[edhkreutz]

Two years ago I bought an original black MacBook which I really love. The problem is that in the past two years it has had the heat sink shutdown problem, the optical drive failed and had to be replaced, the battery was defective and had to be replaced, the hard drive failed and had to be replaced and it still has the screen flicker problem.

Apple fixed all of the problems for free, even replacing the hard drive when it was out of warrantee, and they have offered to fix the screen flicker if I take it in within the next few months.

However, it has been a big hassle to have to fairly regularly take my MacBook in to be fixed. And even though I had all of my most important files backed up, I lost a lot of miscellaneous stuff when the hard drive crashed.

Given all of these problems, the last time I took it in I asked the "Genius" if I could get some sort of discount on a new MacBook. I figured that even if it cost me a few bucks it would probably be worth it since I don't have a lot of confidence in my machine any more. He said that he couldn't do anything like that.

The question I have is: is this a common experience with the original MacBooks and does Apple have any sort of lemon program that I could look into? I'm not looking for a free replacement, only a reasonable discount on a more reliable machine.