Can you guys share your stories on upgrade/repair turn around times? i heard some really crazy stories about one local Toronto store quoting "three weeks unless you bought the machine from us" and another said "five days for a hard drive upgrade"

to us this seems crazy, just wondering what your experiences have been.

Thanks

Max

I've repaired my various Mac laptops over the years at the various Apple Stores and I've never had a problem. I've changed logic boards, enclosures, and other stuff covered under Applecare and Apple has always been great. Usually fixes them within a week, often less.

There's the one Mac Genius at the Sherway Apple Store (at least he used to be there a couple of years ago, no idea if he still is), where he would just totally replace the part if there was a problem instead of trying to repair it. I knew the problem would get fixed perfectly if I saw him.

Now if you are talking hard drive or memory upgrades, why not do it yourself? Most Macs have accessible compartments for these parts.

I'm not sure what "local Toronto stores" you are talking about but Apple Store repairs have always been awesome for me.

I assume you mean Warranty repair times, because it makes no sense otherwise. An independent Apple dealer lives or dies on their ability to do out-of-warranty service and consulting at the full hourly rate. I think everybody knows by now that a dealer makes $30 - $80 on the sale of an iMac or MacBook because Apple margins are so lousy.

Warranty work is reimbursed by Apple at a lower rate than the Apple Authorized Service Provider can charge retail, so it sounds like this AASP is busy and doing triage - they are giving priority to the customers who are paying full pop, and relegating the 'cheap' work (warranty) to the second tier. That is valid business practice but it hurts loyalty, so will limit the number of people who return to buy later. Maybe the dealer doesn't care about adding retail customers.

The underlying issue here is that Apple has squeezed the margins so hard, and introduced competition from both the Apple Store and big box retailers, so the Independent Apple Dealer is a threatened species. In time, you may see the choice go from "three weeks" to "mail it to Apple because we don't do warranty" to "Out of business"

hi guys, thanks for the replies, i wasn't referring to "problems" but just simply turn around time... when a friend called me telling me he was quoted 5 business days for a hard drive upgrade (we do these same day) i was blown away.. so i'm basically just seeing how long your average turn around times have been both at the apple store and at small AASP's

a week seems awfully long for any repair, AppleCare parts ship overnight from Apple and most repairs we do are back to the customer the following day. It's rare it would take three days or more.

If they are dealing with an approved Apple service place, and my son runs an Apple dealer/service in Whitehorse, that if the service, at least for any warranty/upgrade, takes more than four days, Apple wants an immediate explanation or reason for the delay.

Patrick

the process (diagnose / order / repair) really isn't that long considering all APP parts are shipped overnight... but i guess some places are just that busy or understaffed.

Again just trying to see if this is normal and what other peoples turn around time has been for both repairs and upgrades (hard drive plus migration should not take five days as a friend of mine was quoted from an Ottawa AASP)

Apple Store turnaround has been a day or two at most, and that's major repairs.

Local AASP (educational) turnaround has been a few hours, but I know better when to go in for service. Except when their certificate expired and they had to wait a month to do any repairs....

About this thread: how is it not just advertising?

Since when does a simple question about Apple turn around repair time become advertising?

My, what a stretch.

You may not be aware how many similar threads have been deleted. What seems like an innocuous question about 'wait times' may (*may*) be a disguised advertisement, the kind that suggests that service elsewhere is slow but of course at the OP's establishment it is very quick indeed. In my experience, ehMax deletes such threads requesting the paid ad route instead. Still, I thought this one deserved the question. Sorry you aren't following this.