Why do MacBook power cords fray so easily?

My 2009 and 2010 chargers are just fine, what do you do to yours?

Of course you do.

You are correct. It is a poor design. After getting VERY loud with the Genius during a full-house Saturday, I convinced him to give me a new cord. He found it in is heart to let everyone in the store know, that I would never get another for free.

I purchased my MacBook Air in 2010. In 2012 the cord went afray. In 2013 it began to go bad again.

To resolve the problem (without having to deal with the idiot savants) I took a piece of fuel line, approx. 3" long, split it down the middle, and encased 2 section of the power cable together so that they could not wiggle and fray.

Please, mine took less than a year, but since I had dropped my Macbook (when not connected) it was out of warranty! It is such a ripoff.

Yeah, I've received SIX faulty ones in three years. Not one has held up. All I do is sit in bed and use my MacBook. It's not stressed.

I don't wind mine - it goes from the power source to my MacBook. It always frays at where it enters the computer. I've had Macs for 12 years. It just the last three years this happens. It's not me. It's the product. A piece of junk.

This is also my guess. The power cable is really bad material. Even cheap Chinese copies are better than the original. I have two power supplies. A Chinese copy and the original. The original always stayed at home on my desk while I used the copy "on the road". After roughly one year on the desk (in the sun) the rubber of the original started to become sticky. I didn't think of anything that time that time. After 1 1/2 year the rubber was that bad that it started to fray just by touching it. Meanwhile the copy shows no sign of deterioration. My bet is Apple or their supplier just use the cheap material.

I thought it was just me. I don't take my laptop out of the house and I don't move it around much. Yet, I have had two unravel in the last year. If it's not where the plug goes in (my old adapters) it's the cord itself.

2.5 yr old rarely coiled, low UV air, no enviromental exposures/ cleaners

middle foot of cord covering just crumbled in middle

apple just shrugged

ends are fine

this is not acceptable

I can only say that the part in question was treated too brutally.

Seven Mac portables since mid 1993. All but one have their original power bricks with their cables in perfect working condition. In all those years only one brick failed and had to be replaced cause the transformer inside croaked. But its still-good brick-to-wall cord is being used elsewhere in perfect working state.

A buddy introduced me to this cheap but apparently affective solution: https://sugru.com/buy/snow-white-3-pack

Sets just like the cable rubber.

It's definitely the firmer composition of the power cords. Older model power cords were made with soft, malleable material. My original cord had lasted for the duration of the time I owned my laptop. However, since then I have gone through three power cords - each one of them had split.

The problem is that the firmer material puts increased tension on the cord. Instead of hanging limply, the cord juts out at the ends. Is it any wonder that with continual stress they would eventually fray?

Even after all these years, Apple still won't correct the problem of their own making. The Genius at my local Apple store admitted she encased the cord ends with coils extracted from writing pens in order to provide a support brace. Apple is the new Microsoft with its sadly 20th century workaround solutions.

It has become a yearly tradition to buy another power cord because the cable becomes frayed at the exact same spot as always. I'm tired of hearing that it is somehow related to how I handle the cable and how other people don't have this problem. If you don't, that is great and I am very happy for you. The perfect solution seems to be to buy 2 power cables and leave them at home/work and never move them around.

Apple refuses to admit there is a problem but there is NO way they are blissfully unaware of the issue. With Apple it is all about design and in order to fix the problem it would be aesthetically unpleasing. These things are bad design!! I have been a faithful Mac user since 2001 and I have gone through several rounds of laptop updates. I absolutely love my Macbook, I just wish that Apple would either redesign the power cable or admit there is a problem and warranty them appropriately. I already engage in weekly battles with my coworkers (I'm in IT) about Mac vs Windows and this certainly doesn't help my cause.