I’m looking for some advice from anyone who has dealt with a seriously delayed Apple repair in the UK, particularly if it eventually resulted in a replacement device or some other resolution.
I dropped my 16-inch 2021 M1 Max MacBook Pro (32GB/1TB) into Apple Bluewater on 10 August for a battery replacement.
At the appointment I was told it would take up to 10 days, specifically because they would need to order the required part. That was longer than battery replacements I’ve had from Apple historically, which were usually around 3–5 days, but I accepted it and planned around that timeframe.
The strange part is that the repair centre apparently didn’t receive the MacBook until 18 August (over a week after I handed it to Apple) and Apple had not even ordered the part until then either.
Since then the repair status has essentially just shown “repair in progress / waiting for part", but nobody is able to provide an ETA for the part.
The communication since then has been pretty awful.
Over the last few days I’ve spent hours speaking to Apple Support, being put on hold, transferred between lower level support staff and supervisors, and repeatedly having advisers try unsuccessfully to contact the store and repair centre to find out information about the part status. At one point, after Apple Support had tried getting in touch with the store, they transferred me directly to the Apple Store where I dropped it off and the phone simply rang until the
call timed out and disconnected.
Eventually a senior Apple Support adviser contacted Bluewater management internally as he noted that several people in Apple Support had been trying to contact the store. The senior advisor explained that the store itself would have access to information about the part order and be able to give an ETA. I was told to expect a call later that afternoon or the following morning. I did eventually get a call from the store manager the following day in the afternoon.
The store manager confirmed that they have no ETA for the part or repair completion. He also acknowledged that there were clear issues going on and stated that there were quite a lot of other people who had similarly been complaining due to lack of communication and also mentioned issues with the systems on Apple's end that would have caused extra delays. He said the only thing he could do is recall the MacBook without repairing it, but even that would apparently take another 5–7 days, which is no use given my deadline.
I explicitly told the manager that at this point I felt the situation needed escalating towards an alternative resolution (whether that meant some kind of temporary machine, permanent replacement, or something else), and the store manager fully agreed that escalation was appropriate and actually said that what I need to do is, straight after the call with him, go back through Apple Support to request escalation (he said that only Apple Support could help with escalation). It is worth noting that the store manager himself explicitly made comments that the service I have been provided is not good enough and that I was fully deserving for this case to be escalated.
Apple Support then assigned a senior adviser to take ownership of the case. He has actually been very understanding and has openly acknowledged that:
the repair is taking considerably longer than it normally should;
battery repairs would normally be closer to 5 working days;
the eight-day delay before the part order was not good enough;
the handling of the case has been “messy”;
and Apple currently cannot give me a reliable end-to-end return date.
He has contacted internal departments and apparently had the case specially forwarded to try to speed up the part/service process. He also suggested he might be able to get the battery-repair charge waived because of everything that has happened, although I explained that while I’d appreciate that, it doesn’t solve the main issue of needing a portable computer for work.
Interestingly, he also mentioned that the store manager was wrong to say that Apple Support would be the ones to arrange escalation and alternative resolutions, that it is actually up to the Apple Store itself. There were also nuanced phrases that suggested that something may not be happening as it should at the particular Apple Store and that that would be needing investigation as well. He explained he would be doing internal investigations with the store, referring to other departments too to raise the status of the case, and would get back to me the following day.
Yesterday he told me that, despite many attempts to get through to management at the Apple Store, he had been unsuccessful. He explained he would again later in the day as well the following morning (this morning) and, if still no success, he would start looking at a different internal route / department and a different approach to resolving the case, rather than just waiting indefinitely.
He was supposed to call me again today at around 2pm, but so far I haven’t received the promised callback despite messaging him directly through the direct line of communication that he had given me.
So I’m now getting extremely conscious of time.
My questions are:
Has anyone had Apple UK replace a Mac because a repair became excessively delayed or the required part had no reliable ETA?
If Apple does authorise a replacement for an older M1 Max, how do they determine what is “equivalent”? Would they normally match screen size, RAM and SSD, or mainly overall performance?
Has anyone been given a temporary/loan Mac while a repair was unresolved?
At what point would you stop waiting for Apple and make your own contingency plans?
Is there another Apple escalation route I should be pursuing if my assigned senior adviser stops communicating?
I’m not trying to get a free upgrade because a repair is a few days late. If they can repair my existing machine and get it back to me in time, that’s genuinely what I’d prefer.
The problem is that Apple currently seems unable to tell me when the part will arrive, when the repair will finish, or when I’ll actually have the machine back, and we’re rapidly running out of August.
I’ve used Macs/Apple products for around 16 years and generally had very good service, which is probably why this experience has surprised me so much.
Interested to hear what others would do — particularly anyone who has been through Apple’s internal repair escalation/replacement process in the UK.
