Q: 2011 MacBook Pro and Discrete Graphics Card
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Nov 17, 2014 4:57 AMby eris23,Will do .... here is what Apple publish as part of the required T's & C's for the UK - European terms on the same page ( I have added bold type below to the relevant sections )
http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/
Summary of Consumer Law in the United Kingdom
Your consumer rights for goods purchased in the United Kingdom operate alongside, and in addition to, your rights under the Apple One-Year Limited Warranty and the optional AppleCare Protection Plan or AppleCare+.
Under UK consumer law, consumers may choose to have defective goods or goods which do not conform with the contract sale either repaired or replaced free of charge. If a repair or replacement is not possible, would impose a disproportionate burden on the seller, or could not be performed in a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer, the consumer may choose either to have the price reduced or to withdraw from the contract by returning the product in exchange for a full refund. A consumer is also entitled to withdraw from the contract by returning the product in exchange for a full refund if the consumer rejects the goods within a reasonable period of time. The primary responsibility to provide a remedy is on the seller, which would be Apple if the goods were purchased from the Apple Online Store or an Apple Retail Store. If the goods were purchased from a third party reseller of Apple products, the primary responsibility to provide a remedy will lie with the reseller. For goods purchased in England or Wales, these rights expire six years from delivery of the goods. For goods purchased in Scotland, these rights expire five years from delivery of the goods. A claim under UK consumer law may be made subject to the defect being present at the time of purchase.
Any defect or non-conformity of goods with the contract which becomes apparent within 6 months of delivery are presumed to have existed at the time of delivery. After the expiry of this 6 month period, the burden to prove that the defect or non-conformity of goods with the contract existed on delivery generally shifts to the consumer.
UK consumer law automatically introduces the following terms into any contract of sale for goods and/or services to consumers:
Terms in relation to goods Terms in relation to services The goods will match the description given of them. The services will be provided with due care and skill. The goods will be of satisfactory quality. The services will be fit for a particular purpose. The goods will be reasonably fit for any particular purpose that was made known to the retailer (unless the retailer disputed their appropriateness for that purpose at the time) The services will be provided within a reasonable time. For additional information on consumer law, please visit the European Consumer Centre website at http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/ecc/index_en.htm
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Nov 17, 2014 5:06 AMby eris23,
for those in then UK the BBC has a very useful summary and example here (also see the "repairs" section) :-http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8253915.stm
The Truth: The Sale of Goods Act says that your MP3 player must be fit for purpose.
"It must be as described. It must be of satisfactory quality, sufficiently durable, free from any defects," says Dr Christian Twigg-Flesner, a consumer law expert at the University of Hull.
If you've ignored the manufacturer's warnings and have been leaving the player out in direct sunshine and wearing it in the bath, then you probably haven't got much of a case.
But if the player has been lovingly treated and has still conked out that suggests something may have been wrong with it at the very beginning.
It works like this. For the first four-five weeks you have a "right of rejection" - if the item you've bought breaks down, you can demand a refund.
For the next six months, you are entitled to replacement or repair of the goods. It is up to the retailer to prove there was nothing wrong with it if they wish to get out of having to do the work. And then after six months, there is still a duty to replace or repair faulty goods, but the onus is on you, the consumer, to prove that there was something wrong.
And the key time span is six years. That's how long goods may be covered by the Sale of Goods Act. It all depends on what "sufficiently durable" means. If a light bulb goes after 13 months, the consumer is not going to be overly gutted. If their washing machine goes after the same time span they are going to be livid.
The government's guidelines say: "Goods are of satisfactory quality if they reach the standard that a reasonable person would regard as satisfactory, taking into account the price and any description."
And be aware that if you go to the washing machine repairer, spend money attempting to diagnose an inherent fault, and find out you have been using it the wrong way, then you are going to be out of pocket.
A key fact is that your relationship in the Sale of Goods Act is with the retailer, not the manufacturer.
"The retailer likes shepherding you off to the manufacturer," says Dr Twigg-Flesner.
And there are still reasons why you might want an extended warranty - they often include loan machines and ongoing technical support that you would otherwise miss out on. But they are not always good value, says Dr Twigg-Flesner.
"I've never bought one."
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Nov 17, 2014 6:00 AMby obwianMacobi,This is how I got my free of charge repair under the Sales of Goods Act. To be fair, the Apple genius said (quite rightly) that if I wished to pursue a repair under the Sales of Goods Act, I would have to do that through the original retailer I bought the goods from (in my case Currys/PC World). If I had bought the goods directly through Apple, it would have been down to the Apple Store to fulfil my request directly, and issue me with a free of charge repair. Although I did get a free repair through Currys, I still had to wait over 2 weeks to get a response from them after I wrote a letter, then 3 weeks to get my machine back which was a major inconvenience. Problem is, if (or more likely, when) my machine fails again - it's going to be out of action again for some time.
I'm not sure what to do now, whether to wait and see, or sell it whilst it's working and the repair is guaranteed for 90 days.
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Nov 17, 2014 12:30 PMby runski,I have a 2011 17" Macbook Pro. I am on my 4th logic board. To me it's clear that there's a flaw in the logic board design. The original logic board failed after 2+ years of use, and I had to pay Apple to get it replaced. The second one failed within one month of use. I didn't have to pay again to get the third logic board as it's within the 90-day warranty period. The third one lasted longer, and it failed 2 weeks after the 90-day warranty period, and I have to give Apple credit of replacing it with a 4th logic board without charging me. If this one fails again, I was told I would be entitled to a replacement laptop. The store I go to states the policy is three failed repairs before talking about replacement.
I've found that using an external display will cause the failure to occur earlier since it uses the discrete graphics card all the time. I will be surprised that the current logic board will last 90 days.
It's important to build rapport with the Apple store employees. This may not be easy to do given our understanding of the problem and Apple not agreeing to it. Regardless of whether they believe there is a logic board design flaw, they can't do much other than follow the standard procedures. Until their senior management agrees that this is a known problem, they cannot overrule it and give us a replacement laptop without going through the normal repair steps.
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Nov 17, 2014 2:43 PMby An Node,Luckily for me Apple called me a second time (after I wrote an email to Tim Cook, Apples CEO a week ago and they couldn't reach me on Friday).
We need to be heard.
The person called from Ireland and read some sort of prepared text to me, repeating parts of it when I tried to dig deeper and was anxious not to say the wrong thing. He kept talking subjunctively... things "may" or "could" be.
He was being clear on one point though: Up until today Apple does not recognize our MacbookPro problems as a manufacturing error (they may however change that opinion in the future).
He did not confirm that Apple is aware of the problem.
He said he looked at the petition website and this discussion forum (I sent Tim Cook those links) and that they keep an eye on this issue and they are taking my email seriously.
He did confirm that if Apple would every decide to acknowledge this as a manufacturing problem, repairs would be compensated for retroactively (if your repair was because of that issue -> make sure to keep all documents from the repair and be sure they explicitly note the issue on the documents for future reference).
I pressed the issue I have with a device expensive like this failing so early and that apparently many people are having the same problem.
He said, he was sorry, but there is nothing he could do to help me.
My next steps will lead me to a Genius Bar appointment...
...and if I ever should get a new logic board, be it paid or not, I sure as **** I will be rendering video like crazy with an external high resolution display connected and play 3D games, stream HD video and generally put a lot of stress on the machine hoping to eat through logic boards (my last resort to finally make them aware of this issue for all our sakes with the means I have).
<Email Edited By Host>
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Nov 17, 2014 3:15 PMby Demogorgos,Greetings,
As I see it, this will happen: Nothing. Apple will remain in denial, and will just wait until all this fades away. They can do fine without a few thousand disappointed customers. The people who sued maybe will get a deal, but only for them and under confidential circumstances. I also mailed Mr. Cook, but I got no answer.
I think the only statement I have left to make, is that I'll send my MBP to Cupertino to the CEO's attention with a statement that I am very sad that they have decided to steal my money, so they might as well keep their expensive paperweight. I'm an entrepreneur and own an IT company. Guess what brand of computers you will *never* see again at any of my offices?
I'm glad for those who had their issues within their warranty. Mine blew out his summer, exactly 3 months out of warranty. At Apple they wanted 500 euros for a repair. The problem is that with a design flaw on top of the lead free soldering, there is nothing to repair. It's a pity that this whole line is a lemon, or else I could have parted it out and have cut some of my loss to buy another high-end laptop of any brand.
I've been coming back to this thread now and then, and it's obvious that Apple is not willing to do anything about this. So I will count my losses and move on. Bye Apple. You wasted my money, but you're definitely not going to waste more of my time.
Regards,
JP
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Nov 18, 2014 7:06 AMby MipsVD,Hello,
Same problem here. Our daugther is a student graphic design with a MBP 2011.
We already needed two times a replacement of the logic board.
Yesterday the MBP crashed again on the same issue.
Really sick of it!
No more MAC for us.
Apple, be decent, time to listen to your customers and act! -
Nov 18, 2014 9:11 AMby Dannyg888,A quick update on my visit to apple store.
Waited almost 1 hour for a Geniuses appointment. The tech guy came up. Showed him the picture of blue line on my mac. He almost immediately realized the problem of the graphic card. He told me let him check if apple created a ticket for it. (Apple definitely realize this is happening. ) the tech discussed me the solution that it need to replace the logic board. And it costs 310+tax. He told me that there is only 90 days warranty for it. and it may fail again. Surprisingly, he hinted me to purchase a new mac to permanently solve the problem. That was a joke. Not in mind for spending 2K on a new MAC.
At the end, I dropped of the computer for a logic board replacement with 310 out of my pocket.
Apple do sth!!!
