Austin Mac Repair

Don’t go here. Horrible customer service and I had to buy a new iPad after the horrible «fix» they did. Also, there are 102 hidden reviews. All negative. So shady!

My experience with Austin Mac Repair was fine. They told me likely causes of my problem and estimated cost to fix it. Technician called within 2 hours with a diagnosis. I gave him the ok to repair it and it was ready an hour later. This was the 2^nd time I’ve taken a Mac there for service and it’s always been fine.

I’m very sorry to hear about all of the bad experiences at this establishment. My experience was very different from most described here.
About 2 months ago, my 2013 MacBook Pro with Retina Display suffered water damage. I took it to the Apple Store, and they quoted a price of around $ 800 because they basically need to gut the machine and replace everything that showed any sign of being touched by water.
I took it to Austin Mac Repair, they charged me around $ 90 for the water damage diagnostic, and called me within 48 hours to let me know that my computer was all set. They cleaned out all of the corrosion, and the computer now works as though water was never spilled on it. To my understanding, water damage has a tendency to resurface and cause problems further down the road, but, for now, Austin Mac Repair has done their job exceptionally and saved me a lot of money in the process.

Absolutely horrible customer service except for the counter girl «Alyssa» who was at least empathic. Rude, unprofessional and when simply inquiring on whether the diagnostic rendered on my machine was under warranty I was threatened with security for speaking «too loudly».
And to the woman from management who suggested I give a favorable review on Unilocal,because I mentioned their slew of negative press. Be glad I didn’t eviscerate your pathetic excuse for a repair establishment, because my original review was much worse.
Never again

I personally didn’t have any issues with Austin Mac Repair. I dropped my Macbook Pro off for a new LCD replacement on 4÷4÷13 @ 3:00pm. I spoke to a guy who was very polite and said it would be done sometime on 4÷5÷13. I said thanks and went on my way. I received a phone call on 4÷5÷13 @ 1:00pm telling me my computer was all set. The price that they quoted is what I paid, no more, no less.
Sure, computer guys are always a little quirky but what do you expect? I would recommend this place and would plan to go back for any future repairs needed.
Thanks guys.

I was trying to find a power supply for an iMac G5 and most places did not carry it. They wanted full retail price for a USED power supply. $ 120 for a power supply is a 100% mark up on a USED price. (They should go for about $ 60.) The guy who answered the phone kept putting me on hold. I am not sure why. I even mentioned his price was a little high and he was like, «Well that is what is goes for.»
This guy did not wow me with his service or his technical expertise. Thanks but no. I ended up going to another local shop and got the power supply and they even installed it for me and tested it before I left and it only cost me $ 65.
Steer clear of this place.

Terrible service– guy was impatient, cut off eveything I said and completely misunderstood everything I said. I think I’m fairly well-​spoken– honestly, I know how to get my point across. But this cat was completely not hearing me. Hands all shaking and crazy. Prices incredibly high, even by Apple fanatic standards. Speaking of fanatic, as the other reviewers mentioned, the over-​the-​top alter that takes up half the space doesn’t help.

When I first called Austin Mac Repair, they were helpful and made sure they had everything I needed to do work on my laptop. That was probably the only pleasant experience I had with this store.
When I dropped in… yikes. Three things: first, the painful paint job. Second, thinking I walked into a cultist compound and finally by their astronomical prices.
A 500gb 5000rpm hard-​drive was going for over $ 100 (normally goes for $ 60-​$ 70). Their tools were especially overpriced, marked-​up by almost up to 10x the normal retail price. Torx screwdrivers that sell for ~$ 3 anywhere else are going for over $ 20, Spudgers that normally go for $ 1 – 2 are $ 10 at AMR… I could go on and on.
This is obviously done to ward off people trying to tackle their own repairs and upgrades e.g. «Well I could do this job but the difference in cost would only be marginal, so I guess I’ll let them do the work.»
I decided to only buy two sticks of 2gb ram. When they rang it up, they wanted about $ 70 for the pair. The guy said he’d cut me a deal and give me one for free. Nice gesture, but even then, that was a huge rip off. They go for about $ 15 a piece online.
Anyways, for some masochistic reason I decided to go back and get a hard drive, spudger and a battery.
A week later I went to the Mac Store to ask about replacing hard drive and getting the OS and my files moved over. They suggested I go to
… Hark! The herald genius sings! That site was a BREEZE. I selected my computer model and what I wanted to do to it. They gave me a ton of options, including a bundle with all the tools I needed, step by step video instructions for the physical swap and step by step instructions on the software side. The price for everything including a larger capacity and faster hard drive was still cheaper than just the hard drive they sold me.
Needless to say, I returned the hard drive and spudger. It was a little nerve-​wracking though. I felt like the guy processing the return was on the brink of snapping and either pleading with or screaming at me (possibly both). They charged me a 20% restocking fee and told me they couldn’t pay me that day and a check would be in the mail within a week. I got the check within said time period.
I will never be going back to that store.

DONT REPLACE CRACKED IPHONE SCREENS HERE! I had mine replaced 2 days ago and the service/​bars were almost non-​existant after they replaced the screen… I wasn’t receiving calls or texts and it was always «searching» for service. I rebooted my phone like they said and took it to the Mac store with no resolutions. Finally, I took it to Ray Turner at Talkalot Cell Phone Repair at the carwash on Jollyville. He was 20 bucks more expensive but found a part that they had lost in my phone. I wouldn’t trust these guys… they are reckless and do too many screen repairs a day to pay attention. Now Ray has to order the part that Austin Mac Repair lost when they were fixing my phone. TOO MUCH HASSLE!

I took my MacBook pro in for a screen repair, and thought it was a pretty fair price. I was happy with the repair, but then I noticed that there was gunk (fuzz, crumbles of stuff) on the interior of my screen. Not a big deal – kind of annoying, but then I noticed that the rubber lining on my screen was chipped, as in damaged from the repair. Meh, it was relatively cheap (around $ 178), so I let it go. However, a couple of days ago (6.5 months after the repair), I opened my laptop to find the screen hanging down unglued. Not cool. I called, explained the problem, and was told that they would look at it and fix it. When I got there today, I was told that I was a few weeks past my warranty date and was told to super glue it back on. Hmfh… I would have appreciated them telling me there was an expiration on the repair, and would have liked to have seen some genuine care regarding my problem. I don’t expect warranties to last forever, but I wish they would have offered to look my info up over the phone before I drove out there.
The place doubles as some sort of missionary home base. Not really a problem, but kind of weird to look around and see literally at least 50 giant crucifixes at a repair shop.
Overall:
Customer service: not great, but not offensive
Repair quality: not great, semi-​offensive
Cost: affordable, but risky

I work at a small non profit company and we have the old style 15″ Macbook Pros (non-​unibody). One of our employees shattered his LCD so I shot emails out to shops around town to get estimates. Austin Mac Repair came in at the lowest price which was far more economical than replacing the entire laptop. They had it fixed in a week.
I dropped off the computer on a Wednesday and was initially quoted a 1 day turnaround time. Having worked in the computer repair field myself, I thought 1 day was awfully optimistic for an LCD repair. I mean, if they had that exact part in stock and had no other units to work on that day, I would see this being possible, but I know that curveballs often happen with these things.
As I predicted I got a phone call the next day from the repair tech with bad news. He said that our Macbook Pro was a weird model and they’d have to special order a special LCD for it. He said that it would arrive on Friday and that it would be done then.
A few days pass, and a week after we dropped it off, they call stating that they finally received the right LCD and that it was ready for pickup. They did give us a «generous» 5% discount for the trouble, though.
Moral of the story– if you are running a computer repair shop, don’t overpromise/​underdeliver. If you say it’ll take a day or two, you better have the resources to back up that claim!

My iPod Touch was dropped, and ended up with a cracked screen. After poking around I decided to go to Austin Mac Repair because the price for replacing the screen was right, and the location was easy to get to from work.
The shop itself is a little weird. There is a «missionary resource center» that occupies various, and not contiguous, parts of the store. No big deal; just odd. After making contact with an employee in the second room of the store, I was led back to the entry room, and directed to fill out an order form while sitting at what appeared to be a kid’s table. Not really sure why this procedure is necessary, but again, no big deal.
The repair took two days. When I picked it up, the new screen was installed perfectly, and the device works as good as new. Curiously, however, when checking out, I was asked to pay for a repair to a gen 3 Touch. Mine is a gen 2, thus $ 10 cheaper. After I protested, the employee looked puzzled, turned the device over, and ran the serial number. Sure enough, gen 2. The employee shrugged and said he didn’t know that 16gb gen 2 Touches exist. «This must be a really rare model.» Being that these devices are not rare at all, I found it very strange that an Apple-​dedicated business wouldn’t recognize it.
In the end, my repair was done quickly, correctly, and inexpensively. It was not, however, a great customer service experience. I’d go back, but only if I can’t find another place at the same price level.

I had a good experience here. I cracked my iPhone and needed the screen replaced. They were able to supply me with a DIY kit and parts for a little less than a lot of places online by the time shipping costs were figured in. The staff was friendly, made sure I understood what to do with the tools. He also suggested that I get a new case, and the prices they had on the Otter Box cases were very competitive. I use a bracket with my phone in the car, so I needed to go out to my car a couple of times to see if the case would work or not. No problems. I wound up also buying the case and I feel like I got a really good deal all the way around.

I brought my beloved Macbook Pro here because they gave me the best quote on replacing my recently cracked screen. When I brought the MBP in, its condition was that the screen was totally cracked, but the backlight still worked. It was cracked, so all you saw were gray, black, and rainbow colored amorphous shapes, but it was backlit. I continued to use it while connected to a monitor, and everything was functioning just fine.
Well, I brought it in and thought it would be an easy fix. When they called me later that day, I thought I’d have my MBP up and running again, but instead they told me the repair had failed. They told me that even after replacing the screen, it wouldn’t turn on properly because the backlight mechanism wasn’t working. I asked how to repair the backlight, and they told me it was a function of the logic board. And if they were to replace the logic board, the total cost of the repair would be more than a new computer. This is all sound reasoning, but I knew for a fact that the backlight worked prior to having them lay their hands on the computer. I said fine, and came to pick it up. I really should have be firm about it at this point, but I make the mistake of being a little too meek sometimes, and this was one of those times.
To make matters worse, I had to pay for the labor incurred in the service failure, which was $ 85. Nearly $ 100 for, well, nothing, except a now non-​functioning backlight. Don’t make my mistake.

i wish I had read this thread before going to Austin Mac Repair. They were not kidding about that one guy not knowing how to interact with people. The customer service practices of this establishment left much to be desired.
I took my iPhone 3GS to have the cracked screen replaced, and they fixed it alright, but then the backlight went out. I told him that it was working fine before we took it in, but he just offered to fix it for a discount. Went ahead and left it for further repairs, and after resetting the whole phone, the problem was not fixed.

1^st, let me state that AUSTIN MAC REPAIR IS NOT «MAC» CERTIFIED MAC REPAIR CENTER…
I’m a busy professional and edit video’s for Public Access TV. I recently relocated to Austin and during the process my old Power Mac started to have problems. Every Time I started to edit videos my Mac would power down. Not knowing where to go to, I searched the internet and the folks at Austin Mac Repaired assured me they could fix it.
However, after almost $ 1,000.00 later when I received my Mac back, it did the same exact thing! I then went to the Apple store at the Domain. They immediately diagnosed the problem. It was in the Logic Board, something that I wasn’t informed of by Les and the folks at Austin Mac Repari. When my video software accessed these more complex processors, it couldn’t process it any more and powered down. The Apple Store told me that 1. These non authorized Apple stores like the Austin Mac Repair don’t even have the diagnostic tools to correctly diagnose the problem. Also, the parts I needed were no longer available to fix the Mac. Also, the Austin Mac Repair IS NOT A CERTIFIED MAC REPAIR STORE!
I contacted the Austin Mac Repair and they agreed to refund my money upon return of the hard drive and memory they installed (in their failed attempt to fix the problem). When I returned the parts for my full refund as promised, the Austin Mac Repair added additional charges to my bill as well as went back on their promise of a full refund and was barely going to provide me any refund at all. I informed the owner that I was going to fight this with my Credit Card Company.
Later the owner left a threatening voice mail on my home system stating that if I did anything or announced the problems that I had with him and his services that he was going to file a lawsuit and take my house away from me! If you don’t believe me, I’ve posted his Threats on my blog, feel free to listen to the «friendly Customer service here…
I contacted the Apple Customer Service and reported this business as operating as a Mac Repair Shop when in reality it is not certified nor do they have the equipment to repair some of the problems a Mac may have. However, they won’t tell the customer that. However, they will continue to keep telling you that you need them to provide additional services, diagnosis and hardware.
Unfortunately, Les, the owner of the Austin Mac Repair told the Credit Card company that it was a Point of Sale, meaning that unless I turn the Mac on in the store and test it myself, I agree to pay for the charges. A point that Credit Card Companies will side with the business owner. Let me state… If you have a Mac that needs parts or services, trust ME, only use a certified Mac Repair Shop otherwise you are taking your changes.
UPDATE: Curious to see if there was actually anything wrong, I spent some time today to reconnect all of the old cables, hard drive, memory, monitor etc to my old G5 (the one the Mac Store says was dead). Believe it or not, all of my documents are there! It didn’t need backup, all my applications are there. I still can’t use Final Cut or Motion because of the processor overload but I can still access my documents, Toast and a few other applications that were too expensive to upgrade on my new mac. Just one more reason NOT to go to this store for service. If you want service from Les, the Owner of Austin Mac Repair, what you are going to get is Les Service, Les Repair and Les money in your bank account so Go to LES for Less.

A few months ago I cracked my macbook screen and saw the ad to fix it for $ 200 and thought that was good deal. After talking with the worker i also agreed that it would be a good idea to upgrade my hard drive to 500GB. I got the computer back the next day and it was running smoothly besides noticing a small green dot in the screen, but i figured «you get what you pay for». Very soon after that i noticed my computer would not go into sleep mode so i took it back and he said he’d look at it.
The next day, he called to tell me that it was some weird anomaly that he could not explain and I’d just have to put it in sleep mode manually. Since I had looked up this problem online and saw that the most common problem was with the magnet i asked if that could be the case, to which he got very defensive responded with «I don’t know what you do for a living but we do these every day and rarely have a problem.» which i thought was very rude and even more so that he not only couldn’t fix the problem which he obviously created but didn’t offer any compensation for the damage.
Well, recently during a giant fit my daughter slapped my computer out of my hand and my computer wouldn’t turn on. Not wanting to deal with these guys again, I took my computer to Happy Mac on Northloop who not only fixed that problem but also looked at the sleep malfunction which was caused by a missing magnet (no surprises there) and replaced it for $ 20.
Well, from now on i will be going to Happy Mac for all my Mac needs and not this other terribly rude incompetent place that seems like some weird cult hang out in the front area.

Look Out!
I thought I had a simple problem with my brand new macbookpro (don’t let friends use your computer). One day I wasn’t able to use the printer. First I went to best buy-«The Geeks» said Oh, you need a new printer, your’s died. OK i bought one and asked the «geeks» to hook it up for me. Wouldn’t work either. The «geeks» determined it was a Macbook Problem. 2 hours wasted. Next stop, The Apple Store. Since it’s in the Mall, and I knew it was a Mac problem, I didn’t take the printer. Click, click, click, OK-​ready to go-​Got home, hook up printer, Won’t work again.
Then I found Les at Austin Mac Repair – I thought OK, he’s a Mac «Expert»!
When I talked to him on the phone, he seemed to busy to answer any questions, he just said bring it in. So I took the mac and printer in. The nice lady said there would be a $ 29 diagnostic fee. Remember, I thought I had a simple problem. Next day Les calls – Wants to charge me $ 300 plus to fix this «small problem» YIKES! I try to ask him questions, but he seems put-​out and to busy to answer. I decide to pick it up and try to find a real Mac expert. Guess what – I owed two «diagnostic fees» Les diagnosed the printer too! $ 65 wasted. (at least it wasn’t $ 300 plus!)
Oh yea,– the next day a real «Mac Expert» came to my house, — fixed it in less than 2 minutes. It WAS a simple problem.

My hard drive crashed: (
When I dropped my computer off, I felt my computer was in good hands. However, when I called a day later to check the status, the guy who answered the phone couldn’t give me any information and told me someone would call me back. No one called me back. The next day I call again and get the same results (a guy on the phone who doesn’t know anything and tells me someone will call me back — and again no phone call.
I had to harrass the store to get any info on my computer. The staff did a lot of finger pointing and handled everything very unprofessionally.
Also, I believe that they are waaaay overpriced.

Sorry for the guy who had a bad experience with this place. Mine was exactly the opposite. Even in the middle of a move (which was mentioned in the negative review) Les and his team were able to upgrade my Macbook Pro with a new, larger hard drive and increase RAM from 2 to 4G… and did it in about 5 hours.
Compared to another Mac shop that’s near Koenig and MoPac, this one has much more affordable prices, and they were able to get my machine back to me the same day. One thing to note, as of the writing of this email, they’re moving from D-​100 to C-​52 in the same office park. This will probably be updated soon on the listing, but just fyi.
Bottom line — if you need a Mac upgrade, this place will do it quickly and at a great price. Besides computers, Les told me they work on anything Apple; iPods, iPhones and iTouch included.