Horrible service experience - Unlawful refusal of warranty

I have always been very appreciative of Apple brand & products. I use quite a few apple products including ipods & MacBook.

I have always been believing Apple's philosophy of “making every customer happy” and the fact that Apple's customer support is “one of the best” in the globe. I write this with deep agony & pain that above statements do not seem to be fairing well in the real life scenario.

Pls allow me to share this with the forum.

I purchased a MacBook white some time back. After few months, the notebook developed a very peculiar hair line crack in its lower body. Upon showing it to the service engineer in one of the reseller stores, I was told that these problems do arise in some of the units & being a manufacturing defect, body shall be replaced as the product was within one year standard warranty. I was requested to first register a case on the call centre, obtain a case id and then drop the unit to any of the authorised service centres for replacement of body.

I did just that & visited the service centre with the case id where under mentioned sequence of events happened:
1. Service engineer inspected the MacBook & confirmed that it was very clearly a manufacturing defect in the lower body & in NO WAY could be a result of any physical damage etc.
2. He took snaps of the unit & send the same to the customer care for their review & approval for change of body.
3. One week later I was informed that the apple customer care has rejected the case saying that it’s a “physical damage” in lower body & thus not covered under warranty. Further, had it been a crack in upper body (around the keypad), the same could be replaced.
4. The service engineer expressed his helplessness that in spite of it clearly being a factory defect, he cannot change the verdict given by the customer care.
5. Upon my request, he again had a chat with the customer care & this time got a different answer that it is a “consumable item” & thus not covered in warranty.

I have a few questions here to Apple:
1. When two of their service engineers (first in the store & then in the service centre) have looked at the unit & agree that the defect is a factory defect & CANNOT be caused by any physical damage, then how come the customer care has a different view ONLY by looking at snaps of the unit. The defect is very minute & may not even be properly visible in the snaps.
2. How come a crack in upper body (around the keypad) is covered in warranty & same crack in lower body is not covered.
3. How can a legitimate warranty claim be rejected on account of it being a “consumable item”.

Hope APPLE would live upto its perceived customer care standards & resolve my issues.

Pls share if any of the forum members have had similar issues in Macbook or other apple products.

Thanks,
Lokesh Rastogi

I've had a similar experience with the same problem (out of warranty), and I escalated the problem through the apple chain until they replaced the part and I paid for the labour to change the part. Yes, this was a compromise, and I could have taken it further, but didn't want to put all my energy into it.
I would advise that you escalate the case until you get what you consider to be a fair resolution.
Patience and persistence is the key, but must be done with a cool head.

These things happen, even with Apple. Nobody's perfect!