I had a crack on the LCD of my 2011 MBA 13" after about a year of use.
Basically I woke up one morning and found a discouloured patch on the inside of the screen and it spread until the screen was unusable. It had just been sitting there overnight. No damage, no cracks to glass - nothing. Just the LCD inside was broken.The crack was right in the middle where the plastic Apple logo is on the other side. To me this looks like its a design flaw.
Laptop was covered by Applecare.
There is no Apple store where I am so I took it into one of the local repair places that Apple told me to take it to. The people who took the computer seemed to be familiar with this problem and they immediately started inspecting the part of the cover where the light-up Apple logo is. Apparently this is a weakness in the lid. They said it would be a problem, as obviously I hadnt damaged or abused the laptop.
Couple days later, I get a message from them that this damage is down to my misuse of the computer, bla bla bla, this is not covered under Applecare etc. Okay so I call them and ask how could I have abused this laptop that has no marks and no damage signs. They refuse to answer, they either want me to pay them money (almost as much as buying a new MBA actually) to fix it.....or I must pay them a fee for the evaluation, because the evaluation says this was my fault. But again no answer as to how I could possibly have been at fault. They also claimed they have never seen or heard of this type of problem before other than via abuse. Mrked contrast to the story I heard from the folks who accepted the computer for repair.
Basically this to me was near-piracy, as I had paid for Applecare and now was being told it is meaningless and not only will they not fix this problem, but I am to pay them money even if they dont fix my computer.
I called this BS and escalated to Apple. Made a lot of complaints. In the end Appple agreed to fix this under Applecare, but refused to take responsibility, saying the were doing this as a "courtesy" because I am a long term customer of many Apple products bla bla bla.
I accepted this solution and they fixed the laptop. But personally I think it was nonsense and I cant see how Apple expect I would buy another one. For me this is a design flaw and its unaceptable that Apple wants to put a flashy light up logo on the back of my laptop as advertisement for them, meanwhile it weakens the strength of the lid protecting the LCD - and then when this fails its the buyers fault?
And then this sorry nonsense of not accepting responsibility but telling me after I complain that they are fixing this as a "courtesty"? Total joke.
Sorry but they lost my business right there and then. Nice computer, but this is just not acceptable product performance or attitude.
Worst of all I think in their own twisted minds they see this arrogance and blatant refusal to accept fault as good customer service. Good luck to the company. I cant see a bright future at this rate.
