Recent Fixes - iPod Sickbay - All iPods repaired! iPod repairs for Clarita Marquez in Vallejo, California and Martha J in Santa Rosa in California

These are a few my recent iPod repair experiences.

Claria M lives in Vallejo California (90 miles away). She had called on the toll free number and kind of described what had occurred with her iPod. It is also a 2nd Gen Mini.

It seems about 14 months ago the device was dropped in a liquid. Time goes by and things get fuzzy, she thinks it was water. I mentioned to her that even though I have been able to restore liquid immersed iPods having left the fluid sealed inside the unit likely caused permanent damage. The problem is... when these things happen and you take it in to the Apple store... they tell you rightly that dropping it in water or dropping it in coffee voids the warranty. Then they try to sell you a new iPod because they are not going to send one in for servicing that is of a certain age of has a certain type of out of warranty problem. The will give you 10% off on the price of a new one.. if you give them the old one. I can see why people are reluctant to in essence 'give' it away for so little as trade in value.

Apple certainly wants to remove used iPods from the market so they don't have to compete making a new iPod sale with a good used one and getting these things from people in trade promotes additional new iPod sales.

She sent it in and I opened it up. The time and moisture had its work. I knew it had deeper problems when I saw the contacts inside the earbud jack with no nickel plating on them left and just corrosion on the metal. The inside looked pretty horrible. Here are three shots of the interior. Looks more like battery acid in a way doesn't it?

I was never given a real chance to save this one. Clarita was put off by Apple's warranty trade-in policy and she just put it in drawer and waited 14 months until she saw my posting.

When I encounter a problem I take digital photos and send them to the owner so they can what obstacle I've come up against. Those shots were sent to her so she could see exactly how deep the corrosion is and why it can't be saved.

The unit didn't work when I got it and I wasn't able to back up any files from it, the corrosion at the hard disk connection was severe.

Total cost to her of me opening it up learning absolutely this will never work again. $20 plus $5 to send it back to her (if she wanted it back). At least she knows now it will never work again and doesn't have to wonder. If ti had gotten to me sooner, we would have had a different out come.

Martha J lives in Santa Rosa (right in town). She washed her son Jake's pants on Tuesday night and didn't notice that he had left his 2nd Generation iPod Nano ($275) in his pocket. His christmas present went through the entire washing cycle without being noticed and was discovered once she went to pull the clothes out to put in the dryer.

Naturally they each blamed each other with whose fault it was.

Martha brought it by on Tuesday around 10am and I went to work it. It was totally dead, nothing turned on, kaput.

Through out the afternoon, I kept tracking things down and correcting it, (while also working on other iPod in for repair). Around 11PM, I had it working perfectly. It had the full color bright screen, the full music list it had previously. It worked at 100% of new. Martha had kind of damaged a part of the plastic top of the case, which I was able to fix also.

I emailed her, she was ecstatic and in the morning picked it up at 9:30AM so she would have it back working in Jake's hand when he came home from School. Fixed - Total cost $40

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I'm in Sonoma County... Northern California wine country.

If you live nearby, are traveling through or live in the San Francisco Bay Area bring your iPod to me and I can do the work while you wait or go wine tasting for a while. Send me an email just to make sure I have on hand whatever parts your repair will require.

Call or email me with questions or to set up a repair. You can also call, I am here most days from 8am to 8pm
Toll Free 1-877-iPod-Pro (1 - 877 - 476-3776)

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