Well, if he does have to get a replacement for the mobo somewhere down the line, chances are he can get it for significantly less than $1300. That's outrageous.

But he did spill snapple on the macbook, right? So his warranty be void at that either way. I don't see why the faulty fan and the voided warranty have anything to do with each other (answer= they don't).

And I need more coffee... (not on my keyboard).

As much as I like working with Macs this is why I will never own one. For $1240, you could get a really nice PC. Proprietary parts lead to trouble down the line.
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@ShyamasriPera2: That's what I was thinking - weren't they saying that the Snapple spill had already voided the warranty?

That my friend is why you never claim to have opened a under warranty laptop, just claim it magically started working again.

He clearly violated the terms and conditions of the warranty. He's lucky that his laptop even works. I mean it's one thing if the laptop did in fact, stopped working from faulty equipment. It's another thing to take advantage of the system when it was the user's fault for causing the problem.

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.

@acknight: Yep, that's what I'm thinking; but somehow he thinks that he should get it for free (because they didn't connect a fan? huh?)

@Kris McAllister: You should make some commercials that show that point.

Can we change this "Because of an Apple technician's mistake" ? It's not the techs mistake.

I thought your Apple warranty was only void if you opened up your laptop and damaged it. Does this mean that anyone who upgraded the hard drive in their previous generation MBP has voided their warranty?

@Kris McAllister: I'll never buy anything made by Apple in large part because of all their proprietary parts.

That my friend is why you NEVER, EVER, EVER buy AppleCare. I've owned 3 Macs, and each has AppleCare. And each time, regardless of what is in need of repair, they ALWAYS try to weasel out of it. I've had 2 MacBooks that magically had liquid damage that went away after I escalated the issue or brought it to a different Apple store.

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

@Thanatos: I must agree. Unless you break a seal, why should you tell them? The only way they should know is if they did not reseat the jumper on purpose.

I was under the impression that Apple under no circumstances ever makes mistakes. They in fact shat gold and mailed it to their customers.

I don't believe you and your lies Consumerist.

@Eric1285: I don't think so; I think they're fine with HD + RAM upgrades. Besides "They say [I] voided my warranty because of the liquid damage to the logic board." .... so it's the liquid damage, not the act of opening the macbook pro that voided the warranty.

@dosdelon: Most notebooks use proprietary parts...

Yes, the warranty was already voided because of the Snapple spill. I'm pretty sure the actual problem is that they tried to charge him for a $1300 repair when the real problem was just an unseated cable. I wish I could get paid like that for such a repair!

@ShyamasriPera2: It's not? Who didn't seat the cable correctly after the first repair then?

@John Anderson: Not my experience at all, we got an imac replaced same day after it started to exhibit problems... notebooks have been repaired or replaced without issue, etc. Note: this is at a research lab, so not sure if that makes a difference. (Personally I can't afford a nice mac :D)

@ShyamasriPera2: Exactly. The argument certainly applies to desktops but not so much to laptops.

@thnkwhatyouthnk: That's not the reason why the warranty is voided though. Even if the fan was connected properly, then he'd still have 0 warranty.

@Kris McAllister: A replacement system board for my Thinkpad T61 lists for $1,600. And that's just the board, not the installation.

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

@thnkwhatyouthnk: Maybe; I'm pretty sure the thought behind replacing the logic board is that due to the spill it most likely will exhibit problems in the future. And getting a new logic board will also get his warranty back...

I fixed my own MacBook Pro when I dumped coffee into it about 2 years ago. Still runs great to this day (I even upgraded the hard drive while I had it opened... the older ones were a pain to take apart).

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).

@ShyamasriPera2: I dunno...if the technician hadn't disconnected the cable, they wouldn't have thought it needed a replacement. It's unclear whether the voided-warranty claim came about simply because of that, though. Obviously he had to send it in for other stuff, they may have already known about/learned about the water damage anyway.

@katstermonster: well, they had to replace the keyboard due to a snapple spill....

Escalate the problem to the next level of support, if they cant help tell them you want to talk to the other department that fixes problems for people. It might take a while to get there but be polite and persistent and you will eventually get though to this department of fixers that actually have power to fix things and make customers happy even when its outside the standard.
Example, I got an original iPhone from a friend, it was not working something like one week out of 1 year warranty, called up sorry cant get apple care to get it fixed/replaced for free, call back was persistent eventually got that other department and they signed me up.

@John Anderson: Except this guy admits that he spilt Snapple on the laptop...

@Kris McAllister: What about Dell and Compaq? Dell says screw you to ATX specifications, meaning you can re-use the cases/motherboards, and both Dell and Compaq use proprietary PSU's.

@thnkwhatyouthnk: No they probably found damage on the logic board. Just because it's not causing a obvious problem today doesn't mean it won't go tomorrow.

@ShyamasriPera2: He doesn't want anything for free, he just wants his warranty reinstated. I'm not sure what the situation with the spill is though since he paid to replace the part that was actually damaged by the spill. Can he still have the warranty in that case?

@Manchego: Well, you were lucky; they were under no obligation to do that for you... you weren't the original purchaser, nor was it still within year 1. But obviously the cost of the apple care plan probably covered the repair anyways...

@Eric1285: When I was at the Apple Store this past weekend they told me if I upgraded my Hard Drive I would void my warranty.

@Kris McAllister: You know, I'll give you 1000 dollars. if you can find a laptop for that much, you can keep the laptop and the rest of the money.

@qwickone: sure he does :) What do you think will happen if they re-instate the warranty and the board fails? Sorry, he who spilled the snapple should just suck it up.

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

@ShyamasriPera2: I certainly won't argue that something could happen down the road. However, they said the logic board was the reason the fan wasn't working, which was not the case obviously.

@ShyamasriPera2: AIUI (and IANAL), it's illegal to void a warranty for something which doesn't actually cause damage to the warranted item.

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.

@chiieddy: I dunno, [www.apple.com] it excludes "modifications" but I didn't see anything saying it would void the warranty (note: I skimmed it).

@ShyamasriPera2: They were going to charge $1300 for a logic board that they said would fix his fan issue. The fan issue was instead fixed by fully plugging in the cable. That's one hell of a pricey mistake.

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.

@Charles Duffy: Liquid on a logic board will cause damage; it might just not be obvious right now, but liquid + electrical parts != good.

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

@sir_pantsalot: Judging by some of the comments here, there's a good number of Consumerist readers who have drank that kool-aid.

@ShyamasriPera2: But it is. After a repair, isn't the warranty still valid? Otherwise, why get it repaired by an authorized dealer/repair facility?

@thnkwhatyouthnk: Nope, the mistake is spilling the snapple. The $1300 is for a new logic board that wasn't soaked in sugar water...

@thnkwhatyouthnk: it's apple juice... :D

Those Apple geniuses are fun to deal with. I took my Macbook into the apple store to have it fixed and was told my hard drive was dead, there where water damages on the board, the warranty was now void, and I would have to pay Apple for a new hard drive. I even took it to a second Apple store and was told the same thing. I took it home, reformatted the drive, and now it works perfect.

@chiieddy: If they tell you how to do it in the manual, it's OK to do. I do believe, however, that if the installed part causes a problem, and it isn't an apple part, then THAT isn't covered.

Wouldn't it be nice if Apple just got into the 21st century and offered an accidental damage warranty option like every other major PC manufacturer (Dell, HP, Lenovo - even Acer and Asus have this option)? Then, when you accidentally spill something on your laptop, your accidental damage coverage covers the cost. Totally worth the $200-$400 extra expense to get the warranty in the first place.

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.