Grrrr!!! MBP Nvidia failure 1 month after warranty expire

[davester]

Wife's MBP NVidia video card just failed...known defect in her MBP with an extended warranty that apple ended a month ago. This is really annoying. If it had failed last month then it would have been a free repair. Now the thing apparently needs a new logic board ($800 from iFixit). Any thoughts?

[M A V I C]

How many years old? Which model?

[Golfer]

Call them anyhow, I bet they'll cover the repairs. I've had them cover stuff in about the same circumstances.

[davester]

It's a 2008 MBP 2.5 ghz. We bought it just as the unibodys were coming out.

[GGD]

davester wrote:
Wife's MBP NVidia video card just failed...known defect in her MBP with an extended warranty that apple ended a month ago. This is really annoying. If it had failed last month then it would have been a free repair. Now the thing apparently needs a new logic board ($800 from iFixit). Any thoughts?

Go to the Genius Bar, calmly discuss it with them, see if they will do anything for you. I got them do the repair for my wife's MBP in early December for free. At that time the article about the NVIDIA problem stated "Apple will continue to evaluate the repair data and will provide further repair extensions as needed.", and I pointed that out to them. I also pointed out that two years ago when my MBP had the NVIDIA problem/repair, I asked if I could have my wife's MBP tested and repaired if it had the suspect chip (they all have the suspect chip), and was told that I had to wait until it failed. So, I felt that it was unjustified for them to reject it when it actually did fail.

The slightly better news is that they will do a flat-rate repair for around $310 and replace the logic board and anything else that is wrong with it if you can't convince them to do it for free (much better than iFixit)

http://web.archive.org/web/2012102508195.../kb/TS2377
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377

The way they actually handled my wife's was sending it in as a Flat Rate Repair, and the store ate the cost. They never even attempted to run the NVIDIA failure test on it. After the Genius said that they wouldn't cover it, I asked if I could speak to the manager, he went to get talk to the manager, and came back saying that they would cover it. (this was at the Palo Alto store). When I went to pick it up, they attempted to collect $310, and I reminded them to check their records, because it was supposed to be $0.00.

If all else fails, try Small Claims Court.
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/04/19/blog...-failures/

[rgG]

GGD gives some good advice.

[C(-)ris]

Exactly what GDD said.

[Manlove]

We have the exact same (but 2.4 Ghz ) MBP.
Infact, we have two, which was dumb but hey, live and learn!
Mine was repaired free with the extended warranty for the logic board failure last year and my wife's which also went bad was repaired and then repaired again under the 90 day warranty. Hers cost the $310, but we did get a brand new battery and the power/I/O board.
$310 in our opinion was worth it if we get another 3 or 4 years out of these macs.

[silvarios]

Manlove wrote:
We have the exact same (but 2.4 Ghz ) MBP.
Infact, we have two, which was dumb but hey, live and learn!
Mine was repaired free with the extended warranty for the logic board failure last year and my wife's which also went bad was repaired and then repaired again under the 90 day warranty. Hers cost the $310, but we did get a brand new battery and the power/I/O board.
$310 in our opinion was worth it if we get another 3 or 4 years out of these macs.

Why weren't both Macs covered by the extended repair warranty?

[AllGold]

Along the lines of what GGD said, see Racer X's comments in this thread: http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1...sg-1450221

I credit Racer X with imparting the knowledge for a no-cost repair for both my and GGD's machines.