Well, just when you thought the story couldn't get any worse, it does. So let's back up a little, as I mentioned in this earlier post, my AppleCare Support guy had determined that the hard drive thermal sensor was the culprit for some unknown reason. He called The Mac Shack for me to verify that they could and were willing to perform this repair, he did this while on the phone with me. He also was documenting what we tried and what the problem was, and assured me that The Mac Shack would be able to read all his notes and know what to do. So I took it into The Mac Shack that Monday afternoon. When checking it in, they asked me what was wrong, and I told them there were extensive notes from Eli at AppleCare Support that explained everything. Well yes they could see them and that was fine, but they wanted me to tell them again, so I said, "If you run the Apple Hardware Test, there's an error that will tell you what needs to be fixed." No, they wanted me to put in my own words what the symptoms were. So I explained the fans were continuously running faster and faster, never turning off. OK, they'll have it repaired in 3-5 days.
When I called 3 days later, they were just "putting it on the desk to look at it". That's 3 wasted days I could have used it for business. So they looked at it, then ordered new parts, a Logic board whatever that is. When I pressed them they didn't seem inclined to explain it to me, so I let it drop assuming they knew what they were doing. Friday, the next day I called, they said they had ordered the part the day before but it hadn't arrived yet. Monday I called, the piece hadn't arrived but according to this guy, they had ordered the part on Friday, not Thursday. Tuesday the Logic board finally arrived, they replaced it, but it didn't solve the problem. So they called Apple and after some "research" were then told that the hard drive sensor needed to be replaced. Hmmm... where have I heard that before? Perhaps from my own lips? They verified that the Apple Store people who replaced the hard drive two weeks ago replaced it with a different brand hard drive and did not include the compatible hard drive thermal sensor that they were supposed to include. Confirmation that it was the idiots at the Apple Store that caused this problem, which my AppleCare support tech suspected.
To recap, on January 23 the Apple Store misled me feeding me incorrect information about what it could do, then proceeded to sell me an iMac with a bad hard drive. Exactly one month later the iMac went back to the store where they belittled and berated me, then took longer than they promised in repairing it. I picked it up and brought it home, and had to reinstall the operating system because the Time Machine backup didn't work properly and it caused it to continually crash. I also realize that day that the fans aren't working properly. After two phone calls to AppleCare support we determine the problem with the thermal sensor and take it to The Mac Shack, where due to their indifference, not being willing to even read what the AppleCare support tech figured out and detailed for them to use, and not running the basic Apple Hardware Test to figure out what was wrong with the hardware, it has now been 10 days since I dropped it off with them, and they're hoping it will be fixed today. Argh!!!! How unbelievably frustrating this entire experience has been! My advice to anyone buying an iMac: it is a cool toy, but don't expect to be able to use it!
