General Macbook Pro case replacement in Silicon Valley

[POLICESTATE]

I live in Silicon Valley, I'm looking for a reputable outfit that can take my Macbook Pro (not the unibody) and replace the case. Hopefully a place that will not charge me an arm and a leg and not wipe the hard drive. Also would not take forever to do it, it should probably take a competent outfit about a day to do the job, or less.

Sunnyvale/Mountain View/Cupertino/Santa Clara area would be ideal.

Anyone have any recommendations? Also how much I would be looking at for this kind of job?

[sfwdiy]

If you're talking about the bottom case of the machine, that repair is a f'ing nightmare.

You literally have to gut the thing down to the last screw, then completely reassemble it in the new case. Not fun, extremely tedious and quite labor intensive. Done it before, would not want to do it again.

It's not gonna be cheap wherever you take it.

--B

[POLICESTATE]

If you're talking about the bottom case of the machine, that repair is a f'ing nightmare.

You literally have to gut the thing down to the last screw, then completely reassemble it in the new case. Not fun, extremely tedious and quite labor intensive. Done it before, would not want to do it again.

It's not gonna be cheap wherever you take it.

--B

I found some replacement cases, the lower is about 250 bucks and the upper is also about 250 bucks!

Holy crap!!

This is the only thing I truly hate about apple is their **** is just too damned expensive.

It doesn't make sense to shell out several hundred dollars to replace the case. Sigh. I can't afford to buy a new macbook and even if I did it would have lion on it and I want to stick with Snow Leopard, hence why I'd rather fix this one. I guess I'll just have to live with it until it croaks.

[sfwdiy]

I found some replacement cases, the lower is about 250 bucks and the upper is also about 250 bucks!

Holy crap!!

This is the only thing I truly hate about apple is their **** is just too damned expensive.

It doesn't make sense to shell out several hundred dollars to replace the case. Sigh. I can't afford to buy a new macbook and even if I did it would have lion on it and I want to stick with Snow Leopard, hence why I'd rather fix this one. I guess I'll just have to live with it until it croaks.

Mountain Lion is a pretty sweet OS, why the hesitation to switch?

If you take the thing to the Apple Store, they may be able to send it out to their repair depot to get it fixed. They used to charge a flat rate of about $325 for out of warranty repairs that weren't due to accidental damage. If it's just wear and tear on the cases they may do it for you at that price. Worth a shot to make a Genius Bar appointment.

And yes, the cases on their own are expensive and the labor is a HUGE pain in the @s$ on that job. I wouldn't do that repair myself for less that $400 or so, not including parts.

--B

[POLICESTATE]

Mountain Lion is a pretty sweet OS, why the hesitation to switch?

If you take the thing to the Apple Store, they may be able to send it out to their repair depot to get it fixed. They used to charge a flat rate of about $325 for out of warranty repairs that weren't due to accidental damage. If it's just wear and tear on the cases they may do it for you at that price. Worth a shot to make a Genius Bar appointment.

And yes, the cases on their own are expensive and the labor is a HUGE pain in the @s$ on that job. I wouldn't do that repair myself for less that $400 or so, not including parts.

--B

Logic Studio 8 does not run on Lion or ML. So I'd have to shell out a bunch more money for another version of Logic. That **** aint cheap! I'm not sure it's even worth the 325 though. If it could be done for 200 I'd go for it, but I think I'll just baby it along until it croaks and then bite the bullet and get a mac mini and buy logic 9 for an arm and a leg.