On Tuesday I bought and activated AppleCare for my iMac as the 1 year hardware warranty expires on October 26th. I didn’t take AppleCare out at the time of purchase as £800 in one go for a computer was hard enough on my pocket and since I hadn’t taken out any additional insurance with my Mac Mini I hadn’t given it too much thought.
After having my iMac for 3 months, Apple phoned me to say that my 90-day complimentary support was coming to an end in 24 hours and asked me if I wanted to pay £139.99 for AppleCare there and then. Since I’d only just spent £300 on a PowerBook I was not in a position to hand out that kind of cash again (after Christmas and feeling the pinch!). I asked if I could leave it for a few weeks and then buy it but she said that was not possible and I couldn’t just buy the AppleCare at anytime. It wasn’t until recently that I discovered I’d been sold a line by her and realised that I can purchase AppleCare as long as it’s within the 1 year warranty. Infact, I believe she was actually little rude when I asked that question because said something like “When you buy a car you can’t drive it around for months before buying insurance”.
I had my Mac Mini for two and a half years without any problems. I never really considered that anything could go wrong as I’d heard how reliable Macs were. But, looking back I do think that was perhaps a little foolish as anything can go wrong and most frustratingly these things tend to happen once you’re outside of your one year warranty. I’ve been hearing some of my Twitter contacts talking about issues they are having with their Mac recently and how they are thankful they bought AppleCare as the hardware failure occurred outside of their 1 year warranty. That has made me think a lot about taking out extra cover.
Another thing that prompted me into getting the extra cover was discovering a problem when starting up OnyX a few nights ago after it verified my startup volume. Usually the process takes a minute or two then a message pops up to say everything appears ok. However, on Sunday night the box popped up to say there was a disk permissions problem and that I should repair the volume. I was a little concerned as I haven’t had any problems before, but running the repair in Disk Utility sorted that out. Suddenly my Mac wasn’t invincible and could just as easily fall victim to a hardware failure.
So, Monday I decided to shop around online for AppleCare for iMac. Apple wanted £139.99, Dabs.com wanted £104. Then I’d heard many people talk about how they got a great deal on eBay. Some UK eBayers were selling AppleCare for around £40 cheaper than Apple, but then I saw the US eBay listings which was even better. Naturally I entered into this cautiously and checked out the sellers feedback to ensure that there was a long list of happy customers before me when buying this product - and there was. I got an excellent deal and the code was e-mailed to me in just a few hours - and all activated in less than 10 minutes on Apple’s side, taking my cover to October 26th 2010.
I feel a lot happier knowing that if anything does go wrong then Apple will sort it out. And as mentioned in this entry, my iPod touch is not well and on it’s way back to Apple shortly. Thankfully this has fallen within the 1 year warranty which expires at the end of September, otherwise I’d have a £200 brick on my hands.
If you are a Mac user, do you have your computer covered by AppleCare?
14 Aug 08
2:27 pm
Sam, that is a great post - I had never thought of buying off US ebay, but if you say it is ok, that is good enough for me!
14 Aug 08
3:07 pm
I have always done AppleCare. Always always always. And it has usually been worth the money. I had to use it twice on my old iBook G4 (which is now used daily by my parents). The first time the GPU in the iBook went bad and the GUI on Mac OS X was tearing. Like, part of the top of a safari window would be in the middle of the screen.
The second trip to AppleCare for Mr. iBook was for a hard drive replacement, as the drive failed during routine web browsing. And this was before Leopard and Time Machine. Suffice it to say, I am glad that I was practicing a good backup routine with SuperDuper!
Now I have my MacBook. And I fear I need to take it to the Apple Store (as I live near one now) for a checkup. The FireWire port has stopped. This isn’t urgent, as my Time Machine drive can also use USB. I’m just waiting for the right time where I can live without my MacBook for an entire week.
14 Aug 08
10:11 pm
Thanks, Jon
Usually I set the eBay location to show me UK auctions only, but I’m glad I didn’t filter it this week.
Great examples of why AppleCare is a good idea, Chris. I would be totally bummed if anything happened to my iMac after spending £800 on it. I have heard some say that taking out extra cover for a desktop is not as essential as it is for laptops, but I neglected to take out any insurance on a desktop PC eight years and it died on me after 2 years…when I had no cover. I then spent £1,200 on a [toshiba] laptop…and took out a VERY extended insurance on it which lasted a lot longer than my interest in it
14 Aug 08
10:41 pm
I’ve bought and sold several macs in the past few years, and have never opted for Applecare before.
I did have a few problems with my first IMac, but they all occurred within the first year. This year I also had some minor problems with my Powerbook, and would have had them fixed if I’d had Applecare, but tried to live with them because I didn’t have much choice in the matter.
I think the extra expense has put me off in the past, but I’m definitely thinking of purchasing Applecare for my mac mini.
I hadn’t known that you could buy Applecare so cheaply on ebay, that will definitely make it a much more attractive option for me. Thanks.
15 Aug 08
3:36 pm
The price definitely put me off too, PJ. I guess Apple’s price of £139 isn’t *too bad* when you consider that it could cost more to get things fixed elsewhere, plus there’s parts and labour aswell as taking the trouble of finding a place to fix it.
I wouldn’t have thought about eBay if it hadn’t been through word of mouth on Twitter. So glad I shopped around - the deals on there are great and blow Apple’s price out of the water
15 Aug 08
11:17 pm
Hi,
Brilliant idea indeed and just found a £55 cover for my iMac (purchased June 2008). Any idea if people have ever had issues trying to use the ‘foreign’ AppleCare though?
Always a bit suspicious of these great deals
16 Aug 08
7:01 pm
Hi Alistair,
Sorry it took so long for your comment to be approved. For some reason it was marked as spam.
It appears that AppleCare is global - http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=244673&highlight=applecare+ebay - a good few people there having bought AC from the US but were able to use it fine in the UK when they needed it
19 Aug 08
7:49 am
Sam,
Your point about some saying that AppleCare is needed for laptops more than desktops is valid. Many do say that. However, it is important to note to those people that an iMac has many laptop components inside. There’s a reason those sexeh computers are so skinny!
26 Aug 08
2:21 pm
Yup. I took out an extended 4 year warranty with my Toshiba laptop in 2002 and I needed to use it twice. First to have the DVD drive replaced and then to send it straight back when they didn’t connect things back up properly after the drive replacement.