iPod Precious iPod Classic killed by plum juice

[jeffy.dee-lux]

I had a leaky container in my bag the other day, and I found my iPod with sticky plum juice all over it, even seeping out of the seems around the click wheel. Devastated! Especially since it seems like this product line is at the end of the line. The little guy won't start up at all anymore, no response at all since I found it in this state. Any advice? I was having a look at opening it up to let it dry out, but ifixit leaves me to believe that opening this gen of iPod is no trivial matter.

Meanwhile, I have my old 5G iPod video (only 30GB). Just opened that one up (relative piece of cake) to give it a fresh battery, should tide me over for a while, but I'm gonna miss having all my music with me. More importantly, I'm gonna waste tons of time deciding which of my music to keep on me!

 

[miles01110]

Buy a used one off of craigslist.

 

[SkaarjHunter]

Just buy a new one. Amazon sells the Classics at a decent price. I'm very happy with the one I bought from them two years ago.

 

[aalegado]

Long-Shot: If you can get it open and after removing the battery you could try lightly rinse it out with distilled water, carefully removing any dried plum juice (!) you can see and then letting it dry out. Don't submerge it in water—you want to minimize the chance of water getting into the hard drive. After all this it might come back to life.

However, if you get it open and see rusty contacts, it might be a lost cause.

 

[gnasher729]

I had a leaky container in my bag the other day, and I found my iPod with sticky plum juice all over it, even seeping out of the seems around the click wheel. Devastated! Especially since it seems like this product line is at the end of the line. The little guy won't start up at all anymore, no response at all since I found it in this state. Any advice? I was having a look at opening it up to let it dry out, but ifixit leaves me to believe that opening this gen of iPod is no trivial matter.

I would have very little hope of fixing this. I'd check out Apple refurbished store, and you can check out their prices for "repairs" here: http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/service/prices/

"Repairs" in quotes because they will throw away your iPod and give you a refurbished one, but at cost, not at the "refurbished" price where Apple makes money. Not worth it for very old models; and "Service may not be available if your iPod has been damaged due to accident or abuse." So check at your Apple Store.

 

[Illumination]

Sell it for parts on eBay (be sure to indicate the incident) and use that to help you buy a new one.

 

[jeffy.dee-lux]

thanks for all the constructive feedback. For now I'm just giving it some time to see if drying out helps at all. Not very optimistic though. I guess I have nothing to lose but try to pry it open and see if I can spot which components took the brunt of the damage.

Meanwhile, I'm kinda happy to be back on my old 5G, I always did prefer that one, other than the space and the battery life. The interface is definitely more responsive. Maybe I'll take a look at the hard drive upgrade option for this thing again. I was just about to get a 120GB hard drive for this thing when I decided to just pick up a new Classic.

Refurbs are 209$ right now, while a new one is 249$. I wonder if that price'll ever come down when they formally abandon this product line and they try to get rid of the rest of the stock. Or maybe they'll just patiently wait for guys like me to buy out their current stock at the current price.