Faulty Apple Laptop

henrygregory

Having been working in IT for over 10 years now, this is becoming a more common scenario....

My girlfriend's 4 year old Apple Macbook Pro suddenly stopped working the other day. It is just four years old - she bought the extended warranty for 3 years of cover when she purchased it.

I took a quick look myself and from what I could see, it looked like a logic board fail.
She took the unit in to Apple to see what they thought and sure enough, it was. They are asking for just under £400.00 to replace this part.

I understand that the laptop is out of warranty, but do we have any grounding in claiming that the laptop has not been adequately durable? It was purchased with a credit card.

This machine cost in excess of £1000 and I am sorry to say (from my own experience), that the likes of Toshibas and Acers which cost substantially less than this replacement part cost, last far longer than these expensive Apple devices.

If one is paying a premium, the device really should be lasting longer. If you look at the specification of her machine, it would be good for another 2 or 3 years in my professional view.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

JJ_Egan

Soga / sales of goods act is against the vendor not the manufacturer .
Subject to an engineers report stating was not fit for purpose could reasonably have lasted longer etc .and pursue the vendor .
Any costs paid back can be subject to discount for four years usage .

henrygregory

JJ_Egan wrote: »

Soga / sales of goods act is against the vendor not the manufacturer .
Subject to an engineers report stating was not fit for purpose could reasonably have lasted longer etc .and pursue the vendor .
Any costs paid back can be subject to discount for four years usage .

Thanks for your useful reply. Where would I source an engineer?
Myself working in this industry, I can certify myself that it is not fit for purpose as I work on hundreds and hundreds of these devices a year. I am a self employed IT consultant, would that suffice?

atrixblue.-MFR-.

henrygregory wrote: »

Thanks for your useful report. Where would I source an engineer?
Myself working in this industry, I can certify myself that it is not fit for purpose as I work on hundreds and hundreds of these devices a year. I am a self employed IT consultant, would that suffice?

INDEPENDANT REPORT. You are not independent and it would be a BIAS report, if your girlfriend ever went to court over this and the court discovered YOU did the report OMG it would be thrown out with all costs on your girlfriend.


Give it to someone who doesnt know you or GF pay the report fee and see what comes of it.


Personally 4 years on a laptop is going to be hard to prove a manufacturing defect and Not durable its lasted FOUR years till this point.

neilmcl

henrygregory wrote: »

Thanks for your useful report. Where would I source an engineer?
Myself working in this industry, I can certify myself that it is not fit for purpose as I work on hundreds and hundreds of these devices a year. I am a self employed IT consultant, would that suffice?

In what field?

Are you a certified hardware engineer, for example?

henrygregory

neilmcl wrote: »

In what field?

Are you a certified hardware engineer, for example?

Not certified but have been working in the industry for 10 years, and am quite capable and knowledgeable enough to know if something is bust or not and if it has been bust as a consequence of not being properly cared for.

henrygregory

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

INDEPENDANT REPORT. You are not independent and it would be a BIAS report, if your girlfriend ever went to court over this and the court discovered YOU did the report OMG it would be thrown out with all costs on your girlfriend.


Give it to someone who doesnt know you or GF pay the report fee and see what comes of it.


Personally 4 years on a laptop is going to be hard to prove a manufacturing defect and Not durable its lasted FOUR years till this point.

Ok, it didn't say independent above which was why I suggested it.

Four years on and a laptop costing £1000, hmm not sure, I have mixed feelings about it. I do think it should be lasting 5 or 6. Depends if it is worth the agro.

naedanger

henrygregory wrote: »

Ok, it didn't say independent above which was why I suggested it.

Four years on and a laptop costing £1000, hmm not sure, I have mixed feelings about it. I do think it should be lasting 5 or 6. Depends if it is worth the agro.

If the court's view was that it was not sufficiently durable when you bought it, and it should have lasted 5 years without fault, then you would recover £200 (or £333 if they viewed the fault free life as 6 years).

On the other hand if the court ruled 4 years was an acceptable lifetime to be fault free, or you failed to prove the fault was inherent, then you would have lost your court fees and the cost of the report.

Personally I don't think it is a particularly good bet. (I agree a £400 repair bill after 4 years is not good given the price, but in my view nor is it clearly unacceptable.)

atrixblue.-MFR-.

henrygregory wrote: »

Ok, it didn't say independent above which was why I suggested it.

Four years on and a laptop costing £1000, hmm not sure, I have mixed feelings about it. I do think it should be lasting 5 or 6. Depends if it is worth the agro.

doesn't matter the cost, its been 4 years regular use.


Ive built a £1400 Desktop system 2 years ago, The fans inside the case are showing signs of wear and tear, i spend hours upon ours on this system, encoding video, pictures, editing and so on, due to its USE, i have to accept that something will fail sooner or later and it sounds like my corsair fans are starting to fail, its regaurly cleaned out for max cooling, i aslo have to accept that my wifi card is also failing, and my case USB ports are also failing.


But for the hours ive used all the parts they have been durable for the time and use!.


Ive seen £2000 gaming laptops fail after 2 years use, and apple laptop I'm surprised it reached the ripe old age of 4!.

marliepanda

henrygregory wrote: »

Not certified but have been working in the industry for 10 years, and am quite capable and knowledgeable enough to know if something is bust or not and if it has been bust as a consequence of not being properly cared for.

Sorry but anyone can tell if something is 'bust'

The independent report has to show it was made with unsuitable components/not made properly from the offset. Not just that it's broken now. You can't just say 'it must have been cos it's only lasted four years.'

neilmcl

henrygregory wrote: »

Not certified but have been working in the industry for 10 years, and am quite capable and knowledgeable enough to know if something is bust or not and if it has been bust as a consequence of not being properly cared for.

But what as? I've been working in the "industry" for over 25 years, doesn't mean that I could give an expert opinion of what has caused this fault and importantly that it would be accepted by the retailer and a court, if it went that far.