[digitdean]

My sister spilled some juice on my mom's iBook, and after taking it to a repair shop, the guy said that it was a shorted battery, and the trackpad/button would stop working after a while. He quoted 130 for the battery, 130 for the new trackpad, and 1.5 hours of labor, coming out to about $400.

So, where can I get a cheap battery and case, and would it really take 1.5 hours to switch out the top?

I've got this feeling I'm being had.

[MrForgetable]

$130 for the battery is correct. it is 129.00 plus tax on the Apple Store online.

[Captain Obvious]

Originally posted by digitdean:
My sister spilled some juice on my mom's iBook, and after taking it to a repair shop, the guy said that it was a shorted battery, and the trackpad/button would stop working after a while. He quoted 130 for the battery, 130 for the new trackpad, and 1.5 hours of labor, coming out to about $400.

So, where can I get a cheap battery and case, and would it really take 1.5 hours to switch out the top?

I've got this feeling I'm being had.

That sounds about right. But if you are worried take it to an Apple store.
Even if you can find a place that will sell you the case and track pad it won't be cheap and its going to take you a lot longer than one and a half hours to take the thing apart and longer to put it back together.

[macaddict0001]

I think that's not a bad deal.

[stuffedmonkey]

If you take it to Apple - you will pay far more. They will charge you under the "Abuse" tier - sort of a catch all for all user caused damage. Those prices are steep.

[macaddict0001]

Still 140 for 1.5 hours of labour.

[Mr Heliums]

If he was charging $10 for labour to replace a trackpad, then I'd be worried.

I think that price is as good as you'll get.

[robot prom]

ibooks are hard to work on. really hard.

[Athens]

Laptops are very difficult to work on. 1.5 hours to take it apart and put it back together is not bad at all. The most important thing to remmeber is not to spill juice into laptops. You can however attempt (not recommended) to clean the trackpad with distilled water, just remmeber to dry it completly and quickly and not when its in the laptop of course.

[Detrius]

The trackpad doesn't sell separately. It's part of the top case kit. This includes the power button and the speakers. The price on the parts is normal.

The question of how long it should take depends on how many of these machines the person has been inside of. When I first started taking apart iBooks, it took me a half an hour just to take the bottom case off. Now, I can get to the hard drive in a half an hour. Note that it takes longer to put the machine back together than it does to take it apart.

My guess is that the guy is charging you a half an hour diagnostic and an hour to replace the top case kit. That's about how I would break it down.

The thing that worries me, though is the question of whether his diagnosis is correct. After all, you [plural] spilled juice in the machine. The logic board may be the reason for why the trackpad is intermittent. I find it odd that the top case kit and the battery were shorted, but nothing in between. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets the top case kit off and calls you up to tell you that your logic board is fried, and that's why the other two parts don't work.

Either way, liquids inside a laptop is a really bad idea.

[Alex Dawson]

Repairs: $400 = iBook with no warranty, but working
New: $1100 = new iBook, 12 month warranty, also working

Call me paranoid, but I think you'll find that they'll try to blame everything that ever happens to that ibook on the juice (they might be right too..), so if you ever had anything else go wrong, it probably won't be covered by any remaining warranty, and you'll have to pay for that to get fixed too.

You don't say which model of iBook it is either, or what it has in it. If it is a G3, you could sell the airport card (if fitted) on eBay for a nice profit, and maybe the RAM if it has any extra. If you can't get it to run in target disk mode to copy the old data off, you could also get a quote from the place to remove the hard drive and then sell the machine on eBay for parts or something. Or, you could buy a second hand iBook off eBay

But again, this all depends on which model of iBook it is. If it's a brand new 1ghz G4, probably should just get it repaired, but if it's a 600mhz G3.. it's probably time to go

[Turnpike]

Originally posted by Alex Dawson:
If it's a brand new 1ghz G4, probably should just get it repaired, but if it's a 600mhz G3.. it's probably time to go

Agreed. Especially since, as was pointed out above, there is a relatively high probability that there is damage to the logic board as well, or possibly some other components.

[Skip Breakfast]

1.5 hours of labor at my shop is $135. You've been quoted a pretty standard rate.

I think you're lucky. I've seen a spill cause $1300 of damage to a PowerBook.

[Lancer409]

Originally posted by Skip Breakfast:
1.5 hours of labor at my shop is $135. You've been quoted a pretty standard rate.

I think you're lucky. I've seen a spill cause $1300 of damage to a PowerBook.

[Arclite]

They wouldn't even fix my spill damage, saying it would be cheaper for me to buy a new machine. The thing wouldn't even boot.