Advice on selling my Macbook on eBay

AuburnTiger

Hey guys, I'll try and keep this brief. New job, new place, I'd like a new iMac.

I've owned 4 Macs before, all of them laptops. I've always enjoyed them, always taken great care of them, and then sold them to help pay for the new one.

I sold my iBook last year for over $400 on eBay, and it was well over 3 years old! I was quite surprised by the price.

Anyway, I'd finally like to get a desktop for my new job, so I'd like to sale my current Macbook. It's a little over a year old, with very decent specs and well taken care of. Only problem is, the DVD/CD RW drive stopped working about 6 months after I bought it. It's one of the ones that doesn't pop out, but where you slide the disc in yourself. But I'm sure you all knew that.

It wasn't a problem for me, as I have an external dvd burner, and rarely need to put in a disc anyway. But I'm wondering, do you think this will be a huge problem for selling it on eBay? I lack the expertise to fix it myself, or replace it, especially since it is one of the ones that doesn't pop out.

I know that a lot of people who purchase Macs online are enthusiasts, so for some it wouldn't be a problem. My goal is to get roughly $500 for it, or half the price of a new iMac.

So, do you think I should try and have it fixed/replaced, or just put it up on eBay? I will say that maybe it's a cleaning issue, so I should try and get an optical drive cleaner first. The disc will spin briefly before it pops back out, so it isn't completely dead.

KalTorak

I don't think you'll have a problem selling it. You won't get quite as good a price as if it were in perfect working condition, but it'll still be pretty decent. Like you said, there are lots of people out there who know Mac laptops inside and out who look on Ebay for slightly damaged units - they either replace what's broken or salvage it for working parts. I've sold two Powerbooks with busted hard drives a little over a year ago, got around $600 each. It seems like dead Superdrives are a common occurrence (the one in my first-gen MBP is dead too), so I'm sure the kind of people who will buy your computer will be familiar with switching it out.

Djeet

No working optical drive is a pretty glaring defect on a laptop, even if you included the external drive in the sale of the laptop. I've replaced a slot-loading drive on a titanium powerbook and it ran me about $200 just to get the drive, and it really wasn't that difficult. I've cracked open a macbook a few times and though the case is more fiddly to open then a PC laptop it's doable, just takes patience, time and the right tool. A place like ifixit.com should give you an idea of replacement costs for hardware, and they also have good instructions for how-to, not sure what labor rates are as I do my own labor.

I'd probably price out parts and charge you a flat rate. Parts plus $100 maybe.

AuburnTiger

Hmm, I didn't even think about including the dvd burner. Makes sense, seeing as how the iMac would have a dvd burner on it. So including the external drive, is $500 a realistic goal?

Djeet

I think $500 is possible, it depends who's looking for laptops that week; I take it the Applecare has run out. Someone who is cool with fixing would pay that (or who knows someone to whom they can take it to have it fixed).

But just a general user who wants a laptop, it's very likely they are going to want the onboard drive to work and will just not bid on a laptop they know to have it non-functional.

If I were buying to fix up I'd want to know: How long does the battery last on a full charge? Is the power adapter original? Version of OSX? Dead/frozen pixels? Core2Duo right?

AuburnTiger

3-4 hours, depending on screen brightness setting, yes, 10.5.6, none, and yeah Core2Duo.

I think I'll take my chances on eBay. Going to try and optical laser cleaner first and see if that fixes the problem. I never had any need for the drive, so I never bothered to check.

AuburnTiger

Cleaning disc didn't work. Still spins discs for 15 seconds or so, then ejects.

I'm hoping that 2GB of RAM, a dual layer external dvd burner and a Brenthaven laptop case will be enough to lure someone in.