Fried MacBook value?
October 30, 2015 10:26 PM Subscribe
What is a water damaged 13 inch 2014 MacBook Pro worth (ballpark) if sold for parts?
My $1400 13 inch MacBook Pro, less than a year old, had a small amount of water spilled on it, which fried the 256 GB solid state hard drive and also the controller chip, which is attached to the motherboard. Those two components are the only damage. The laptop will run fine from Yosemite on a portable hard drive, the retina display is perfect, and it is cosmetically mint. Someone has offered me around $200 for the MacBook as is, but I'd like to know what to expect if I were to sell it on eBay, or some other site. Specs here.
My $1400 13 inch MacBook Pro, less than a year old, had a small amount of water spilled on it, which fried the 256 GB solid state hard drive and also the controller chip, which is attached to the motherboard. Those two components are the only damage. The laptop will run fine from Yosemite on a portable hard drive, the retina display is perfect, and it is cosmetically mint. Someone has offered me around $200 for the MacBook as is, but I'd like to know what to expect if I were to sell it on eBay, or some other site. Specs here.
Maybe gazelle.com would be a resource? You'd have to enter in your serial number and then note the condition.
posted by belau at 7:39 AM on October 31, 2015
posted by belau at 7:39 AM on October 31, 2015
The trick with this is that is likely not all the damage, and it will likely get worse with time. The keyboard could corrode and die(at which point the top case needs to be replaced, including the battery) or other weird issues could come up.
Looking at some similar listings on ebay, i'd say $400-600. This one wouldn't even turn on and went towards the high end, but some that were ostensibly functional but had a busted charging jack(which isn't part of the motherboard on macs, and easy to swap) went towards the lower end.
$200 is definitely too low, but i'd accept any offer in the 4-500 range.
I used to buy broken macs to fix and sell for a long time, and i still repair laptops for clients off and on(i mostly do mobile devices now). This kind of stuff was always tough because it is worth a relatively large amount, but it's tough to sell and kind of almost too expensive to buy and repair. I think your best bet would be to just list it on ebay starting at like $500 and let people bid. Someone will at least bite at that price. And if they really don't, just relist it for 450. But if someone will buy one that doesn't turn on for $550, this will sell.
The one thing i will say is, i would absolutely not keep this machine. My main carry-around laptop for a while was a water damaged macbook i fixed, and it was infuriatingly glitchy and got worse with time until i just couldn't deal with it anymore. That's not uncommon at all from what i've seen in clients machines, and what you'll see if you search past water damage threads.
posted by emptythought at 2:19 PM on October 31, 2015
Looking at some similar listings on ebay, i'd say $400-600. This one wouldn't even turn on and went towards the high end, but some that were ostensibly functional but had a busted charging jack(which isn't part of the motherboard on macs, and easy to swap) went towards the lower end.
$200 is definitely too low, but i'd accept any offer in the 4-500 range.
I used to buy broken macs to fix and sell for a long time, and i still repair laptops for clients off and on(i mostly do mobile devices now). This kind of stuff was always tough because it is worth a relatively large amount, but it's tough to sell and kind of almost too expensive to buy and repair. I think your best bet would be to just list it on ebay starting at like $500 and let people bid. Someone will at least bite at that price. And if they really don't, just relist it for 450. But if someone will buy one that doesn't turn on for $550, this will sell.
The one thing i will say is, i would absolutely not keep this machine. My main carry-around laptop for a while was a water damaged macbook i fixed, and it was infuriatingly glitchy and got worse with time until i just couldn't deal with it anymore. That's not uncommon at all from what i've seen in clients machines, and what you'll see if you search past water damage threads.
posted by emptythought at 2:19 PM on October 31, 2015
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posted by humboldt32 at 6:25 AM on October 31, 2015 [1 favorite]