Wobbly display

The loose hinge is a manufacturing defect that is covered by the warranty. Continuing to use a computer with a loose hinge will cause the hinge to break, and that is considered to be accidental damage which is not covered by the warranty.

I hate to scold, but why would you or anyone continue to use an obviously broken product? You're sitting there, flapping the display back and forth, wondering what on earth to do. Get it repaired ASAP, or you will suffer a "monetary consequence".

This "wobble" appears to be the first sign of a loose hinge and the loose hinge seems to lead to a broken hinge.
I hope you took it in for repair under warranty. This seems to be a $900 repair out of warranty and does involve a complete replacement of the top lid and LCD.

All I can say is bring it back to Apple ASAP. My screen got loose , and then the hinge broke (like your DS I belive), and apple tried to avoid covering it under warranty. The genius said the computer should be brought when the screen is lose, so I would definitly visit the genius bar soon.

Hey, definitely take this in and get the hinge tightened. In fact I'm going to try and find out how much it costs to have the hinge tightened out of warranty. But, I can't find any direct evidence, other than speculation, the "wobble" is the "loose hinge" that leads directly to a cracked hinge. The wobble may just be a wobble, whereas when people describe the loose hinge they had before their hinge cracked, they describing the one hinge is misaligned to the other hinge -- not so much that the display wobbles on both sides, but that one hinge is significantly loose on its pin. This can cause both an unbalance display position and the hinge to actually rise up out of position when opening or closing. A break waiting to Apple.

I can kind of see Apple's point here about accidental damage. A wobble, who's going to think this could lead to major damage? But if one hinge is so loose the display won't position evenly, and the hinge moves out of it position, shifts around, perhaps doesn't close to a balanced position, yeah, that seems like something is good and broken.

Anyway, Engadget is reporting this is US$800 to repair. Engadget must have rolled dice to arrive at this number. It's apparently at most US$450 to repair, and that's only because Apple has been doing these repairs by installing the current part kit that includes all the hinge pieces. That part kit also includes a new LCD panel.

It sounds like there is varied experience with this.

For what it's worth, my 1st gen hinge was wiggling about a quarter of an inch so I took it in to a Apple Store. The Genius looked at it for a short period and then proposed having it repaired under AppleCare. It took about 6 days to get it back (it was shipped out) and the wiggle is now almost completely gone. The repair suggests "latch/hinges loose or broken."

FWIW, this was a refurbished 1st gen I just got about 4 months ago.

My friends MacBook Air started by doing this, and escalated to http://mindspacemind.blogspot.com/2008/06/macbook-air-damaged-hinges-little-too. html after a couple months of the loose screen. Get it fixed immediately before it gets any worse.

Get IN THERE NOW or you will be sorry. My MBA hinge was loose and I did nothing...then one day I picked it up and stood up and the hinge flopped over and the whole thing flipped from my hand and the screen broke.

I know this is partly my fault, but it is also partly due to a FAULTY HINGE that many, many people are experiencing.

My day at the genius bar was not a happy one. My repair bill would be $750. The Manager and the Genius (I can't believe I call someone that) both denied that the MBA has a hinge problem. I finally pulled up a Google search and showed them, and that got the price down to $650, but it is still not good enough for me. I would accept $300 or so, but anything more and I will dump the thing and move one.

The "manager" said she would try customer relations, but that was a week ago and she still has not heard back. I called today and she relayed a message through a "genius" that she didn't know when she would hear back from customer relations. Apparently, Apple's Customer Relations team treats internal customers as badly as external.

Good Luck...

Hey, Flagcarrier, from what I've read, there is no way to tighten the Air hinge. Some (presumably pretty bright) kid on another Mac site tore his apart, discovered how the hinges were made, and he seems to know his stuff enough to know there is no way to tighten the hinge. So, the only way they can tighten the hinge is to install new hinges, which means the whole lid/LCD panel piece, because that's the part kit. See if they are willing to do this. At least, if not, get the case logged so that if the hinges breaking is a direct result of wobbly hinges, and your hinge breaks, the problem has been noted, that you tried to have the wobbly hinge fixed.

I have to agree with you: Hard to even call this problem cosmetic as the only time you notice during normal use is when you reach up to adjust or close the display, it moves a little bit without resistance. Carl described it like the lid is flapping around like the cover of hardback book. Carl, it's nothing like that. It is barely noticeable. So unnoticeable, seriously, you can't tell if it's always been that way and you just noticed, or it has happened over time.

@Flag,

You are right to take it in on Monday. Tell them when it was new, it was tight, and NOT loose, NO wobbly. Since it hasn't broken yet, they can't say it was "accidental damaged". Because the hinge has loosen over time under normal use, it must be a manufacture defect, and it's should be covered under warranty.

Good luck.

One of my favorite features of Mac laptops is that their laptop screens do NOT wobble. Macbook Pro, no wobble. Macbook, no wobble. PowerBook G4, no wobble. My dells on the other hand, a total wobble fest.

In short, take it in and have them look at it. Whats the worst that could happen? Always get a second opinion, in person.

There is no guarantee the hinge will break as a result of the hinge being loose, but it can break, and there may be no further warning.

The way the hinge gets lose, Flagcarrier, you're right: One can't even remember if it was ALWAYS like that. When the hinge starts to get loose, it's not loose by much and certainly doesn't seem like a problem. And I've owned many previous laptops.

"Asking here before wasting not only my time, but also the time of Apple Store employees is what I would advise anyone to do, and I hope you might take that philosophy into consideration."

What do you possibly think about the wobbly display - that it's OK, normal? Why would you consider either one of those was correct? Even if it wasn't an "obvious defect", why would you consider "living with it"? If the steering wheel on your car was loose and wobbly, would you think that it was OK?

"Carl described it like the lid is flapping around like the cover of hardback book."

No, I did not. YOU claimed that the screens "waves", and had become noticeably more "wobbly". What sort of warning do you expect - an electrical "zzzttt" sound, a puff of smoke, a "piercing screech" followed by a "clunking" and "clanking"? The problem, as YOU have noticed, is much more subtle than that. The situation is this: problems (mechanical or electrical) do not solve themselves, and need to be addressed IMMEDIATELY. Whether the problem is "barely noticeable" or more obvious, it needs to be fixed. However, with your recent posts, it's again obvious that some people want to get their computers fixed, and others only want to talk about getting their computers fixed.