Computer repair shop owner and YouTuber Louis Rossmann manages to fix a MacBook Pro after Apple was going to charge $1,200 for the repair

[Eric]

Riding the top of the front page of Reddit at the moment, when you watch you'll see why. Just wow.

 

[Cmaier]

This an old story? I seem to recall seeing it a few years ago.

BTW, one time i brought my iMac in for a $900 repair, and Apple ended up charging me less than $100. The quote is a maximum, not necessarily the price you’ll pay.

 

[Nycturne]

This an old story? I seem to recall seeing it a few years ago.

Yeah, it wound up as part of a CBC story back in 2018: https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational...rpricing-restricting-device-repairs-1.4859099

The quote is a maximum, not necessarily the price you’ll pay.

Yes, I think one of the ugly parts of customer service is that you can't always be 100% honest with customers sometimes, because they can get the wrong impression and then things get complicated. If I told a customer "It will be somewhere between 100-900$, we don't know for sure until the techs look at it", then it's possible the customer who might be willing to pay 200-300$ for the repair will agree to send it off to the techs, and then there's a problem when it comes back as a 900$ repair and that all has to be hashed out to make sure the customer is willing to pay. Going with the high end first may cause some customers to decide not to repair, but it also means there's nothing to hash out when the estimate turns out to be wrong and the price comes down. This would be easier if the techs were on-site like the old days, and so this is clearly one of the downsides of trying to outsource and/or centralize your repair centers. The folks at the store simply cannot give you an accurate quote like someone like Rossman could.

That said, I always have mixed feelings about Rossman. It's clear he's a good repair tech and is offering a valuable service, and I do feel like right to repair is an issue we should discuss as a matter of policy. But boy, for someone as opinionated as him, there is also a great lack of experience with the actual processes with corporate repair programs, and it shows in his rhetoric. It makes it hard to use him as a source without me rolling my eyes when he's unfiltered.

 

[Eric]

Reddit has a way of resurrecting older stories like that.

 

[Joelist]

I have to admit to not trusting Louis Rossman very far. His "right to repair" position sounds good but that is its seductive value - it SOUNDS good. When you unpack it and look at it more closely it straitjackets hardware development and evolution because it places outside repairability (outside as in not by the OEM) on a higher level than build quality, performance and even aesthetics. This is why for instance he will value a cheap plastic Clevo higher than a 14 inch M1Pro - he can repair the Clevo so the hugely superior performance of the MBP is superseded.

IMHO of course....

 

[Runs For Fun]

Yeah, it wound up as part of a CBC story back in 2018: https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational...rpricing-restricting-device-repairs-1.4859099



Yes, I think one of the ugly parts of customer service is that you can't always be 100% honest with customers sometimes, because they can get the wrong impression and then things get complicated. If I told a customer "It will be somewhere between 100-900$, we don't know for sure until the techs look at it", then it's possible the customer who might be willing to pay 200-300$ for the repair will agree to send it off to the techs, and then there's a problem when it comes back as a 900$ repair and that all has to be hashed out to make sure the customer is willing to pay. Going with the high end first may cause some customers to decide not to repair, but it also means there's nothing to hash out when the estimate turns out to be wrong and the price comes down. This would be easier if the techs were on-site like the old days, and so this is clearly one of the downsides of trying to outsource and/or centralize your repair centers. The folks at the store simply cannot give you an accurate quote like someone like Rossman could.

That said, I always have mixed feelings about Rossman. It's clear he's a good repair tech and is offering a valuable service, and I do feel like right to repair is an issue we should discuss as a matter of policy. But boy, for someone as opinionated as him, there is also a great lack of experience with the actual processes with corporate repair programs, and it shows in his rhetoric. It makes it hard to use him as a source without me rolling my eyes when he's unfiltered.

I have to admit to not trusting Louis Rossman very far. His "right to repair" position sounds good but that is its seductive value - it SOUNDS good. When you unpack it and look at it more closely it straitjackets hardware development and evolution because it places outside repairability (outside as in not by the OEM) on a higher level than build quality, performance and even aesthetics. This is why for instance he will value a cheap plastic Clevo higher than a 14 inch M1Pro - he can repair the Clevo so the hugely superior performance of the MBP is superseded.

IMHO of course....

Yep, I also have mixed feelings about Rossman.

 

[NT1440]

So the example is that he bent a pin back? I wouldn’t expect Apple/HP/Dell to merely bend a part back in place and instead replace the broken part.

To me this is complaining about a hole in my exhaust costing $600+ to *replace* it when I could DIY with some tape for $40.

One is the “proper” corporate way, one is just making work. They’re not actually the same thing. I’d never expect a Volvo dealership to even offer wrapping an exhaust hole.

 

[Cmaier]

So the example is that he bent a pin back? I wouldn’t expect Apple/HP/Dell to merely bend a part back in place and instead replace the broken part.

To me this is complaining about a hole in my exhaust costing $600+ to *replace* it when I could DIY with some tape for $40.

One is the “proper” corporate way, one is just making work. They’re not actually the same thing. I’d never expect a Volvo dealership to even offer wrapping an exhaust hole.

Even he admits that it would cost a hundred or two to replace it, and that bending the pin back is likely to result in another failure later. Apple would likely replace the cable once they open things up, and would charge accordingly (he says he would charge 100-200 if I remember correctly, which probably isn’t that different from what Apple would charge. In my experience, Apple always cites the “worst case” charge when asking you to authorize work.

Hell, I had a car dealer quote me $3000 for a repair and end up charging me $150. That’s the way the world works if you go to honest repair places.

 

[Eric]

Even he admits that it would cost a hundred or two to replace it, and that bending the pin back is likely to result in another failure later. Apple would likely replace the cable once they open things up, and would charge accordingly (he says he would charge 100-200 if I remember correctly, which probably isn’t that different from what Apple would charge. In my experience, Apple always cites the “worst case” charge when asking you to authorize work.

Hell, I had a car dealer quote me $3000 for a repair and end up charging me $150. That’s the way the world works if you go to honest repair places.

Is that what he said? I thought he said bending it back would likely last for the life of the laptop. I guess it depends on the person requesting the fix but that would be enough for me, rather than paying for a full replacement.

 

[Cmaier]

Is that what he said? I thought he said bending it back would likely last for the life of the laptop. I guess it depends on the person requesting the fix but that would be enough for me, rather than paying for a full replacement.

Pretty sure he said he would tell the customer it would likely need repair again later on. I may have misheard. Not going to re-watch

 

[DT]

He was a little vague, kind of: this will probably last, but maybe not, but we could fix it better, still, this is probably OK ...

 

[DT]

I have fixed quite a few things around here that had a simple blown capacitor(s). So often, that's what goes bad, and on the power supply, so it tends to render the item completely unusable. They're easily diagnosed as bad with a visual inspection, generally easy to R&R (just some basic soldering tools/supplies), and the parts are super inexpensive , talking $5 or less (in the past I've used mouser.com ... they have a nice lookup for the part number / cross compatibility charts).

 

[Eric]

Pretty sure he said he would tell the customer it would likely need repair again later on. I may have misheard. Not going to re-watch

Okay, right at about 2:25 he said "99% of the time just bending the pin back will allow it to last until the end of the life of the computer". I won't argue the merit of that though, some would probably like it properly replace but if it's me and a bit older of a laptop that would be sufficient.

 

[DT]

Okay, right at about 2:25 he said "99% of the time just bending the pin back will allow it to last until the end of the life of the computer". I won't argue the merit of that though, some would probably like it properly replace but if it's me and a bit older of a laptop that would be sufficient.

Hahaha, maybe after he looked at the inside of that machine he was thinking, "Holy shit, this thing is going to completely fail in about a week ..."

 

[Eric]

Hahaha, maybe after he looked at the inside of that machine he was thinking, "Holy shit, this thing is going to completely fail in about a week ..."

I started out as a computer tech in a shop way back when there were ZIF sockets and pins all over the motherboards and you had to set jumpers for various IRQs, etc. to avoid hardware conflicts, we had bent pins all the time and unless something broke we never replaced it.

 

[Andropov]

Okay, right at about 2:25 he said "99% of the time just bending the pin back will allow it to last until the end of the life of the computer". I won't argue the merit of that though, some would probably like it properly replace but if it's me and a bit older of a laptop that would be sufficient.

Well, one could argue that it's 100% of the time going to last until the end of the life of the computer. Either something else breaks, and it has lasted until the end of the life of the computer, or it breaks, ending the life of the computer

 

[Colstan]

I started out as a computer tech in a shop way back when there were ZIF sockets and pins all over the motherboards and you had to set jumpers for various IRQs, etc. to avoid hardware conflicts, we had bent pins all the time and unless something broke we never replaced it.

Ah yes, the "good old days". PC enthusiasts have no idea how good they have it today. If there's a problem, you just hop into the UEFI firmware of your gaming motherboard and change a few settings with your keyboard. During the wild west era of tech, nothing was more irritating than an IRQ conflict, having to deal with DIP switches, termination protocols with SCSI, as well as finicky compatibility with chipset clone makers like SiS, ALi and OPTi.

On the plus side, we got great overclocks by simply moving a jumper cap by a few pins. The legendary Celeron 300A suddenly became equivalent to a 450Mhz Pentium II. On the downside, if the heatsink wasn't seated properly, the Athlon XP would spontaneous self-combust, or perhaps you'd end up with a crushed die if you were lax in using a shim. At least you could use the "pencil trick" to defeat AMD's formidable overclocking prevention, utilizing a common household writing implement. Today, PC overclockers struggle for a 0.2Ghz uplift requiring a 1200w power supply, custom liquid loop, and a half dozen case fans, before busting out the liquid nitrogen for another 100Mhz.

Also, back in the day, we didn't have to deal with two dozen RGB LEDs flooding the PC case, as if radioactive leprechaun vomit spilled out of the liquid cooling reservoir, coating the entire PC in seizure-inducing disco lights. According to the gamer crowd, this is a major reason to avoid the Mac. It never ceases to amaze me when a hardcore PC gamer will dismissively state that Macs are toys, meanwhile complaining that Macs don't have enough games, and doing so while using an anime-themed computer case with a glass side panel on their muscle gaming machine, requiring so much wattage that its rainbow flood lights can be seen from Proxima Centauri.

 

[DT]

Also, back in the day, we didn't have to deal with two dozen RGB LEDs flooding the PC case, as if radioactive leprechaun vomit spilled out of the liquid cooling reservoir, coating the entire PC in seizure-inducing disco lights. According to the gamer crowd, this is a major reason to avoid the Mac. It never ceases to amaze me when a hardcore PC gamer will dismissively state that Macs are toys, meanwhile complaining that Macs don't have enough games, and doing so while using an anime-themed computer case with a glass side panel on their muscle gaming machine, requiring so much wattage that its rainbow flood lights can be seen from Proxima Centauri.

Hahaha, terrific, QFT

 

[Eric]

Ah yes, the "good old days". PC enthusiasts have no idea how good they have it today. If there's a problem, you just hop into the UEFI firmware of your gaming motherboard and change a few settings with your keyboard. During the wild west era of tech, nothing was more irritating than an IRQ conflict, having to deal with DIP switches, termination protocols with SCSI, as well as finicky compatibility with chipset clone makers like SiS, ALi and OPTi.

On the plus side, we got great overclocks by simply moving a jumper cap by a few pins. The legendary Celeron 300A suddenly became equivalent to a 450Mhz Pentium II. On the downside, if the heatsink wasn't seated properly, the Athlon XP would spontaneous self-combust, or perhaps you'd end up with a crushed die if you were lax in using a shim. At least you could use the "pencil trick" to defeat AMD's formidable overclocking prevention, utilizing a common household writing implement. Today, PC overclockers struggle for a 0.2Ghz uplift requiring a 1200w power supply, custom liquid loop, and a half dozen case fans, before busting out the liquid nitrogen for another 100Mhz.

Also, back in the day, we didn't have to deal with two dozen RGB LEDs flooding the PC case, as if radioactive leprechaun vomit spilled out of the liquid cooling reservoir, coating the entire PC in seizure-inducing disco lights. According to the gamer crowd, this is a major reason to avoid the Mac. It never ceases to amaze me when a hardcore PC gamer will dismissively state that Macs are toys, meanwhile complaining that Macs don't have enough games, and doing so while using an anime-themed computer case with a glass side panel on their muscle gaming machine, requiring so much wattage that its rainbow flood lights can be seen from Proxima Centauri.

LOL, you're taking me back! You haven't lived until you've had to figure out why a modem and sound card could not coexist without the proper witches brew combination of DIP switches and IRQ ports being set on both the cards and MB. Then installing Windows 95 (or upgrading from 3.1) with 22 floppy discs, day in and day out adding the "next disc to continue", the invention of the CD ROM was a godsend.

There was no real google in those days, people brought their PCs into the shop and you had to use your brain to figure out hardware/software issues. The owner of the shop I worked at was flat out awesome in teaching me about it all, was always the smartest guy in the room though he would never admit it, and to this day I credit him for launching me into my career in IT.