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I just sent in my 2 year, 11 month and 20 day old macbook pro into repair, got both its strange-sounding fans but also its original (and long-since toast) battery replaced. Well worth the insurance I paid for a retail apple care.
I have never purchased an Apple Care from ebay as this sounds too strange to me - why would someone sell their Apple Care? How can they make money off this if it isn't stolen?
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One repair and you have taken care of the cost of Apple care how many times over.
Yes, in a perfect world our Macs would run for 10 years if need be. But over the last 5 years we've seen power supply issues in the PMG5s, coolant issues in the PMG5s, video board issues in the iBooks, bad capacitors in the imac G5s, plastic cracking on MacBooks.
Sometimes Apple covers the repairs without the need for Applecare, sometimes not.
It's that inconsistency that I don't want to deal with.
We pay extra for our Macs but that does not guarantee they will not fail.
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if someone buys AppleCare, then they drop or physically damage their Mac, or it's stolen, and they haven't registered it, they can sell it if they don't plan on getting another Mac of the same type, or at all.
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I understand why many people want to buy applecare, and having just bought a mini myself, at some point next year I will think about it. I always use AMEX so I always get the extra year, so that will likely decide it for me.
However, I want to address a commonly expressed misconception about applecare specifically and insurance generally: you always lose (on average). Much like gambling, you are betting against the house. I guarantee you that Apple prices AC to ensure that they make profits across the product line, including on laptops. Because consumers are much more cost sensitive on the price of the product upfront, prices and profits on these repair agreements are much higher.
The reason to buy any insurance product including AC is in the unlikely event of a loss you would be unable to repair or replace the product. Buying AC increases your overall computer costs for your lifetime by (guessing) 5-10% at least, even net of the reduced cost of repairs paid for by AC.
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sekker wrote:
I just sent in my 2 year, 11 month and 20 day old macbook pro into repair, got both its strange-sounding fans but also its original (and long-since toast) battery replaced. Well worth the insurance I paid for a retail apple care.
I have never purchased an Apple Care from ebay as this sounds too strange to me - why would someone sell their Apple Care? How can they make money off this if it isn't stolen?
One source, persons who buy and do not get around to registering before selling or losing a Mac has been mentioned already. But a bigger source is Apple retailers. They have certain Applecare quotas in the form of some percentage of machines sold to get incentives from Apple in the form of demo machines and other bonuses. So if they are coming up short at the end of a month or quarter, they can sell Applecare off at invoice or less to someone who will sell it in the various "gray" markets. Since the invoice price on Applecare is a fraction of the retail price like most extended care packages, there is plenty of room to still make a small profit. The retailer meets their quotas, gets the bonus material, and others get Applecare for a markdown. Apple is not out any money either, they were paid, so does not make a big issue of it.
Another source is stock from store and distributor closings. I suspect a good fraction of the recent CompUSA and Circuit City stock of Applecare boxes went this way instead of being sold in the stores.
