Josh Moody

Q: How much does it cost to replace a bad Apple MacBook Pro battery under warranty?
A: $108 + tax.

This weekend, my laptop started flaking out if you disconnected the AC power. It would have a full charge, but as soon as you unplugged, the battery would rapidly discharge before shutting down about 15 minutes later. It wouldn’t start again until I reconnected AC power. I’m not the ony one who has experienced this problem.

Yesterday, I called Apple’s tech support. I’m still under the 1-year warranty for hardware support, but phone support for diagnosing problems expired a couple weeks ago. Grrrr! I had the option to pay a $49 diagnoses fee to proceed with phone support, but I opted to take it down the road to CompUSA instead. Figured I could get them to diagnose the problem and have Apple send me a new battery. No such luck. CompUSA said they’d have to send it off to Apple for diagnoses/repair (something about too many fraudulent warranty claims).

I wasn’t prepared to send it off to Apple for two reasons:

1. I don’t have a backup computer.
2. To avoid the possibility of personal information (passwords, ssh keys, etc.) falling into the wrong hands, I would have to wipe the hard drive before sending it off. I know two people who have very recently had their computers lost (stolen?) from the shipping facility after being sent off for repairs - so it’s certainly possible. To be completely accurate, I know one person, and know of another person who this has happened to — but you get the idea.

So, I go back to the office and call Apple back and agree to pay $49 for the support call. 30 minutes later, after making me jump thru various hoops, Apple decides it is indeed a hardware problem. They said they’d overnight a new battery to me (I got it this morning), and mark the support call as non-billable. So I don’t have to pay anything.

The astute reader would ask at this point: So what’s with the $108 + tax?

Well…. I got a flat tire while taking my computer to CompUSA yesterday. By the time I realized there was a flat, the tire had already been damaged beyond repair. My car is at the tire shop right now getting have a new tire mounted — for a cost of $108 + tax.

While I’m not blaming Apple for my flat tire, per se, I wouldn’t have gotten the flat had the battery not been bad in my laptop. On second thought, I guess I am blaming Apple for the flat tire.