Boulder Mac Repair — Attraction in Boulder

TL;DR Boulder Mac Repair offered a minimum $95 option and leaving computer for 4-5 days even though they were aware of a free 30 second fix.

Two of my 4 USB-C ports on my MacBook Pro stopped working. I brought my laptop to Boulder Mac Repair. Dusty said there was nothing coming out of the two ports and the remaining two were failing as well. He said things like "cascading failure" and "motherboard issue" (not as a diagnosis but as possibilities). He said that I could leave the laptop for a minimum $95 diagnostic and then 4-5 day wait time to get my computer back. I wasn't ready yet to take that step as the laptop was essential for my work. I wanted to research alternatives. That evening, as Dusty predicted, the other two ports also died. I could no longer even power up my laptop. I was desperate to get it back to the shop as quickly as I could but first I did a search about the issue. I found that there was a 30 second fix that required resetting the system management controller (SMC). It only required pressing buttons while shutting down and restarting. All my ports are now functioning. I called them back to see if they either were not aware of the SMC reset fix or was something else going on. Dusty reported that he was indeed aware of that fix. He said it does not work 99% of the time.

While that may be true - I do not know - I would have expected a service that would have at least attempted the fix before suggesting something that would have been highly costly in money and time.

EDIT: If problems return as predicted by owner, I promise to add that information to this review. Owner thinks review is unfair. I did not say anything negative - only shared the facts and my experience. No attribution of ill will. Potential customers can determine what are and are not unfair expectations in this situation. Personally, I would expect, perhaps unfairly, that I would have been advised of this fix if the serviceperson was aware of it. I did confirm that the serviceperson was indeed aware of this. Also, to the point that there are things they cannot do at the front desk due to liability: In my call with Dusty, he said "I thought I tried the SMC reset.." Not sure why he would have said that if it is not their practice to try things at the front desk.

EDIT2: As of 12/30/2020 the problem described above never returned. The free 30 second fix worked so far. EDIT3: As of 03/21/2021, the problem described above...

Wow, this has been the single worst experience I have ever had with a tech repair. I was recommended to this shop by a friend after my phone screen cracked and went in for a repair. They repaired my 5s in an hour, but a mere day later my phone dropped from an extremely minor height (the kind of drop we all experience from time to time and never incur any damage from) and cracked HORRENDOUSLY - even worse than the initial crack I went in to get it fixed for (which I might note was from a much harsher drop). I went back to the store figuring that because this was a small local business who I (so very wrongly) assumed would value customer satisfaction, they would fix the screen that they replaced faultily without issue. This was not the case. The manager of the store was both unreasonable and severely lacked any level of sympathy. He refused to repair my phone for anything less than $120, which is an ABSURD amount to have to pay for a screen that was very clearly placed VERY POORLY (the screen is popped half off of the phone, in addition to being extremely cracked), especially after just having spent the same amount a day earlier to get it fixed. I WOULD STRONGLY ADVISE AGAINST REPAIRING YOUR PHONE HERE. This is a business that is both run very poorly and does not in any way uphold to the standards and values that we hope for in our small local businesses.

EDIT: after much persistence, they agreed to do another repair at...

I purchased a refurbished 15" MacBook Pro for $500 from this company in May of 2013 after I'd had my own Mac worked on and repaired by them. As they'd done a decent job repairing my computer and because they're a local Boulder company, I thought for sure that I could trust them to sell a working computer, albeit refurbished. I bought it for my husband who's in a PhD program, and only needed it for writing papers and lectures, doing research, and using PowerPoint. He barely used the computer until August of 2013 as he had the summer off. In late September the computer started having some issues, and finally crashed completely. We took it back to the store in early October 2013, only to hear that because we were outside the 3 month warranty they wouldn't do anything about it, and that it was totally unrepairable. I explained to them that we'd hardly even used it for 3 of the 5 months and that even though it was 2 months outside of their warranty it is totally unacceptable that they sold us a computer that we can't even have fixed. The very least they could have done is to give us a partial refund or purchased it back for parts. To top it off, the owner tried to blame the issue on a small dent in the back of the computer, which had been there from the get go. I will NEVER recommend that anyone bring business to Boulder Mac Repair, and will in fact recommend...