Fair-Priced Diagnostic Charges

What We Charge For

The majority of Apple hardware (including Macs, MacBook, iPhone and iPad) that comes in to our Dundee and St Andrews centres is repaired successfully. However, it does happen occasionally that- for various reasons- a particular device is unfixable. Sometimes this is obvious when the customer first brings it in- in which case, we let them know straight away with no obligation.

However, it’s not always obvious at first glance whether a device is fixable or not. Often we need to spend time with it on the bench to track down the fault and determine whether it can be repaired. Sometimes the customer themselves decides not to go ahead with a repair (typically when the potential cost isn’t worth it to them).

In these cases, we won’t charge you the full rate for a successful repair, only a much-reduced diagnostics fee (sometimes also referred to as a stripdown charge). This is £20 in most cases^* and covers our technician’s time and other overheads.

(If your repair is successful, you don’t have to pay this, since it’s already included in the price you pay for the repair itself.)

^* Charge at time of writing is £20 for majority of cases and subject to alteration. We will always inform you in advance of the current charge and any other potential costs associated with your repair- the final decision is always yours.

Why Do We Charge When Others Don’t?

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. The “no fix, no fee” service offered by some cheaper repair centres sounds like it ought to be a good deal for the customer. However, in practice there’s a drawback.

In many cases, knowing for sure what the problem is in advance- let alone whether it’s going to be fixable- is impossible. Determining this will require often significant levels of disassembly and benchwork. Now, let’s say you’re offering “no fix, no fee”, and the (e.g.) iPad you’ve spent an hour or more looking into turns out to be unrepairable. That’s a significant amount of technician’s time (and overheads) you’re not going to be reimbursed for- and most companies can’t afford to risk that very often.

In practice, what most often happens is only that the “easy” checks are done– those that don’t take too long, and which will be straightforward to fix. If it turns out the problem doesn’t lie there, they cut their losses early on and return the device to the customer as “unrepairable”.

Proper investigation may have shown otherwise, as was the case with this iPad 4 repair (described at our sister site, discdepotdundee.co.uk) where we spotted the fault others couldn’t. This was because we had more time to spend on it.

Is it annoying to have to pay out anything when your iPhone, Mac, etc. couldn’t be fixed? Certainly. It’s true that if the device had been truly unrepairable, you might have saved £20.

Then again, if you’d gone for the “no fix, no fee”, it’s unlikely that you’d have known for sure that it was unfixable since they might not have done a full, in-depth diagnostic before returning your iPhone etc. to you as an (alleged) write-off only fit for the bin.

We believe that our fair- and moderately-priced- diagnostic charge is the best approach. It lets us devote the proper amount of time necessary for a proper diagnosis, rather than being forced into corner-cutting. The result is a better chance of tracking down the problem and having your device successfully repaired with us.

At Disc Depot- Mac Repair’s parent company- we’ve been in business since 2001, and have years more repair experience than most of the competition. Add to this the fact that we invest in the advanced equipment they don’t have, and you’ll see why we can afford to provide a far higher standard of service than the race-to-the-bottom, corner-cutting competition.

Trust Mac Repair at Disc Depot for your Apple needs. We look forward to seeing you!