manager also said she'd never heard of iMacs with lines on the screen. I find it hard to believe that a mac genius and an apple store manager have never heard of this issue before, but I have no reason at all to doubt what my neighbor said.

My question is, if I take the iMac down to the genius bar myself and show them the many threads on the apple discussion forums and such....would that get me a better chance of getting the computer repaired for free? They seem to think it's an isolated issue. If they saw that it's not at all an isolated issue and that the computer is in the same serial number range as all the others with the same problem, do you think they might consider repairing it free of charge? Worth a shot at least?

 

[Dmac77]

My neighbor has a 17 inch G5 iMac with the built in iSight. A couple weeks ago, a big, vertical white bar appeared on the right side of her screen. If the screen is on for more than a few minutes, lines start to appear in and around the white bar. This looks to be the classic line issue. It's out of warranty, but she took it to the genius bar thinking that they might repair it for free on the grounds of it having a known manufacturing defect. They told her they'd never heard of iMacs getting lines on the screen before and that it would be $675 to repair. Not willing to pay this, she said she'd get the cable to hook it into an external monitor. The genius told her they had too many kinds of cables at the apple store and that she needed to go to best buy to get it. (As an aside, the apple employee at best buy looked at the port on the back of her iMac and gave her he wrong cable. (miniDVI to VGA instead of miniVGA to VGA))

She filled out a survey after her visit and a manager from the store called her afterward. The manager also said she'd never heard of iMacs with lines on the screen. I find it hard to believe that a mac genius and an apple store manager have never heard of this issue before, but I have no reason at all to doubt what my neighbor said.

My question is, if I take the iMac down to the genius bar myself and show them the many threads on the apple discussion forums and such....would that get me a better chance of getting the computer repaired for free? They seem to think it's an isolated issue. If they saw that it's not at all an isolated issue and that the computer is in the same serial number range as all the others with the same problem, do you think they might consider repairing it free of charge? Worth a shot at least?

You're joking right. If the "geniuses" at your Apple Store are anything like the ones at mine, they'll laugh you out of the store. You can try, but they'll either tell you to F off or they'll say that it is within speck. Apple is like that, it takes them forever to acknowledge that there is a problem with their products. But you can try, it never hurts to try. I also find that if you harass and nag them enough they'll bow to your whim.

Don

 

[tri3limited]

1. Ask to see the store manager, complain about poor customer service regardless.

2. Threaten to go to consumer complaints commission.

3. Ask the manager to get someone on the phone who will fix it.


Seriously put your foot down. This is nobodys fault but Apple's and you shouldn't stand for it. Go in the store and keep complaining until you get somewhere. If complaining about the screen isn't enough complain some more about everything... I eventually got my cracked MacBook fixed and they denied that problem existed.