I had water damage to a 2013 MBP, minor but nonetheless.
It passed all diagnostics. Ran fine on AC power. Battery diagnostics were fine too. But it wouldn't charge. "Charge circuit error".
No problem, I think. That's where the water damage was, no doubt. So I take it to Apple (in 2014, probably 18 months after purchase). I set my expectations, hmm, maybe $200-300? Let's go with $300, after labor, etc.
Haha.
"Sir, the charge circuitry is damaged and we need to replace that. You're looking at $899. Perhaps we should talk about you buying a new MacBook? Have you seen the latest?"
So, there's labor, etc. But you're going to tell me that to repair something, that by your own diagnostics, is fine except for this one part costs 70% of the new purchase price? I paid $1300, if I recall for the MBP. Take away something for labor, etc, and apparently the charging circuit is worth more than the CPU, the memory, the SSD, the screen?
No, now it serves as a driver for my step daughter's Garage Brand / Logic Pro setup with MIDI drums, keyboard, etc., remains on AC and has worked fine for several more years.
That's what a highly integrated machine gets you. Charge circuit defective => replace entire main board, including CPU, probably memory and storage too nowadays.
No one is doing component-level repairs any more.
Not entirely accurate, its just a highly skilled bit of work that you have to work to find people that can do it. This guy does it: https://www.rossmanngroup.com
Watch his youtube channel here and you can learn how to do it yourself: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl2mFZoRqjw_ELax4Yisf6w
That said, in general you're right. Component level repair on multi layer pcb's with BGA or reflow soldering is... not all that economical in the amount of labor and skill and equipment involved.
I also possess a 2013 MBP with a Retina screen, proudly running well all these years later after many AAA games, overclocking, and innumerable HD repartionings. However, I broke my MBP's screen twice, and both times I called the closest Apple repair shop, and once the main "independent" repair ship in my city, and all three times the price came back as a nice, round $1000: nearly half of the original price!
So I looked around online (always had been vaguely aware of Right-to-Repair, and ifixit.org). After reading the excellent repair guide online and ordering what seemed a high-quality screen online, the repairs, which cost me no major headache or extreme difficulty, materially ended up costing around $300. Also, I want to mention that the aforementioned ifixit guide listed the highest difficulty grade to this type of repair.
So you are telling me, someone that had never engaged in computer or mechanical repairs before in his life, performed $700 of labor in just under an hour? No, the likelier answer is that Apple is simply rent-seeking in the sector of product repairs.
There is a vendor on eBay who does this, cannot recall his name.
But they will definitely desolder and replace any component wherever this is possible.
I've sent my laptop to this guy in NYC, and had a pleasant experience, even if he couldn't find my problem. (intermittent shutdowns)
I tried to stay with Lenovo, but after the endless waves of shitware, spyware and low quality hardware (!) I had to give up. Thinkpad’s great name is thanks to IBM, and perhaps, maybe, a bit of early Lenovo. Maybe.
If Lenovo is competing with anything, it’s with IBM.
I don't think this is particularly true, 2009-2012 era hardware designed/built by Lenovo/Quanta is also around in plentiful numbers.
This way I can upgrade to a new model when I feel it's time to.
My daughters new macbook pro dropped in to some very wet grass and the authorised repair shop wanted $1400 (in New Zealand) for a new motherboard to repair the water damage, the insurance company said to get a new one which we did.
The shop made it difficult to to get the old one back as it was being replaced with a new one and they said the deal price for the new one included a discount for the old which by pointing out on the apple web site it obviously did not.
Once it was returned about 5 weeks after going in I switched it on and nothing, five minutes of googling found a blown fuse and its been fine ever since, that was 2015 and I have since fixed two others with similar easy to fix problems.
It saddens me because the hardware is well designed in these computers and as an electronics engineer I hate to think how many good computers go to landfill for the sake of a $5 repair.
A Lot of my favourite companies are in on the act not just Apple (And Tesla Most Annoyingly) and it proves to me that the engineers in these firms have lost the high ground and now have a large controlling input from their legal departments. Personally I would keep quiet and take the money too but wouldn't be a happy engineer.
I think the thing is, even on a site where people brag about making $300K a year, everybody has way unrealistic ideas of what skilled labor costs. In my world, $55K is a good living for a programmer analyst, but that exact person gets billed out at over $120 an hour. An independent car mechanic might be $100/hr where I am; a dealer rate might be $160-$170. In the context of other types of skilled labor, that seems reasonable to me. Surely an auto technician and an electronics repair person are roughly comparable in skill, so should be in the same ballpark of costs.
But first world labor costs mean fixing things is frequently infeasible compared to replacing them. This is practically a cliche, but it seems like people will not or cannot come to terms with it.
Oh yes, one other thing I wanted to fix on my car was to replace the busted antenna. I bought one online for about $90. However, I was quoted something like $600 to install it. Well, I replaced the antenna on my car once, and I know it's a hassle when you try to thread it through and then it sticks or breaks, but the estimate was stunning.
All in all, I don't think Apple is as malicious as they seem - the problem is that expectations are set by robotic factories and third world labor costs.
A good mechanic will do a better job and usually be cheaper than what your local stealership will try and charge you for. Replacing a battery clamp will run you $60 at most Honda stealerships, versus a $5 part cost or $20 at the shop down the road.
On the other hand, I also have a 30 year old German sports car and limited ability to work on it myself (not having a house/garage) and I felt an independent European car specialist was taking advantage of me, so I tried a dealer of the marque. Keeping in mind they only want to replace things and charge incredible rates, it still seems like the best option for some repairs, to get it done right. When I had a fuel leak, I was happy to have the dealer replace the fuel pump and filter. Maybe somebody intrepid who charges half as much per hour could have just disassembled it and changed some seals, but how much labor is that and do I trust it not to result in setting my car on fire? I certainly wouldn't trust myself to do it.
Sometimes you want OEM parts and sometimes it doesn't matter so much. I'm going to continue to choose what to do on a case-by-case basis.
If you have an unusual old car, a lot of independent mechanics may be horrified at the prospect of working on it, plus the factory manual is out of print plus there's a very limited number of specialist mechanics. So, I'm not saying the cliched advice about avoiding the dealer and going to a good mechanic is completely unfounded, but it's of limited use if you haven't found a good independent. The good mechanics only survive because they're cheap and attract cheap customers, and don't specialize too much, so I say to myself - how can I expect them to be better than the dealer? If I was an employee and I was any good, why wouldn't I work at the dealer? Lots of dealers are terrible, but I infer that independents operate under really harsh constraints. The fact that their labor rates are so much less makes me paranoid both they are padding their hours and that they can't retain good mechanics.
As far as a battery clamp, I can order anything I need mail order, and I can compare mail order prices to the dealership and see if the markup is less than shipping costs. I can choose an OEM part or not. This really is just a separate choice, not a factor in deciding to go to the dealer. My Honda dealer will charge you a ridiculous price to put in a new cabin air filter, which costs almost nothing and is trivial to replace. But that doesn't mean I don't trust them to work on my car at all. Just that I'm careful to double check whether any given thing is reasonable.
But also, a major metro area may be different. I live in a three-city area that has about a million people combined, so it isn't in the middle of nowhere, but it's not like Seattle.
The first thing you are being told when becoming Apple Authorized Service provider is UP-SELL. Your main function and profit source is telling people "cant be repaired/repair will cost as much as new one, would you like this new model?"