Touch Bar brings great functionality to the new Macbook Pro’s. With its sleek design, it is a second OLED display located over the keyboard. However, like every display, it is prone to cracks and damage if not handled with care.
This is exactly what happened to our customer’s Macbook Pro. A little hairpin got stuck between the screen and keyboard while closing the screen, which caused the touchbar to get damaged.
Different ways of Macbook Pro Cracked Touchbar Repair
There are two ways to repair a faulty Macbook touchbar, and both of them involve replacing the touchbar module but differ in process and, cost of course.
Straightforward and less labour intensive process is to replace the whole keyboard palmrest part. This includes the aluminium palmrest assembly, keyboard, and touchbar module, as they come as one piece. However, due to the multiple parts involved, such repair costs, depending on the model, is close to a thousand dollars.
The second option is to replace the touchbar only. This is more labour intensive, of course; however, the cost is drastically lower. Unfortunately, Apple does not make repairs easy on new Macbooks. Intentionally or not, that’s another topic of discussion.
It indeed is a preferred option for us regardless of the intensive labour, due to its eco-friendly nature as we do not replace unnecessary parts. This is our way of fighting with e-waste and reducing our carbon footprint by consuming less and only necessary parts in our repairs.
Macbook Pro Cracked Touchbar Repair Process
These touchbars essentially consists of two layers, force touch sensor layer and coplanar display layer.
Unfortunately touchbar is not separating easily, due to heavy duty adhesive tape used to secure it in place.
This requires a careful approach in separating the touchbar from the palmrest assembly without damaging the keyboard itself. Especially considering its proximity.
When the glue starts releasing the force touch sensor layer, we can start separating the glass slowly. This is very fragile part and will inevitably start shuttering.
Installing new touchbar on Macbook Pro with a cracked touchbar repair
Separating the touchbar is not a joke. The current touchbar design is not engineered to be repaired for sure. After it’s glued in in the factory, they expect the next place to end up after being used is the bin, a giant waste and unhealthy for the environment. Apple has a plan to go carbon-neutral. However, this plan does not include prolonging the lifespan of these Macbooks. Particularly when an accident like this happens, and if it is more than 2 years old, Apple will ramp up the repair quote to a level where you will be nudged to buy a new one as repair is not “economical” for their business model. Let’s stop getting frustrated and finish this job, shall we?
With removed touchbar, now we can continue our task of repairing this Macbook Pro with chipped touchbar directly in our workshop in Adelaide.
After removed glue residue and cracked glass pieces we were ready to place and test the new touchbar functionality.
With the area cleared, installing the new touchbar is straightforward and does make us wonder why Apple did not make it easier for a broken touchbar to be removed. No need for such strong adhesive there. It is a thin 30cm wide glass strip that does not get any pull force. We have wasted 3 hrs removing leftover shattered glass pieces from the broken touchbar.
In comparison, Apple’s procedure of repairing Macbook’s with a cracked or faulty touchbar is to replace the whole palmrest, which includes keyboard, touchbar and battery, by charging a cost for all parts as they cannot separate them themselves and not interested in reducing the repair cost to the customer either. Nor the waste of electronic debris to the planet.
Successful Macbook Pro cracked touchbar repair
Replacing this touchbar was not easy, although the cost we saved to the customer compared to job done by Apple is ample.
Do you need this Repair in Adelaide?
If your Apple Mac or Macbook is causing trouble and need a Macbook Repair Service in Adelaide, give us a call, and we will advise on the best scenario to get your device repaired.
Interstate? Why not Send IT for a Repair. Repairs take under three weeks, including forward and backward postage. Contact us to get an idea of cost and turnarounds.
We at IT-Solve, specialise in Apple Mac and electronics repairs. We will do our best to repair your Mac quickly without involving high costs and long waiting times in repair shops. Our average repair takes under a week!
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Repaired, not Replaced!
We are committed to reducing e-waste in Australia. How we do it is by educating our customers on the reparability and longevity of their devices, as well as providing affordable Macbook Repairs here in Adelaide.
Although our best intentions and hard work, this is not an easy task. Customers must accept that cost of high-quality electronic repairs, is between a third and half of the price of a new device. However, with the current trend of planned obsolescence in electronic design, we see more and more Macbooks having shorter lifespans. To tackle that, while we do our repairs we target common planned obsolescence engineering design mistakes to ensure we extend the life expectancy of the Macbooks we repair. Check some of our Macbook Repair Cases to get an idea of the process.
That said, if we buy a new one or write it off via insurance, it does not guarantee that the new one will not meet the same fate as the older one pretty soon.
As matter of fact, quite often we see accidents reoccurring within less than 2-year gaps. If we can save 2000$ or even 1000$ today by repairing our faulty Macbook is brilliant. That’s an extra half Macbook cost ready to be spent on another one when the time comes or our need for performance increases.
When that time comes is up to us to buy a new one or keep pushing the one we have, but delaying it by a year or three is always a good starting point and saves another abandoned Macbook from polluting our one and only Planet.