UPDATED
Hey everyone,
Mostly I just wanted to go through my very frustrating Apple Care experience, hopefully my experience may benefit someone else and shed some more light on issues with these machines.
I originally purchased a 15" MacBook Pro with Touchbar shortly after their release in 2016.
Since then I have had the top case replaced on three seperate occasions, and now my machine has gone an Y2K'd itself.
Issue number 1:
Right speaker failure. Keyboard failure.
Warranty replacement of topcase (out of warranty cost $628.00 CAD).
Issue Number 2:
Speaker emitted a loud cracking / static sound. Following this the left speaker no longer functioned properly and sometimes not at all.
Warranty replacement of top case. Again, out of warranty replacement cost $628.00 CAD
Issue Number 3: November 2018
Same as Issue Number 2 combined with keyboard difficulties and kernel panic. Weird restarts. Etc etc.
Warranty replacement of topcase. Once again, out of warranty replacement cost would be $628.00 CAD.
Now onto Issue Number 4 (November - failure on December 24). This is where things begin to get more serious. Speaker issues are once again present, but less annoying. Just the occasional small crackle. At the last replacement, we had began to talk about having my device replaced entirely, but the closest Apple Store to me had the parts in stock and quickly turned around the repair.
This Apple Store, is more than an hour away by the way, making this whole process awful. Not to mention the fact that I need this computer for both University and Work. Being without it is difficult.
Fast forward through my keyboard not working. Speakers being weird and constant kernel panics. On Christmas Eve it decided to kill itself.
While at about 90% battery it decided to just shut off. Following this it would not power on at all. Finally it got to a screen showing it restarted due to an error and immediately shut off once again. For a while the backlight would turn on, eventually nothing but the fans would power on. It was dead dead.
Through this process I even attempted a hard reset. Shift + Control + Option + Power for 10 seconds. This resulted in the power chime repeating constantly, and a screetching sound. Needless to say I powered it down.
Following this it was impossible to get any sort of sign of life from it.
I called up Apple Support during this process as I already had an active case number following the third replacement that I was adding any kind of issue or unusual behaviour too. I also sent a few videos of this to my advisor. On the phone I had an appointment set up for today at 10:45am.
This was by far the worst Apple customer service experience I have ever had. Both the tech and the manager were pleasesnt enough but were the opposite of useful. Refused to work with me on a replacement saying that that would need to be done through Apple Care and instead opted to order $2400 worth of replacement parts. Are you f***ing kidding me?? Not only this, but I had to remind them to get me to sign the Work Authorization.
I got the card of the manager before leaving my machine there to be repaired.
Obviously upset, after my 110km drive home, I called Apple Care and got connected to a very helpful advisor.
This brings us to now. After being on the phone all day with an excellent advisor who has taken over my case I have finally had a replacement request put in. My advisor connected with the Apple Store who apparently don't have a device for me (I think they are being difficult), but is willing to ship out my machine and the new one should be delivered to my house assuming the request is approved by head office.
I should know more on Friday, or Monday at the latest.
Here is my question. Has anyone else had a device replaced in the past? How has the process worked for you? How long did it take to receive a new product?
I'm not sure how useful this information will be for anyone. More than anything I am just frustrated. You spend north of $3000, closer to $4000 after Apple Care and it takes constant repairs and hassle to get a device replaced. At this point it would be cheaper for Apple to just replace it and keep a happy customer.
Any feedback regarding my questions would be much appreciated.
Edit: Please forgive my spelling / formatting. Posting from my iPhone
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE / RESOLUTION
Picking up from where I left off, this whole experience has been interesting.
I am thrilled to say that I was able to pick up my new MacBook Pro from the Apple Store yesterday evening, and have been given a very nice spec model as a replacement.
Replacement Model is as follows:
2.6 GHz 6-core i7
Radeon pro 560X
16GB DDR4
512GB SSD
Essentially the top spec non custom model currently available. Currently available for $3,699.00 CAD
Before I say anything to horrible about my experience, I would just like to say that the final Apple Care Senior Representative I dealt with was wonderful. Getting to him however, took far too long.
After my MBP originally bricked itself, and the horrible Apple Store experience and them wanting to repair it once again and getting through to Apple once arriving back home I note that I got ahold of a great Advisor. Somewhere along the way however I began to have trouble contacting him (likely to do with the holidays?) so I went though the process of calling Apple Care, they noted that I had a priority case or something and I was immediately transferred up to a Senior Advisor again.
This Senior Advisor was fantastic. He somehow managed to sort though the myriad of stuff on file for my case, which apparently made no sense at all. Actually got a replacement issued and kept me updated everyday with what he knew regarding my case. This Advisor was fantastic. Probably the longest it took him to respond to either a call or email that I made during business hours was 20 minutes.
The issues were with Apple as a whole here. I got my machine yesterday. However, the team responsible for issuing this machine wouldn't release information about what I would be receiving until Saturday. Day's after my advisor told me a replacement had been approved.
Further more, a tracking number was not made available until AFTER the device had shipped. So both my advisor and me where left in the dark for a couple days as to what was happening.
Then came Apple Care. Apparently after you have a device repaired a couple times, your Apple Care becomes ineligible for a prorated price on your next machine.
My 2016 MBP had Apple Care which would expire in December 2019, which is before the original one year of the new machine would expire. This meant that transferring the remaining time to the new machine would not do anything.
Once again, the hero of this story is my Senior Apple Care Advisor. He reached out on my behalf to another department responsible for these transfers, and brought in another team member who was also incredible. This new team member stayed on the phone with myself for over an hour, as we waited for a (level 3?) approval too prorate my new Apple Care + plan. Incredible service here again and both these employees deserve an A+.
Side note: when did Apple Care become over $400???
Apple's internal method of dealing with this kind of issue is messy and complicated. For example the Prorated Apple Care is not discounted Apple Care. Apple reimburses you via direct deposit or gift card, and then sells you the new plan. This is totally fine, but it sends you looking for bank transit numbers and whatnot and could be made way simpler.
I understand that part of the problem was my new machine was sent to an Apple Store and not to myself, as they already had my machine. This is not how replacement's typically work.
I have skipped over some other drama with the replacement needing to be approved twice and what not, but those headaches were situational with the Store handling shipping.
All in all, the employee's that helped me out where fantastic. I could not be happier with how helpful they were through this whole process, and I am incredibly grateful to have a brand new computer and for the patience and hard work my Advisor put into helping me.
I hope this doesn't sound like I am complaining. I am thrilled and very grateful for my end experience. I just hope that other people do not have to go through all of this as well, and that if they do, that my experience may in someway help out.
TL;DR:
Lots of headache. Took longer than expected.
Ended up with a couple fantastic Apple employees who went above and beyond to help me out after all the headache I experienced.
Apple's internal workings for this kind of thing seem very complicated, and are frustrating to deal with. But they do have some very caring, understanding and hard working people to help you through the process.
Hey everyone,
Mostly I just wanted to go through my very frustrating Apple Care experience, hopefully my experience may benefit someone else and shed some more light on issues with these machines.
I originally purchased a 15" MacBook Pro with Touchbar shortly after their release in 2016.
Since then I have had the top case replaced on three seperate occasions, and now my machine has gone an Y2K'd itself.
Issue number 1:
Right speaker failure. Keyboard failure.
Warranty replacement of topcase (out of warranty cost $628.00 CAD).
Issue Number 2:
Speaker emitted a loud cracking / static sound. Following this the left speaker no longer functioned properly and sometimes not at all.
Warranty replacement of top case. Again, out of warranty replacement cost $628.00 CAD
Issue Number 3: November 2018
Same as Issue Number 2 combined with keyboard difficulties and kernel panic. Weird restarts. Etc etc.
Warranty replacement of topcase. Once again, out of warranty replacement cost would be $628.00 CAD.
Now onto Issue Number 4 (November - failure on December 24). This is where things begin to get more serious. Speaker issues are once again present, but less annoying. Just the occasional small crackle. At the last replacement, we had began to talk about having my device replaced entirely, but the closest Apple Store to me had the parts in stock and quickly turned around the repair.
This Apple Store, is more than an hour away by the way, making this whole process awful. Not to mention the fact that I need this computer for both University and Work. Being without it is difficult.
Fast forward through my keyboard not working. Speakers being weird and constant kernel panics. On Christmas Eve it decided to kill itself.
While at about 90% battery it decided to just shut off. Following this it would not power on at all. Finally it got to a screen showing it restarted due to an error and immediately shut off once again. For a while the backlight would turn on, eventually nothing but the fans would power on. It was dead dead.
Through this process I even attempted a hard reset. Shift + Control + Option + Power for 10 seconds. This resulted in the power chime repeating constantly, and a screetching sound. Needless to say I powered it down.
Following this it was impossible to get any sort of sign of life from it.
I called up Apple Support during this process as I already had an active case number following the third replacement that I was adding any kind of issue or unusual behaviour too. I also sent a few videos of this to my advisor. On the phone I had an appointment set up for today at 10:45am.
This was by far the worst Apple customer service experience I have ever had. Both the tech and the manager were pleasesnt enough but were the opposite of useful. Refused to work with me on a replacement saying that that would need to be done through Apple Care and instead opted to order $2400 worth of replacement parts. Are you f***ing kidding me?? Not only this, but I had to remind them to get me to sign the Work Authorization.
I got the card of the manager before leaving my machine there to be repaired.
Obviously upset, after my 110km drive home, I called Apple Care and got connected to a very helpful advisor.
This brings us to now. After being on the phone all day with an excellent advisor who has taken over my case I have finally had a replacement request put in. My advisor connected with the Apple Store who apparently don't have a device for me (I think they are being difficult), but is willing to ship out my machine and the new one should be delivered to my house assuming the request is approved by head office.
I should know more on Friday, or Monday at the latest.
Here is my question. Has anyone else had a device replaced in the past? How has the process worked for you? How long did it take to receive a new product?
I'm not sure how useful this information will be for anyone. More than anything I am just frustrated. You spend north of $3000, closer to $4000 after Apple Care and it takes constant repairs and hassle to get a device replaced. At this point it would be cheaper for Apple to just replace it and keep a happy customer.
Any feedback regarding my questions would be much appreciated.
Edit: Please forgive my spelling / formatting. Posting from my iPhone
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE / RESOLUTION
Picking up from where I left off, this whole experience has been interesting.
I am thrilled to say that I was able to pick up my new MacBook Pro from the Apple Store yesterday evening, and have been given a very nice spec model as a replacement.
Replacement Model is as follows:
2.6 GHz 6-core i7
Radeon pro 560X
16GB DDR4
512GB SSD
Essentially the top spec non custom model currently available. Currently available for $3,699.00 CAD
Before I say anything to horrible about my experience, I would just like to say that the final Apple Care Senior Representative I dealt with was wonderful. Getting to him however, took far too long.
After my MBP originally bricked itself, and the horrible Apple Store experience and them wanting to repair it once again and getting through to Apple once arriving back home I note that I got ahold of a great Advisor. Somewhere along the way however I began to have trouble contacting him (likely to do with the holidays?) so I went though the process of calling Apple Care, they noted that I had a priority case or something and I was immediately transferred up to a Senior Advisor again.
This Senior Advisor was fantastic. He somehow managed to sort though the myriad of stuff on file for my case, which apparently made no sense at all. Actually got a replacement issued and kept me updated everyday with what he knew regarding my case. This Advisor was fantastic. Probably the longest it took him to respond to either a call or email that I made during business hours was 20 minutes.
The issues were with Apple as a whole here. I got my machine yesterday. However, the team responsible for issuing this machine wouldn't release information about what I would be receiving until Saturday. Day's after my advisor told me a replacement had been approved.
Further more, a tracking number was not made available until AFTER the device had shipped. So both my advisor and me where left in the dark for a couple days as to what was happening.
Then came Apple Care. Apparently after you have a device repaired a couple times, your Apple Care becomes ineligible for a prorated price on your next machine.
My 2016 MBP had Apple Care which would expire in December 2019, which is before the original one year of the new machine would expire. This meant that transferring the remaining time to the new machine would not do anything.
Once again, the hero of this story is my Senior Apple Care Advisor. He reached out on my behalf to another department responsible for these transfers, and brought in another team member who was also incredible. This new team member stayed on the phone with myself for over an hour, as we waited for a (level 3?) approval too prorate my new Apple Care + plan. Incredible service here again and both these employees deserve an A+.
Side note: when did Apple Care become over $400???
Apple's internal method of dealing with this kind of issue is messy and complicated. For example the Prorated Apple Care is not discounted Apple Care. Apple reimburses you via direct deposit or gift card, and then sells you the new plan. This is totally fine, but it sends you looking for bank transit numbers and whatnot and could be made way simpler.
I understand that part of the problem was my new machine was sent to an Apple Store and not to myself, as they already had my machine. This is not how replacement's typically work.
I have skipped over some other drama with the replacement needing to be approved twice and what not, but those headaches were situational with the Store handling shipping.
All in all, the employee's that helped me out where fantastic. I could not be happier with how helpful they were through this whole process, and I am incredibly grateful to have a brand new computer and for the patience and hard work my Advisor put into helping me.
I hope this doesn't sound like I am complaining. I am thrilled and very grateful for my end experience. I just hope that other people do not have to go through all of this as well, and that if they do, that my experience may in someway help out.
TL;DR:
Lots of headache. Took longer than expected.
Ended up with a couple fantastic Apple employees who went above and beyond to help me out after all the headache I experienced.
Apple's internal workings for this kind of thing seem very complicated, and are frustrating to deal with. But they do have some very caring, understanding and hard working people to help you through the process.
Last edited:
