The 90 day warrant on the repair is the matter that concerns me most. After calling around trying to get quotes for a replacement logic board, I got no where. A local Apple ASAP wanted to charge me £78 just to diagnose it (refundable if I go ahead with the repair). I know what the problem is and just wanted a price so I would know what the cost would be. Apple wanted to charge £35 to talk to me over the phone. I don't have time to mess about going into Applestore to argue this out with a Genius who has no discretion. It's my work comptuer and I need it working, and reliably working.
I've contacted Ebay bga_repairs via email, had a sensible discussion with him and the machine is shipping off to him today. The GPU is being replaced with a new part, leaded solder will be used, I'm expecting/hoping he'll put a sensible amount of heat-transfer paste on both the CPU and GPU, if that looks like it was a problem.
Repair is going to cost me ~£210 once I take into account my getting insured delivery to him. Not as cheap as some people, but if I'm going to get it done, I might as well do everything I can to get it done right. Time is money after all, repeatedly trying to fix this will do my head in.
Once I have the machine returned I'll post my experience to this thread for others in the UK/Europe/further afield. I'll also post an update in a few months time.
Posting this from a MBP 2006 that was in constant use for 7.5 years plus within my family. And worked hard. Been sitting in a cupboard for the last 3 months after a drive failure. Pulled my MBP 2011 Snow Leopard drive out, dropped it into the MBP 2006, rebooted, was back up and running (albeit some what less quick) within an hour. That's the sort of reliability I've historically had with my Macs, and why many "Professional" Mac users have stayed with Apple.
A Repair Extension Program will certainly cost Apple a few million, they've got shareholders, we understand the reluctance. But the reputational damage this may cause Apple long term may be significantly greater. It's a Premium product used by High end/Professional users. They typically have bought into the entire Apple ecosystem. They typically evangelise Apple to friends/family/co-workers. That relationship may well change if Apple aren't consistent in their policy with this sort of manufacturing issue. I bought my MacBook Pro in the full knowledge of GPU failures in earier iMacs and MacBooks. I also knew that eventually Apple introduced repair extension programs. This made me happy to shell out on top of the range kit, rather than just getting the cheapest Mac I could or switching to Windows.
Please remember to be polite with all Apple and Dealer staff you encounter on your journey. They don't dictate policy, but they do have to stick to the party line otherwise their livelihood may be at risk. I know it will be frustrating, but remember they aren't the enemy. More like canon fodder between Apple Corp and us MBP Insurgents.