On Friday, December 17, 2004, at 11:13 AM, Amber wrote:
The end of the first year of warranty is fast approaching for my G4
Powerbook and I am looking at have to pay almost $400.00 to extend it via
Applecare.
I've been trying to suppress a rant on the declining quality of Apple's products and electronics and consumer products in general for about a week now, and can bite my tongue no longer.
I expect electronic stuff to last a minimum of 5 years and motor vehicles at least 10. I have a 20 year old Ten-Tec ham radio transceiver that works fine, and put over a 1000 trouble free miles a month on a 1983 BMW motorcycle this year. I also have a '98 Ford Ranger in the fleet that needed one repair (rear brake linings) in 80,000 miles and an '84 BMW motorcycle that has had no major repairs in 100,000 miles. In my house I have 1985 Epson, 1990 Panasonic, and 1995 Mitsubushi laptops that still work, and on my desk sits an '99 vintage 333 mhz. iMac that has never failed me.
That's the peaches, and now the lemons: A 2001 Yaesu ham transceiver that is broken beyond repair after less than 2 years service. A 1992 BMW motorcycle that needed $3000 worth of repairs before the warranty expired. That bike now spends half it's time sitting in my garage waiting 'til i can get a good deal on used parts to fix it's latest failures.
Back to warranties... The '83 and '84 BMWs were warrantied for 3 years and unlimited miles. BMW was never bankrupted by such liberal terms because they built such a reliable product. One rider even rode 200,000 miles in 3 years, and BMW cheerfully paid for a ring job and minor repairs. The TenTec's appear to be designed to last forever, and they still support stuff they made in the '70s- probably because they're owned by a couple retired hams, make a lot of military electronics, etc. It's in the DNA- TenTec doesn't know how to make an unreliable radio. BMW's motorcycle quality went to hell because of the retirement of some veteran engineers, cost cutting, etc. Yaesu is still suffering from a merger that left them in a shambles. BMW's solution was to cut their warranty to 40,000 miles- about the point where their cost cutting and boy racer engineering causes expensive parts to start breaking. Yaesu simply stonewalls customers- I have yet to receive a reply to an e-mail sent months ago.
And Apple?
About the time the G3 PowerBook production was winding down Apple limited AppleCare protection to the first 3 years of life. I take that action as an admission that Apple's hardware is now so unreliable and difficult to repair (compare hard drive replacement on a Pismo to the latest AlBook) that they'd lose money if they guaranteed it past 3 years. Apple may also be trying to manipulate if not force us to buy a new Mac every 3 years. I paid $2200 for my Pismo only because I expected a quality product that would last at least 5 years. After 3 years I am left with a laptop so unreliable I don't take it out of my house. Suffice to say, I won't be waiting in line at the Apple Store to buy a new PowerBook or probably anything else Apple.
Dyna
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