My $0.02 (speaking as someone who has not been happy lately with Apple
tech support and customer care).
This strikes me as a completely unacceptable response. Unless I'm
missing something, if the machine is no longer under warranty then you
are simply asking for a fee-for-service repair,
That's correct.
and there is no reason
that I can think of that they would refuse to do the work under *any*
circumstances, unless: (a) they are incapable of doing so (which would
be an interesting scenario itself); or (b) they are no longer interested
in fee-for-service work on their own hardware, which would *also* be an
interesting scenario itself.
They did the work this time, but said in the future they would not.
The simple solution, of course, is to remove the memory card first, but
that requires my own carbon-based memory card to be fully operational (it
too is no longer under warranty).
If you want to use 3rd party RAM, keep blowing out your drives (assuming
that's actually the problem - a suspicious claim at best), and then
sending your laptop back to them to be repaired for money, why should
that bother them? They do the work, they get your money, life goes on.
I'm beginning to suspect it is a standard form-letter they use for
warranty repairs, and that the person who puts that in the box is not the
person who figures out the billing.
FYI: we have replaced drives in Mac laptops that do not specifiy this
as an end-user replaceable part (i.e. the small white iBooks), and had
it done by "authorized AppleCare repair centers". Doing it yourself
isn't too bad - there are several good sets of instructions on-line
(my memory is to google "Apple <model> hard drive replace" or something
like that), and it's mostly just a question of patience/determination,
and a bit of luck...
... and it gives them something else to complain about if you do send it
back. But it is probably worth it.
Best wishes,
Thanks. (And thanks to the 6.02 x 10^23 others who responded as well!)
Bill
