[Gllug] ibook problems

[Richard Jones]

I've had my iBook G4 for 14 months now, and while I'm generally very
happy with it, it did have a fault which proved troublesome to repair.

At about month #11 (ie. just before the warranty was about to run
out), the machine died with a fault which was obviously motherboard-
death.  I called up Apple and they told me to take it along to any of
the Apple-approved London stores for a repair under warranty.

I then made the huge mistake of taking it to Albion Computers on
Mortimer St.  They are - I have no idea how - an Apple-approved repair
centre.

The first thing I discovered is that repairs under warranty take 4
weeks.  If you have one of the extended warranties, they do it in 2
weeks.  OK, I wasn't in any rush.  After 4 weeks, I called up Albion
Computers to see how the repair was going, and they said it was all
fine, and they'd call me when it was done.  After 5 weeks, I was a bit
worried, but after 6 weeks, I did receive a call telling me that the
machine was fixed and I could come and collect it.

When I went to collect, I found that the machine had the exact same
problem - complete death.  Albion claimed that they were merely a
conduit between myself and Apple (a claim which turned out later on to
be a complete lie), and that they'd send the machine back to Apple
marked urgent.

I called Apple, and got a different story.  Albion hadn't even
bothered sending the machine in to them until week #4 (just after I
called them), and, it appears, sent the wrong machine - Apple claim
that the machine they received first was fault free, which certainly
couldn't have been the case, because my machine was dead as the
proverbial dodo.

To Apple's credit, they marked the repair as a priority, and I got it
back a week later, fixed with a new motherboard, but only because I
called Apple and Albion every day to micromanage the process.

So, moral of the story:

(1) Never use Albion computers on Mortimer St. for anything ever.

(2) Get the extended warranty, because it appears that Apple hardware
breaks quite frequently, and the warranty gives you a fast-track
service direct to Apple.

If you're ever in the situation where you have to deal with the Apple
repair centre in Ireland on the phone, make sure you get and write
down the "case number", because that's how they track all their cases.
The Apple people were very efficient.

Rich.

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