@What The Geek: Are you kidding? It's apple. Expect to pay a lot.

Since when on "most" laptops there is a "seal"??? I have personally opened at least 50 Mac laptops going back over 10 yrs and have never seen a seal. Add to that another dozen PCs. Never, not one, ever.

And I have upgraded drives in my two most recent, 15" PowerBook and 15" MacBook Pro, In both cases I had to take them in for warranty repair and I told them it had a bigger hard drive, they noted that in the repair doc, but it did not effect my warranty.

The part I don't understand is why he told Apple what he was doing.

On most laptops, there's a seal over the cover so that when you open it, you break the seal, thus voiding the warranty. Even if he didn't tell Apple about it now, any future tech who worked on his machine would have had to declare it out-of-warranty...probably better that he deal with it now while he can deal with people who know the situation.

@Jim Topoleski: That means you're not installing the parts properly.

Personally, I would have gone home, opened the computer, plugged the cable back in and moved on. If other problems arise, go back to the store or an authorized Apple repair place and have them check out the machine. If they ask whether he opened the machine, then yeah, probably better to fib his way out of it (or bite the bullet, tell the truth and take his lumps), but the odds are against them asking, unless there was a gouge out of the case or something. But don't volunteer the information that you opened it up when you know that that probably voided your extended warranty. That's just cutting off your nose to spite your face, IMHO.

The OP might as well try escalating the issue, but I don't think he's going to get far, because he's now had two things happen that, at least in theory, should have voided his warranty. He spilled something on/in the machine (huge no-no) and he then opened the laptop up and started doing things inside. Apple might take pity on him and cut him a break, but unfortunately, I think he's going to have an uphill battle.

But still, yes, if he had just not told them afterwards, the warranty thing would not have been an issue.

It still doesn't seem unreasonable to want to let them know about their mistake.

I still say he should escalate the warranty issue up the food chain.

Without trying to blame the OP, it does seem that he sort of backed himself into this particular corner mostly because he wanted to "prove" to them that he was right and they were wrong. Better to just say, "Well, I guess I'll take it home and think it over," then try the fix privately, so there's no proof one way or the other regarding the warranty.

If you really want that done I'd recommend taking it to a smaller local AASP (authorized service provider). Their work is covered under the warranty and they are essentially the same as an Apple Store - only with more personalized and faster (typically overnight) service. For comparison, my Apple Store took a week to return my iMac and it still wasn't fixed. My local AASP returned it on the next business day, and they had to order the part. (For some reason, and I don't know if this is still true, AASPs can receive in-stock parts overnight while Apple Stores have to wait a few days.)

Your price for coverage is slightly more expensive that what you pay for a accidental coverage when you buy the system. When it comes to a laptop I would never buy a mac until they get a real warranty.

Spilled Snapple on his Apple, and now his warranty is crapple.

What's the big f'ing deal then? That's not an unreasonable request; you spilt snapple over the thing, and then had issues that could have been (and could still be) related, and the only way they can check it out would be to, um, check it out.

That's what I'm getting from the beginning of that last paragraph.

I spilled hot chocolate ALL over my late 2008 MBP. It was completely fried. Logic board was DEAD.

So instead of being an idiot and telling apple what I did.

I took the computer apart and cleaned every piece thoroughly with alcohol. Once it was all cleaned and put back together I took it to the apple store..

I got there and said oh man.. my computer won't turn on! I don't know what to do!.

So they replaced my logic board. I even fried both sticks of ram I had (aftermarket 4GB set) and they replaced that with apple certified RAM.

I now have a 100% working MBP..well the keyboard doesn't glow anymore, but who cares!

spilt

god dammit I need sleep

*split* not spit =.=;

a friend spit Apple Juice on my MacBook Unibody (b4 the pro one came out).

To replace all the parts that got damaged it would have cost my friend $2200.

So now she has that machine and I am typing this from my MacBook Pro 13".

my warranty would not be reinstated unless I paid $1340.

I will never understand why anyone eats or drinks around their laptops. I own an Asus net book and you will never catch me eating or drinking anything near it.

If you own a laptop or net book DO NOT EAT or DRINK ANYTHING while using it. If you must eat or drink fluids, place the food or drink on a table that forces you to walk away from where the laptop or net book is.

$1240 is the price of repair for any "totaled" computer that reaches Apple (3 major components or more and they outsource the repair and your cost is $1240). However, the problem here is that they likely have evidence of the snapple damage to the logic board, and while the loose cable IS an issue, it was not the problem that they found in all likelihood. They probably have photographic evidence of sticky liquid on the logic board, specifically the part that does not face the customer side of the genius bar. Chances of a sugar-based liquid not destroying the indicator strips, not causing corrosion (assuming he didn't take it out and clean it off), and not actually damaging the functional aspect of the logic board are slim.

Now if he had gone ahead with the $1240 in repairs, he would not have paid for the other $320, as it would have been included in that "totaled" state. Why this is even a STORY is beyond me. Apple didn't screw this guy at all! What an effin' chump!

But I void warranties all the time... (typing on hackintosh netbook with extra RAM and 500GB HDD = instant void.) Bought iPhone 3gs last week, jailbroken and unlocked yesterday. I even have the tshirt to prove it.

@Coop: His warranty was voided by liquid damage, regardless of what it affected. IT does sound to me like they are going above and beyond.

Let's take this situation sideways. Say you work for an insurance company. A client comes in and says they got in a car wreck and needs to file a claim. You tell him that since he was driving dunk and crashed his car, it's not covered. So you cancel his claim. He calls back and says his car is fine, and asks you to reinstate his policy. Would you do it without seeing the car first?

Point here is he voided his warranty, and they are offering to reinstate it if they can inspect it to make sure it's working. If he doesn't want to do that, then there's probably another issue going on, some other damage that he wants them to pay for in a few months.

@shifuimam:

Sure, the option would be nice to have next day onsite repair and more warranty options. However, Apple would not gain much in doing so. Dell and the others do way more volume than Apple. I will concede they have been selling more lately and it will continue to increase, so we may see more options in the future. I can see how they may not want to change anything though, because they are selling at record numbers and they are topping customer service performance ratings: [bits.blogs.nytimes.com]

In regards to phone support, yes, phone support is limited to 90 days. You do have the option to pay for phone support without buying AppleCare however. If you buy AppleCare you get 3 years. But you are not limited to three years, you can buy phone support. Typically this is for software issues though, if you have something that is a genuine hardware issue they will support you. This has been my experience at least.

In regards to the service turn around. I have had good luck, if it is a user replaceable part it comes next day. With a next day return label for the broken one. If we are talking big time repair, I go to my local authorized repair center.

And back to the accidental damage, while Apple may not offer it but I get coverage through my Renter's Insurance. For $216 a year all my computers are covered (2 laptops and a desktop), it actually has other articles as well (cameras, TVs, game consoles, etc). This covers any damage and has a $0 deductible. This to me seems to be a better option. Even if Apple offered it, I would still go through my Renter's as it is more affordable when you consider the breadth of coverage and the length of coverage (presumably, as is the case with Dell, the warranty would have a time limit.)

I am not going to touch the rest of your post.

I usually send my laptop in with my girlfriend. I've found that the Apple Geniuses are much more receptive to helping an attractive girl, than they are a repulsive troll.

Seriously, you can buy 3rd party accidental damage warranties.

Why should Apple have to eat the cost of fixing John Q. Shitwipe for spilling his snapple?

It doesn't matter how well-made your machine is. Spilling liquid on it can kill it. Accidental damage warranties mean you don't have to pay an exorbitant fee to fix it.

I'm sure it'll be a cold day in hell before Apple ever offers such a farfetched thing as accidental damage coverage.

So - the catch 22 described in the title:
If the OP had not opened his laptop to show that the Apple tech made a mistake, his laptop would be declared "Out of warranty" (for the imaginary water damage); if the OP had opened the laptop to show that there was no water damage, the laptop would be declared "Out of warranty" because the customer opened it.

I'm not sure why some of you are trying to pick on the OP on this one - nothing he did sounds unreasonable to me.

On a different note, I've opened up all 3 MBPs I've owned for hard drive upgrades multiple times.

As far as I know, Apple's official stance is: if the work was performed by someone not authorized by apple, the warranty itself was still in place so long as that work didn't actually cause any damage.

I would escalate this issue to someone a little higher up the food chain. There should be no problem with your warranty.

Liquid damage, especially liquids other than water will ALWAYS damage a motherboard. ALWAYS. It may work forever, it may die tomorrow, but it IS very much damaged.

By what standard do you consider something "damaged"? Seriously, if it "works forever", wouldn't that be an indication that it's not damaged? I'll concede that liquids can cause unseen damages, but in the vast majority of cases, once things are dry (and everything still works) you're pretty much in the clear.

Also, I don't get at all that Apple is claiming that the liquids damaged the logic board (because, in all likelihood, they probably didn't if the techs didn't think it was a problem earlier). The concern is that he voided his warranty by working on the laptop himself, fixing something Apple should have fixed. It's a fair point, although whether it's enough to grant him his warranty back is another story.

@Paul Carr: Corrosion is also a concern. Even pure DI water will cause corrosion in many of the metals present. I'd go with non-conductive, non-oxidizing liquids to be safe, and I can't think of any.

So you were lucky. I've dropped a cell phone in the sink before, and I dried it out. It continued to work.

This doesn't change the fact that liquid of any kind can damage electronics. It's not just moisture. Other particles in the liquid can, over time, lead to corrosion.

Anecdotal evidence does not an argument make, particularly when there is voluminous evidence to the contrary.

@y2julio: That too... it makes a 2.5 year old desktop boot in under 20 seconds. And my newer laptop is fast fast fast.

@Jim Topoleski: The motherboards are ATX standard in the XPS line. it CAN be done. I like my case and will do it when i feel the need to upgrade.

"I agree that not liking proprietary parts is a nonsensical reason to avoid Macs. Macs these days are not that different from PCs (in fact, they essentially are PCs and can even run Windows natively)."

Try shoving a standard ATX motherboard into a Mac Pro.

"There's really not much of a difference between Mac laptops and high-end PC laptops. People making price comparisons always seem to compare Macs with rickety low-end PCs for shock value, but Apple doesn't even try to service the very low end of the market."

Bull. I can get a Lenovo IdeaPad with the same screen size, same processor, comparable graphics card, etc. as a MacBook Pro for several hundred dollars less. That's simply the fact of the matter.

My PowerMac G3 used a regular PC PSU to replace its fried one. Tower macs can do the same.

We are talking about taking a motherboard from newegg, and having it fit a Dell without having to cut anything, drill new mounting holes, and not having to make fit ANY of the original Dells cards.

It CANT be done, Dell specifically designs their cases around their motherboards now.

@Solidgun: The XPS M1330 is a fantastic little thing and well worth the money.

@TheyCallMeStacey_GitEmSteveDave: I have 2 Dell desktops at home, and I've been able to swap out every single component between both of them (XPS 410). One is using an Antec Earthwatts PSU. They're not proprietary. Dell hasn't used proprietary hardware in desktops in a while.

So, he spilled Snapple, he payed the $300 for the new top cover assembly. His warranty should have been reinstated at this point, but because the technician thought he had reconnected the fan properly when he had not, he noted that the motherboard was bad when it was not.

Apple, however, has no way of knowing that what the technician said isn't correct. They can't just reinstate the warranty saying all the spill damage was repaired, because as far as they know the laptop is still broken and if they reinstated the warranty they could be liable later for repairs on the still-broken laptop. To make sure that doesn't happen they want to inspect the laptop to make sure it's working before they reinstate the warranty.

It's that simple.

Oops. My bad. Thanks for clarifying.

@Charles Duffy: It's too easy with computers though. Apple could claim corrosion from the liquid damage caused a failure (say, a year after the spill, which does happen), or even claim that by opening up the machine without proper anti-static precautions the user had damaged the machine in some way.

The problem is that the tech working on it loosened a cable for a fan when he was doing the 320 dollar job. So Apple claims that the fan must have stopped working from the same water damage. So they said it will cost 1300 dollars to fix. The customer opened it and found out it was a loose cable. Which means Apple shouldn't have voided the warranty on the motherboard.

Apple was using the incident of the fan not working as evidence of water damage, when it turns out their own tech caused the problem.

The laptop still works because the water didn't get below the keyboard and thus the laptop is not water damaged.

The main difference is the software. I just love Mac OS X. It's joy to use. I've never said that about any version of Windows, and I doubt I ever will.

AppleCare is NOT transferable or returnable, but you can get a pro-rated refund under certain circumstances, such as theft.

This is actually a tricky question because Geniuses learn about the policy and coverage that AppleCare grants, but often NOT the policy of the agreement itself. This needs to be done through the applecare team, which is not the same as applecare support agents/geniuses.

I guarantee that I could tell you things you didn't know (no guaranteed that it would be useful or relevant to you!), but I was without doubt an exceptionally knowledgeable genius back in the day.

@taking_this_easy: Yes, because your XPS is so cool and very powerful. I bet it boots up in 14 seconds ready to use. It doesn't?

I guess I could be really cheap and buy a Dell....or pay for the quality and OS that works faster.

@Jim Topoleski: I spilled 1/2 a cup of coffee on my laptop.... 3 years ago. It still works great. Just made sure I dried it out completely before putting the battery back in and such.

On the plus side, they will refund a pro-rated amount of your Applecare if you cancel. And third party repair shops are usually quite reasonable. If you do have Apple fix, a lot of times you can talk them down, and they will reinstate your Applecare.

Apple goes back and forth on this [I believe] because they'll make things accessible if they can, but won't go out of the way to design it in.

If, for instance, his optical drive failed after the mobo replacement, that would not be covered under warranty because that was not part of the repair.

hang on...this dope had a snapple drink right next to his laptop.
Snapple drink spills onto laptop. Sends to apple to fix, and they tell them water damage voids warranty.

So lets see,...user spills drink on laptop, expects company to fix laptop due to water damage ( which voids warranty ) then states problem was with wire not properly connected.
Ever thought that perhaps there is more damage than what the eye can see.

Regardlesss or not, your an idiot. Your better off dropping it in the pool.

This has been my experience both on the consumer end and the service end of a repair.

This is a case of the repair tech doing a lousy job of closing the machine back up and the shop blaming the tech's mistake on the liquid damage. Apparently the tech didn't feel like opening the laptop back up and reseating the cable.

My experience with apple "geniuses" has been nothing but problems. I have yet to meet one that could tell me something I didn't already know. On that same note, I have yet to meet one that could identify the real source of the problem. My favorite example, two hours waiting for them to "fix" my ir reciever. Turns out they had disabled it while testing the graphics card. Or one "genius" saying the Applecare is transferable if your computer is stolen, while the another says I'm outta luck. GAH!

ha... my $1300 Dell XPS M1330 came with 4 years warranty and accidental damage... accidentally spilled water on the keyboard and broke the hinge... both covered...

So say you replace your hard drive and it dies? You cant have that repaired under AppleCare.

But if it was the original hard drive and it died? Then its covered.

@shifuimam:
Better tech support? They're Geniuses man...Geniuses. What more can you possibly want?

Sounds reasonable to me.
Hell in terms of warranties this sounds ABOVE AND BEYOND reasonable.
I mean, they ARE offering to fully REINSTATE the warranty. They just need to confirm the state of the lappy. That he didn't mod/screw with anything other than what he said he did (push the jumper back in), which is 100% reasonable considering subby spilled Snapple on it, and also opened it up.

@sir_pantsalot:

I love that there are people who will know that's sarcasm, and chuckle; and another set of people who will read it and pound their fist on their desk, saying "damn right!".

That has to be the dumbest comment I have ever read as a reason not to buy a Apple laptop over say a Dell.

ALL PC MANUFACTURERS USE PROPRIETARY PARTS. You cant just stick a new motherboard into a old Dell case. Sure if you hacked it up maybe, but the board was manufactured FOR Dell.

The only way you can have a non proprietary system is to build your own. Thats it. Any mention of ANY manufacture nullifies your statement because they ALL use proprietary parts.

Liquid damage, especially liquids other than water will ALWAYS damage a motherboard. ALWAYS. It may work forever, it may die tomorrow, but it IS very much damaged.

Anyhow, I feel like some apple juice now.

Of course, that many failures in and of itself is an issue.

I'm sure we can all agree that if it was soaked, fully plugging in the cable would've been the least of his problems with the computer.

1) notebook is brought in for repair because snapple was spilled on it
2) keyboard has to replaced because of that
3) it's reasonable to assume that if the keyboard was already dead, that liquid got to the mobo (none of us know unless we actually see the mobo)
4) to get full warranty, you need to replace the mobo.

Here's a thought, if he just waits till it breaks, then get the mobo replaced; I'm sure they warranty their work for some time. If his mobo doesn't break, then no problem; if it does, then he has to pay for it either way.

Instead, all Apple can bother to offer on their already-overpriced hardware is an overpriced so-called extended warranty that doesn't even give you a next business day, onsite repair option (again, Dell, HP, and Lenovo all offer this as a warranty option, even to home/small office purchases).

Should I also mention that Apple doesn't offer phone service past ninety days unless you buy AppleCare - and even then, your phone service is limited to three years? I was able to call HP/Compaq with a hardware question on an ancient Pentium II Presario desktop, and they helped me without hesitation.

If I'm spending $1200-$2500 on machine, I expect better warranty and technical support options. Get with it, Apple.

The whole fan thing is a non issue... it's got nothing to do with the warranty being voided afaik.

His word against Apple's. He's not going to win this fight.

Side note: I once spilled an entire glass of milk onto my ThinkPad (thanks, sausage fingers). I figured it was over: ballgame for the ol' P0rnBox. I drained out the Garelick Farms goodness, did a genuinely half-a$$ job mopping up the keyboard/innards as best I could, and let it sit for a day to dry out and think about what it had done.

That was 5 years ago. To this day, it still works every time I fire it up. I used it daily for years after this happened, too. So thank you IBM, for making a superior (and more expensive) product. Just too bad you aren't making 'em any more.

The federal minimum standards for full warranties are waived if the warrantor can show that the problem associated with a warranted consumer product was caused by damage while in the possession of the consumer, or by unreasonable use, including a failure to provide reasonable and necessary maintenance.

Actual liquid damage would fall into the above provision -- but since replacing a jumper fixed the problem, there was clearly no liquid damage to the motherboard within the above provisions.

If he replaces the board, then he should have his warranty re-instated; it's basically a new notebook at that point.

The only time I had Apple service one of my computers, they put the unit back together wrong and the CD door would not open (a 2001 iBook).

There's no such thing as an industry standard laptop system board. They're all proprietary.

I don't believe you and your lies Consumerist.

Get a third party warranty from someone like square trade that includes accidental damage coverage and save yourself a lot of heartache.

I'd say just get a new logic board himself it it fails again through eBay and repair the laptop himself. What does he have to lose? Warranty is already gone.