Seven months ago, I received what I had hoped to be the last Advanced Replacement from Apple until I purchased a new system. That hope crumbled last week when the Hard Drive failed. Things had been getting progressively worse over time, but the drive failure was the last nudge I needed to once again contact Apple.

Just to bring everyone up to speed… In August of 2007, Apple sent an Advanced Replacement with upgraded specs, due in large part to the extent of my troubles with the company. Previously I had bought a white iMac, which was upgraded, and upgraded again, and eventually became a 24 inch Aluminum iMac.

Coming back to the present… The 24 inch Aluminum iMac had progressively developed the following problems:

• The LCD would leave an image, of whatever was displayed, for over an hour after I had quit an application or closed a window.
• The LCD had developed black marks horizontally and vertically across the display.
• The glass displayed heat damage, on the side facing the LCD, which created swooping arcs of discoloration over the top half of the display.
• The speakers would pop occasionally. At other times they would emit a high pitch before and after any type of audio was played.
• The fans had begun chirping and squeaking. Something Apple’s suppliers seem completely unable to compensate for.
• The Hard Drive failed.

That fairly well summarizes the issues the unit developed over a period of 7 months.

On the day the hard drive failed, I called Apple. Now, keep in mind the Customer Relations individual I had been working with warned me not to purchase AppleCare until I was absolutely sure there was nothing overtly wrong with the unit and only when the 1 year hardware warranty was coming to an end. I followed his instructions to a “T.” Eventually, I was connected with an iMac Specialist who promptly informed me that I had to either purchase AppleCare or pay for the phone incident. I explained the situation in great detail, giving him a few of the many case numbers I had in front of me. He placed the call on hold while he spoke with a Product Specialist. When he returned, he once again informed me that there was nothing he nor a Product Specialist could do until I paid for the phone support. After having yelled at him thus far, I grew weary and took another approach.

With blinding speed I called Customer Relations directly. Within minutes I had described the situation, given the CR person a case number that had been provided to me near a specific date, and detailed my experience with the AppleCare people. He apologized for the unfortunate events and placed me on hold to consult with a Tier 2 representative. He returned and alerted me to the fact Tier 2 would not need to assess the situation and that he could prepare yet another Advanced Replacement or me immediately. Once again, Apple upgraded the specifications of the system (which, out of respect, I’m leaving out of this post). Apple Admin took over from there and today (Friday, March 28, 2008) I received the new unit.

In my next post, we’ll delve into the two hours of testing that occurred before I had to call Apple; again.