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MacBook Casing Cracked

Hey, the casing on my MacBook cracked. Even though my computer is no longer covered by apple care, I called them and made an appointment with the Genus Bar. They Replaced the casing for free. 🙂 It turns out that the casing, keyboard and trackpad are all in one piece. Now I have a new keyboard, trackpad, and casing.

MacBook (White), Mac OS X (10.6.2), Late 2007+ iPod Touch 2nd Gen

Posted on Dec 20, 2009 10:04 PM

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33 replies

Oct 6, 2010 9:05 AM in response to emonk

Reporting back: last week I went to my local apple store in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. The genius who helped me seemed familiar with the problem and replaced the entire top case (palm rests, keyboard and trackpad) at no cost in about 10 minutes! I asked if this was a common problem and he alluded that it was, although he wouldn't flat out say that the cracking is common (probably because he doesn't want apple to be liable). He said that the cracking normally occurs on either the left or right side of the topcase, depending on which hand you close your laptop with most often, because the magnets above the screen apply extra weight to the areas where everyone seems to be experiencing cracks. He also told me that for the lifetime of the laptop, whether under warranty or not, apple will replace my top case at no charge.
I was very satisfied! Yes, there is a problem but they are doing their best to fix it. It seems that the new macbooks with the unibody will not have this problem because instead of two magnets on the left and right side of the webcam, the magnet and the raised grooves are evenly distributed all around the screen. I don't know if I am explaining this well but if you look on the apple website at the pictures you can see how the raised bits are better designed.

Oct 6, 2010 9:07 AM in response to lurchmuffins

Sorry this is probably too late, but I think the new design has fixed this problem- although the aluminum casing is definitely more durable in general. My macbook has a lot of cosmetic cracking that the genius told me is normal and basically unable to prevent when you transport your macbook. i know that the macbook pros do not have this issue.

Nov 2, 2010 8:01 AM in response to iceman123

I got my MacBook last Christmas, it was my 5th Mac and at this rate will be my last. I took my MacBook to an apple reseller who sends it on to an apple registered tech centre. I got a call from the tech centre yesterday saying that Apple would not fix the lower part of the case as they believed it was accidental damage. I disagreed with this so called Apple. After nearly 2 hours on the phone the 2nd level support member of staff hold me that if the tech centre say I broke it, that most be what happened. When I said this was not the case, he suggested many ways it could have happened, then implied that I was being dishonest with my claim. He also said that there was no know fault with the case where my crake had appeared so I must have dropped it because it couldn't be defective. He made out the MacBooks can only break in ways that they are told.
Well at this point I called the tech centre and asked what evidence they had found of me dropping may MacBook. To which they said they didn't think it had been dropped and was still in very good condition. In fact there was no other signs of damage apart from some cracking around the hinges, which Apple are happy to fix. They even sent me a copy of the chat proving their point.
I then called Apple again wondering why I had been lied to by the fairly nasty man in 2nd level support. At this point they said it didn't matter what the tech centre says because they don't believe there is a problem with the case where the crack has appeared, even though it's less than a year old and I have the extended Apple care. They are not willing to pay for the repair, I have now been past onto customer services. Not sure what good that is going to do. So at this point after being a Mac user for over eight years I am wondering where it all went wrong and how I can make a formal compliant as they seem to hiding the address on their webpage.

MacBook Casing Cracked

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