Hardware - - Mac warranty

Doug Nelson · #1 04-18-2005, 07:21 PM

I was wondering if anyone paid for the extra Mac warranty where they come out to your home and fix it? Is it worth it?

winwintoo · #2 04-19-2005, 06:31 AM

Never heard of such a thing Doug - are you sure that's not a reseller thing?? or a misinformed sales person?

I don't usually buy extended warranties on anything and in all my years of owning Macs, I haven't spent the price of the warranty on repairs, so I think I'm ahead of the game.

Having said that, Macs like everything else have become more complex and expensive parts of them can fail like DVD burners etc. so I'm leaning toward thinking that Applecare is not such a bad investment.

Applecare from Apple is a different animal than an extended warranty from Best Buy for example. Make sure you're getting the real deal.

I have not heard of any Apple warranty where they come to fix it. I have seen lots of whining about people having to ship their precious Macs back to Apple for repair - Apple first sends you the proper box.

If you live near an actual Apple store, you can take your computer there for repairs I think. I just take mine to one of several authorized Apple repair people that I know.

This forum and it's accompanying web space offers pretty solid Mac advice - sort of the RetouchPro of the Mac world - worth looking in to when you get your new Mac.

Before I forget, you don't need to purchase Applecare at the time you buy the Mac, you are covered for the first year and you can buy an extra 3 years any time within that first year - so if you have a bad feeling about your Mac after it's too late to return it, you can still get the extended warranty.

Take care, Margaret

Doug Nelson · #3 04-19-2005, 07:50 AM

"The AppleCare Protection Plan includes up to three years of onsite service for desktop computers."

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the concept of "onsite service"? Maybe they mean on their site? (ie: a store)

winwintoo · #4 04-19-2005, 08:22 AM

I stand corrected

The fine print says that it's not available in all locations and reading between the lines of the whining that goes on, I'm guessing that you will have to insist on it when you call in.

I know of one poor fellow who was Fedexed a new motherboard for his 3 week old iMac and told to replace it himself - and he had Applecare. He was too nice for his own good, I would have put the thing back in the box and took it back to Best Buy and got my money back - but that's just me.

Have you posed your question on any of the Mac lists? And why are you buying a Mac anyway - you've had good luck with your PCs. Nothing about PS or .psd files is different between the two systems. I seem to recall some client was bullying you into getting a Mac. They're nice, but......

Take care, Margaret

Doug Nelson · #5 04-19-2005, 08:48 AM

I'm actually pretty disgusted with computers in general, but mostly I need to upgrade soon, and need to decide which way to go. And yes, I've lost thousands of dollars worth of work because I don't use a Mac (but who knows, if I had a Mac I might lose work because I don't use a PC).

RichardBrackin · #6 04-19-2005, 12:04 PM

Quote:

but who knows, if I had a Mac I might lose work because I don't use a PC

Nah. That'll never happen.

Here's a really nice forum for G5 owners.
http://g5support.com/group/

I have the 3 year apple care warranty on my G5 (liquid cooled). It's not a matter of if it's gonna spring a leak but when it's gonna spring a leak. Actually all our machines have extended apple care warranties. I've had to use it twice -- one for a 17" studio monitor and one for an internal Zip drive that went out.

They didn't come to our site but we're in quite a remote location.
Actually on the monitor issue, we somehow ended up with a big 21" apple monitor for a couple of weeks and some other company ended up with our 17" monitor. Yup. They screwed up the shipment.

The 300 bucks (or whatever it is) is a small price to pay if you use your equipment professionally as I know you do. Any repair will cost at least that much. I think to change out the CPU on the dual 2.5G5 requires an 800 dollar board. It's better to be safe than sorry.

Doug Nelson · #7 04-19-2005, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RichardBrackin

It's not a matter of if it's gonna spring a leak but when it's gonna spring a leak.

Oh great, I was thinking that was going to be the solution to my most recent computer problem.

Swampy · #8 04-19-2005, 04:19 PM

I always purchase the Apple Care extended warranty. As far as hardware goes, I've only had two occasions to use it.

Had a CPU go out on me and, since I am 80 miles from the Apple dealer, made arrangements to take both the broken machine and a backup to them. They swapped the hard drives so that I could go home with the backup machine and continue working (although slower on the older computer.) Three days later they called me to come pick up the fixed computer. Again, I took my backup, again they swapped the hard drives and I was home working again in no time.

The second time Apple sent a technician 100 miles to my home (business) to replace a bad internal CD/DVD unit.

I have called Apple Care several times when I've had a problem with new software installation. The techs talk me right through any problems.