Dead iPod

lsantens

Hi!

16 months ago, I bought a 20GB iPod, but 2 days ago it suddenly died on me. I was doing nothing out of the ordinary, just listening to it and trying to skip to the next song, when it suddenly switched off. When I tried to switch it back on, I got a 'sad iPod face'.
I took it to the store in Regent Street, where after a long list of questions, the guy told me that it didn't sound like I had done anything wrong, but that 'these things sometimes happen'. My hard drive is gone, and the repair will cost me 160 pounds. Slightly excessive, as you can find a 30GB new iPod for less than that on the internet...
I called their customer services department, where a guy told me that I had just been unlucky, and that yes, normally iPods should live longer than 16 months. However, there was nothing he could do for me. We were on the phone for over half an hour, as neither of us would budge. I had to give up in the end, as our mutual 'broken record technique' was not getting me anywhere.

My question now is if there is anything else I can do. I am extremely reluctant to buy another one, as the same thing could happen again, and I am not planning on replacing it every 16 months.
It seems to me that if I 'haven't done anything wrong', 'been very unlucky', and cannot be guaranteed it won't happen again, Apple are the ones who should be doing something for me, as opposed to forcing me to spend more money on a product that didn't deliver in the first place.

Am I being unreasonable? Is this a hopeless case? Or can any of you make my day by suggesting something?

Thank you!
Lyn

Darksun

Under the sales of goods act, goods you purchase must last a 'reasonable amount of time'. If I were you, I'd contact the store you purchased the ipod from expressing your disappointment that the iPod has failed after just 16 months.

Bamber19

what would seem to be in your favour is that the guy on the phone himself seemded to acknowldedge that the time your ipod had lasted was not the norm and that it is reasonable for the ipod to last longer than 16 months.

littlesaint

This happened to mine too - same model, similar lifespan. There were some articles in the Guardian's money section about using the sale of goods act, some people have been successful.

What I did was sell the broken iPod on eBay. There are people who buy and rebuild. Someone bid £40 BIN but you can get up to £60 for it if you are prepared to auction it. Do a completed item search and you'll find this out. When selling, you must make it clear that it is faulty and for spares or repairs only.

It might be worth considering getting a 8gb nano as a replacment. Slightly cheaper and no hard drive to go wrong.

kwaichi

I have gone through 2 ipods and recently so has my girlfriend. We have never owned a working ipod for more than a year so count yourself lucky! Apple overprice replacement on purpose so that you will be pressured into buying the latest ipod and perhaps buying extra warranty this time around.

The good news for you is that it is relatively easy to replace everything in any ipod up to the new nanos. There are lots of websites which offer replacement parts for you to install yourself. If you live or work in London then there are repair shops that charge a lot less than Apple.

My girlfriend's ipod mini 4gb died recently of a faulty disk drive. I could have replaced it with a flash drive but got a free upgrade to a phone with 4gb so we didn't bother. The value for resale on sites like gumtree is so low as well now it is hardly worth it to fix & sell on. Batteries usually cost around a tenner and disk drives don't cost much either (you can even upgrade your 30gb to 80gb or more especially for 160 quid)

I hope that helps someone

Epiphone

Get in touch with the shop you bought it from. Something that expensive should be expected to last more than 16 months.

whatatwit

Have you given it a good shake.
I read about someone's husband that bought a 'dead' one off Ebay to take to bits and play with.
When it arrived having been carefully handled by Royal Mail, it worked fine.

soolin

We bought ipods for all 3 sons a couple of years ago and i think they ended up getting through 2 each in a year before two of them were finally refunded in cash and replaced with Zens. At no time during the replacement/repair cycle did Apple seem at all surprised that these things only lasted a few months.

Soo

gaming_guy

have you tried resetting the ipod?

gaming_guy wrote:

try resetting your ipod using this guide

teeb

littlesaint wrote:

What I did was sell the broken iPod on eBay. There are people who buy and rebuild. Someone bid £40 BIN but you can get up to £60 for it if you are prepared to auction it. Do a completed item search and you'll find this out. When selling, you must make it clear that it is faulty and for spares or repairs only.

I'd agree with this. I had a 20 gig iPod photo - colour screen, but not a video - die on me after 16 months or so.

I eBayed it on a 10 day auction, and it eventually went for £50! I was well chuffed. Also I bought a reburbished iPod from the online Apple store to replace it, which will be eBayed too soon as I've replaced that with my phone's mp3 player.

Waygood_2

[We have had two nano 8gb ipods died on us today. Brought at same time same store 18 months ago, both looked after very well and kept in cases but still both had died on us on exactly the same day...very suspicious if you ask me. Apple will only say that we were very unlucky and can't replace but will give us a small discount if we buy two more of their website, can this be right? it seems very unfair. Not sure where to go from here. How did you get on?

QUOTE=lsantens;discussion/317508]Hi!

16 months ago, I bought a 20GB iPod, but 2 days ago it suddenly died on me. I was doing nothing out of the ordinary, just listening to it and trying to skip to the next song, when it suddenly switched off. When I tried to switch it back on, I got a 'sad iPod face'.
I took it to the store in Regent Street, where after a long list of questions, the guy told me that it didn't sound like I had done anything wrong, but that 'these things sometimes happen'. My hard drive is gone, and the repair will cost me 160 pounds. Slightly excessive, as you can find a 30GB new iPod for less than that on the internet...
I called their customer services department, where a guy told me that I had just been unlucky, and that yes, normally iPods should live longer than 16 months. However, there was nothing he could do for me. We were on the phone for over half an hour, as neither of us would budge. I had to give up in the end, as our mutual 'broken record technique' was not getting me anywhere.

My question now is if there is anything else I can do. I am extremely reluctant to buy another one, as the same thing could happen again, and I am not planning on replacing it every 16 months.
It seems to me that if I 'haven't done anything wrong', 'been very unlucky', and cannot be guaranteed it won't happen again, Apple are the ones who should be doing something for me, as opposed to forcing me to spend more money on a product that didn't deliver in the first place.

Am I being unreasonable? Is this a hopeless case? Or can any of you make my day by suggesting something?

Thank you!
Lyn[/QUOTE]