Apple & Customs STOLE Louis Rossmann batteries

[Terrius]

Humor me: choose a current car model you like. Any brand. Get a service manual for it. Compile a complete list of all the parts you need to build that car. Now go to the dealer's spare parts counter and get an estimate for that list of parts. You'll find that it exceeds the cost of buying the finished car, many times over. And that's before you even spent dozens of hours assembling it.

It's the same with any mass-produced product. You're getting a massive savings buying the finished good versus a complete set of spare parts.

This is, by the way, precisely why cars get stolen: they are worth FAR more as parts than it is as assembled cars, even when already used. This is absolutely true of Apple gadgets, too, so I'm sure that some units are purchased simply to be parted out for repairs.

No humor there. Other manufacturer components are expensive but they don't ship them in such bundles to make repair even remotely not viable. Other manufacturers don't help doing 3rd party repairs but do not proactively prevent them either, and even if they do, not to this surreal extent. Servicing car comparison is irrelevant, it takes much more time to begin with. Motherboard swap is not something you'll spend several hours to do. FYI, for 2 of such MACs you can buy a brand new car, with a lot more parts to replace.

I offered my information based on my experience with RMA. The cost of repairing a Apple device, even in its entirety is NEVER more than buying a new device (though with their phones apple tries really hard to make it time ineffective). There is a reason that refurbishing Apple equipment is a ridiculously lucrative business.

Apple maintains stock of all the replacement parts in the USA, they don't just suddenly manufacture each individual part when a service claim is made, those parts are already imported and can be shipped (usually arriving within 24 hours or less to the Apple store) for peanuts. In addition these parts are in OEM packaging, they do not Retail package any of their repair components as they are Not For Resale.

Again and I can't stress this enough, repair houses be it Apple (yes, the Apple store is a First Party repair house), Dell, HP, Lenovo or any big company(not talking mom and pop shops) get First Party pricing on OEM service components as part of RMA service agreements with the contracting company.

The only potential expensive part is the Apple Tech's time. Even this shouldn't be an issue because Apple devices are historically super easy to diagnose hardware and software issues with, if you have access to the servicing information.



In regard to the off-topic stolen car argument, parting out is useful because that is a far better way to destroy the evidence of illicit activity. It also opens more avenues for the sale of the illegitimate parts.

In Canada at least there has been an exponential increase in car thefts for exporting to Asia, and no, they are not always a "Target model". Unfortunately the car argument doesn't hold any water as car parts can also be obtained from third party sources, and can be repaired at any time by third party mechanics. (Tesla being the exception because they, like Apple, are anti-right to repair.) No you as a consumer will never receive first party pricing on "genuine parts", but the dealership can and does.

[Zucca]

@OP, I suggest you edit the Subject of this title because you are making a false accusation and you can get into trouble

I am curios to see what will happen to me.

[Mr. Scram]

Really, getting into trouble over a forum thread title which essentially quotes the video it links?

Legal advice on the internet. 

[MT]

I'm not aware of any cases involving repair shops as such, but there are ample cases involving parts vendors: http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/09/19/oem-trademarks-aftermarket-exploring-boundaries/id=101163/

Still original manufacturers of cars dont sue independent car service shops, not here anyway perhaps in Bentley ridden Switzerland, or RollsRoyce ridden Maryland?  So not arguing about that, just your generalisation ; choose a current car model you like. Any brand, and i did, Nissan Micra, take another one, nobody steals a Fiat 500 for parts. So there you go!

Those are very similar to the case here.

No its not, Luis is third part service dude, he dont make Apple parts there is no correlation between Apple and car manufacturer part thefts.

Bullshit. You are confusing theft for resale of the whole car vs. theft for parting out.

Calm down!
Nope, just contemplated on your bullshit generalisation quote, choose a current car model you like. Any brand.

The cars that are stolen for resale as a whole car are indeed special models.

Thats what i said while you said prior it was for the parts.

The cars that get stolen the most are stolen for parts, and it's the same cars that are the most popular, because they then also get into the most accidents and thus need the most parts.

Thats what you say now but not before. Its not about popular its about expensive, you just claimed that in your prior post, make up your mind!

(And of course, the most popular cars are also the most plentiful!) The most-stolen sedan in USA is the Toyota Camry, which is also the best-selling sedan. This is no coincidence.

Im talking about Scandinavia , USA is different.

The top 14 most replaced parts on the second most stolen vehicle in the U.S., the 2016 Nissan Altima, amount to $14,236, excluding labor, according to NICB. Given the $20,000 price of a 2016 Altima on the used market, it's easy to see how it's much easier for criminals to deal in parts alone. $14K just for the 14 most replaced parts. Never mind all the remaining parts!

US have a bad taste i suppose..Have no idea why they stole such a half mid class car, perhaps easy to steal, parts bad manufacturing, etc just as every bank robber in UK used lame Ford Transits.

Could this be different by country? Of course. But the same market forces apply.
Auto parts are an incredibly lucrative crime to be in, no matter where you are.

Not arguing about that. But that has nothing to do with Louis, he dont steal cars for parts of what i have seen so far!

[tooki]

I offered my information based on my experience with RMA. The cost of repairing a Apple device, even in its entirety is NEVER more than buying a new device (though with their phones apple tries really hard to make it time ineffective). There is a reason that refurbishing Apple equipment is a ridiculously lucrative business.

Yes, for Apple, because they're not paying their own markup. (Though they are paying the extra overhead of spare parts.)

What I've been saying is that YOU (i.e. a consumer) cannot do this. Your spare parts prices are too high and the total cost ends up astronomical.

Apple maintains stock of all the replacement parts in the USA, they don't just suddenly manufacture each individual part when a service claim is made, those parts are already imported and can be shipped (usually arriving within 24 hours or less to the Apple store) for peanuts. In addition these parts are in OEM packaging, they do not Retail package any of their repair components as they are Not For Resale.

Nobody claimed they were made on demand. (Like really, where did this come from?!?) And obviously they're not in retail packaging, since they're not retail products.

They are, however, in individual packaging very different from the bulk packaging used for delivery to the factory. And above all, the warehousing and logistics adds costs.

Again and I can't stress this enough, repair houses be it Apple (yes, the Apple store is a First Party repair house), Dell, HP, Lenovo or any big company(not talking mom and pop shops) get First Party pricing on OEM service components as part of RMA service agreements with the contracting company.

Right, but first-party pricing on service components still is far more than the cost of the same parts headed to manufacturing in bulk. Again, logistics and warehousing adds tons of cost.

The only potential expensive part is the Apple Tech's time. Even this shouldn't be an issue because Apple devices are historically super easy to diagnose hardware and software issues with, if you have access to the servicing information.

Of course. I, like probably everyone here, wishes Apple and everybody else would just start releasing service info. It's maddening that they don't.

In regard to the off-topic stolen car argument, parting out is useful because that is a far better way to destroy the evidence of illicit activity. It also opens more avenues for the sale of the illegitimate parts.

In Canada at least there has been an exponential increase in car thefts for exporting to Asia, and no, they are not always a "Target model". Unfortunately the car argument doesn't hold any water as car parts can also be obtained from third party sources, and can be repaired at any time by third party mechanics. (Tesla being the exception because they, like Apple, are anti-right to repair.) No you as a consumer will never receive first party pricing on "genuine parts", but the dealership can and does.

Car theft was a tangential point, to illustrate that the cost to consumers (and indie garages) for OEM parts is so high that a) their total cost vastly exceeds the price of a new car, and b) even used parts are worth far more individually than as a finished car. Both are relevant to Apple repairs, since a) Apple parts are very expensive, and b) the parts Louis bought were probably used Apple parts.

[tooki]

I'm not aware of any cases involving repair shops as such, but there are ample cases involving parts vendors: http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/09/19/oem-trademarks-aftermarket-exploring-boundaries/id=101163/

Still original manufacturers of cars dont sue independent car service shops, not here anyway perhaps in Bentley ridden Switzerland,

The most popular cars in Switzerland are VWs, and they're also the most stolen.

or RollsRoyce ridden Maryland?

You're an idiot if you think Maryland is full of Rolls-Royces. (MD doesn't even make the top-10 list of states by % of car sales that are luxury marques.)

So not arguing about that, just your generalisation ; choose a current car model you like. Any brand, and i did, Nissan Micra, take another one, nobody steals a Fiat 500 for parts. So there you go!

Except that that's almost guaranteed to be absolutely wrong.

Those are very similar to the case here.

No its not, Luis is third part service dude, he dont make Apple parts there is no correlation between Apple and car manufacturer part thefts.

Bullshit. You are confusing theft for resale of the whole car vs. theft for parting out.

Calm down!
Nope, just contemplated on your bullshit generalisation quote, choose a current car model you like. Any brand.

You haven't shown any evidence of the contrary.

The cars that are stolen for resale as a whole car are indeed special models.

Thats what i said while you said prior it was for the parts.

Yes, but those cars make up a tiny percentage of cars stolen. I said that cars are frequently stolen for parts, which is absolutely true.

The cars that get stolen the most are stolen for parts, and it's the same cars that are the most popular, because they then also get into the most accidents and thus need the most parts.

Thats what you say now but not before. Its not about popular its about expensive, you just claimed that in your prior post, make up your mind!

Then you're illiterate, since I've claimed throughout that popular cars are the ones stolen most, and it's true.

The top 14 most replaced parts on the second most stolen vehicle in the U.S., the 2016 Nissan Altima, amount to $14,236, excluding labor, according to NICB. Given the $20,000 price of a 2016 Altima on the used market, it's easy to see how it's much easier for criminals to deal in parts alone. $14K just for the 14 most replaced parts. Never mind all the remaining parts!

US have a bad taste i suppose..Have no idea why they stole such a half mid class car, perhaps easy to steal, parts bad manufacturing, etc just as every bank robber in UK used lame Ford Transits.

They steal them for parts. How do you not understand this??

Could this be different by country? Of course. But the same market forces apply.
Auto parts are an incredibly lucrative crime to be in, no matter where you are.

Not arguing about that. But that has nothing to do with Louis, he dont steal cars for parts of what i have seen so far!

I offer the identical reply as in my post above:
Car theft was a tangential point, to illustrate that the cost to consumers (and indie garages) for OEM parts is so high that a) their total cost vastly exceeds the price of a new car, and b) even used parts are worth far more individually than as a finished car. Both are relevant to Apple repairs, since a) Apple parts are very expensive, and b) the parts Louis bought were probably used Apple parts.

[Terrius]

I offered my information based on my experience with RMA. The cost of repairing a Apple device, even in its entirety is NEVER more than buying a new device (though with their phones apple tries really hard to make it time ineffective). There is a reason that refurbishing Apple equipment is a ridiculously lucrative business.

Yes, for Apple, because they're not paying their own markup. (Though they are paying the extra overhead of spare parts.)

What I've been saying is that YOU (i.e. a consumer) cannot do this. Your spare parts prices are too high and the total cost ends up astronomical.

I contemplated replying with a well thought out breakdown to each of your points. I even typed out about five paragraphs, it occurs to me though that this has changed from logical discussion to bickering (in fact it had already done so long before I joined in) and has lost any potential value.

Over the years Apple has developed and strengthened many anti-consumer practices, which is unfortunate. In the end like all public companies they only care about making more money and keeping the board and shareholders happy. They will do everything in their power to prevent people from cutting into their bottom line which is the sole reason they do not sell nor offer any way to legitimately obtain repair parts for their devices and instead force upgrades.

I maintain my point, there is no situation with exception of complete device destruction, that would create a scenario where it costs more for Apple to fix a device than to replace it. However, this doesn't make them as much money as forcing/persuading someone to just outright buy a new device.

I guess TL:DR version is, consumers need to stop white knighting for these big companies (all of them, Asus, AMD, Intel, Nvidia, Apple, Google, Microsoft, ect.). You are just dollar signs to them, they don't give a rats bottom about you. 

Right to Repair is a *possible* bastion of hope that could *potentially* shift some of the power back to us consumers and away from our corporate overlords. Only time will tell.

I have nothing else constructive to add to the discussion so I will now end my contributions to it.

[vk6zgo]

You don't need permission from a party to import goods manufactured by that same party. That's not a trademark violation. It'd be totally undesirable too. Imagine every company having legal say over every product they ever sold entering or leaving the country. It'd become a shitfest.

Yes you do!  Read the applicable section of the US Code above.

Even if it is the very same manufacturer, slipping some units out of the current production line so they are genuine in every respect, they still can't be imported if they violate the trademark laws.  In other words, the only legitimate destination for those batteries would be Apple itself.  Because the manufacturer didn't have Apple's permission to use the trademarks for those side-stream batteries.

Fortunately trademark laws don't work that way. Please read more about it!
What is possible is to register a trademark in a country so other companies can not sell similar products under the same name. Usually this is done by importers. But that doesn't prevent others from importing (genuine) articles from that manufacturer. For sure importers try to prevent that (by spreading FUD) but they have no legal grounds to do so.

Certainly that is the case in the Free World, not so sure about the USA!

I can go down to the"Reject Shop" in a nearby shopping centre & buy Coca-Cola  from Indonesia, Colgate toothpaste from Malaysia, or whatever.
Coke & Colgate in Oz don't like it, but it is pretty much "Suck it up, Princess".

Actually, I don't like the "Grey import" drinks--they taste different to the Oz version.

[MT]

The most popular cars in Switzerland are VWs, and they're also the most stolen.

Geee, you just go on and on with your stupid generalizations!

Volkswagen are currently most stolen car but not because its popular or expensive its because there are so many so its easy. You deliberately forgot to tell lots of Bentlys and Porches are stolen to not because they are many because they are expensive. It also is different between regions so totally different reasons for thefts and none has anything to do with your dumb ; choose a current car model you like. Any brand.  generalisation.

You're an idiot if you think Maryland is full of Rolls-Royces. (MD doesn't even make the top-10 list of states by % of car sales that are luxury marques.)

Your an idiot if you cant take subversive sarcasms based on your dumb generalisations!

Except that that's almost guaranteed to be absolutely wrong.

Yes your generalization are.

Those are very similar to the case here.

No its not, Luis is third part service dude, he dont make Apple parts there is no correlation between Apple and car manufacturer part thefts.

You haven't shown any evidence of the contrary.

Yes indeed i have, you just chose to ignore facts.

Yes, but those cars make up a tiny percentage of cars stolen.
I said that cars are frequently stolen for parts, which is absolutely true.

Thanks for confessing moving goalposts! Noone is arguing there is no such thing as steal for part of course its exists but not in they way you describe. Auto journalists are often paid by car manufacturers.

The cars that get stolen the most are stolen for parts, and it's the same cars that are the most popular, because they then also get into the most accidents and thus need the most parts.

Thats what you say now but not before. Its not about popular its about expensive, you just claimed that in your prior post, make up your mind!

Then you're illiterate, since I've claimed throughout that popular cars are the ones stolen most, and it's true.

[/quote]

Its you whos illiterate who cant even read what you said 5 seconds prior without moving goalposts! Its sad! Covfefe!

I offer the identical reply as in my post above:
Car theft was a tangential point, to illustrate that the cost to consumers (and indie garages) for OEM parts is so high that a) their total cost vastly exceeds the price of a new car, and b) even used parts are worth far more individually than as a finished car. Both are relevant to Apple repairs, since a) Apple parts are very expensive, and b) the parts Louis bought were probably used Apple parts.

So now used Apple parts equals to stolen car parts! Some advanced thinking there! Yeah right!
As i noted previously Louis most likely dont steal Apple parts nor car parts.

So i offer my prior comment to your prior argument;
There is no correlation between Apple and car thefts. Point out the balkan theif clans that steals Apple parts please! Well you cant so all your arguments fail.

[tooki]

Not my problem that you don’t understand the connection, even after having it explained to you, and that you insist I’m wrong even though I provided sources, and you didn’t. Be obtuse if you want, it won’t make you correct on any of those points.

[MT]

Not my problem you cant grasp your arguments is wrong, as your sources is biased to fit your agenda. You even ignore facts like the study made by Swiss insurer AXA Winterthur who found the risk of getting your car nicked varied hugely across the country, with the canton of Glarus having the lowest risk, at ten times below the national average. You rather go on generalizing car thefts and make links between that and Apple and Louis.

Again, no car manufacturer sues third party car workshop, so no correlation between cars repair/thefts and Louis repairing Apple crap.

[tooki]

LOL you’re a piece of work. That doesn’t change national statistics, man!!

And of course I’m generalizing! I never said EVERY car theft was to part it out.

Please just stop, ok? You’re responding to what you imagined or misunderstood me saying, not what I’ve actually said. So you’re fighting an argument I didn’t make. (You haven’t understood the argument I did make.)

[MT]

LOL our one heck of a piece of work , so there you go then! Your' hilarious, statistics is just that statistics! Everyone understands your argument are faulty. You try to build specific cases ......ontop a generalization..... of cars , how dumb is that!

But again, your now popular idea of any car, any brand most stolen for parts, Fiat 500 not stolen at all but its very popular among chicks! Your popular idea also fails miserably just as your generalization of cheap/expensive ideas! The car thats most stolen is varying from year to year from brand to brand from region to region. Apple is not a car. 

Yet again i offer you my previous popular reply for only 99.99USD inc tax!

[Zucca]

It is my laptop, I paid and now it's 100% mine. I just want to fix my stuff.
If I found someone who can sell me replacement parts for my laptop, why I can't buy from him?

If they are bad parts, bad for me not for Apple.
If they are good parts, good for me not for Apple.

If after Louis doing the job the laptop will have or has some problem I will knock Louis's doors not Apple one.

We have enough problem in this life, why are we making our life even more complicated?

[brabus]

Because if you buy a bad battery and you change it yourself, and then your Laptop catches fire, the Apple name will fill the newspapers, not yours.
If you have an accident because you bought bad brakes for your car, sure the thing will fill some newspaper, but it's far more accepted in comparison.

Don't get me wrong, I regularly fix A LOT of Apple products, I like doing it because of the great engineering behind most Apple products: a lot of screws, a lot of unofficial spare parts, plenty of manuals online.
I surely fixed at least 100 iPhones in the last two years, all of them work fine.
I tried to fix my Galaxy S5 three times, still sucks as the glue doesn't stick and the thin Display glass broke again. I had to fix it because of the infamous AMOLED malfunction after 2 years of use. Now, THAT is bad engineering.

IMvHO, Apple is not approaching the "repairability" for a very simple reason: it would be not economically viable for them. They make far more $$$ inviting people to scrap their old/broken phones for the newer model - and people are buying it. Good for them!

[Zucca]

Because if you buy a bad battery and you change it yourself, and then your Laptop catches fire, the Apple name will fill the newspapers, not yours.
If you have an accident because you bought bad brakes for your car, sure the thing will fill some newspaper, but it's far more accepted in comparison.

I think newspaper or/and the entire news/social system are by far more evil than Apple.

[wraper]

Also I disagree about time needed for diagnosis. I have some repair department experience myself and you quickly learn what the common defects are. The first diagnosis of a new device / unknown fault may take long but subsequent devices with the same symptoms are repaired quickly.

If you actually have repair department experience, then you also know that SOME failures take a long time to diagnose. I NEVER said that ALL diagnostics take that long!!!   

It's a very low time to diagnose if you don't do component level repair, but just replace mobo or RAM. In case of apple repairs it actually takes much less time/effort as you repair a very limited number of models. Also you just set a time limit for one repair, if you cannot fix the fault in that time, say just swap the board instead of trying fixing it or declare BER (beyond economic repair). There is no requirement of fixing difficult problems at all costs.

[tooki]

Also I disagree about time needed for diagnosis. I have some repair department experience myself and you quickly learn what the common defects are. The first diagnosis of a new device / unknown fault may take long but subsequent devices with the same symptoms are repaired quickly.

If you actually have repair department experience, then you also know that SOME failures take a long time to diagnose. I NEVER said that ALL diagnostics take that long!!!   

It's a very low time to diagnose if you don't do component level repair, but just replace mobo or RAM. In case of apple repairs it actually takes much less time/effort as you repair a very limited number of models. Also you just set a time limit for one repair, if you cannot fix the fault in that time, say just swap the board instead of trying fixing it or declare BER (beyond economic repair). There is no requirement of fixing difficult problems at all costs.

Usually, yes. But occasionally (especially on new models you're working on for the first time) it can take much longer, especially if the fault is caused by something seemingly unrelated. (Like a repair someone told me about on some PC, where it was crashing or something, and the cause was a bad floppy cable.)

[jmelson]

[  If unmarked ones aren't available you could even have your Chinese supplier scrape the fake Apple label off before sending them. 

Yup, I actually got something like this, once.  it was an end mill holder for a milling machine, and I just KNOW that it once had the name Bridgeport stamped into it.  Somebody had milled out the engraving, so it now has a curved groove there.  So, they went to a LOT of trouble to place the trademark there, and then have to remove it.

Jon

[jmelson]

This has nothing to do with Right to Repair.  You cannot import trademarked products without the written consent of the trademark owner, plain and simple.

Please quote a law which says that. I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist because it goes straight against the principles of a free market. For example: think about buying a Keysight scope from Ebay and import it to a different country ? ? ? ? it just doesn't make sense to have such a law. Also if such a law existed then Apple would have referred to that and not lied about the batteries being fakes. Unfortunately the US isn't the only country where the customs department functions as an extension to big companies.

US law DOES give copyright and trademark holders the right to seize and destroy phony goods displaying their copyright or trademark.  And, when they get notice that such materials are coming in, they certainly do so.  A few years ago there were sweeps of fancy apparel stores where a rep from the trademark holder, such as Gucci,  would walk through and mark all the counterfeits, and then federal agents would seize the items and put them in bins for destruction.  Sometimes the stores were practically stripped of merchandise.

I think Customs and Border Protection may now be working much more closely with major brands to actively report suspect items to the trademark holders.

Jon

[Bassman59]

The most popular cars in Switzerland are VWs, and they're also the most stolen.

Geee, you just go on and on with your stupid generalizations!

Volkswagen are currently most stolen car but not because its popular or expensive its because there are so many so its easy. You deliberately forgot to tell lots of Bentlys and Porches are stolen to not because they are many because they are expensive. It also is different between regions so totally different reasons for thefts and none has anything to do with your dumb ; choose a current car model you like. Any brand.  generalisation.

Tooki's assertion that the cars most commonly stolen are stolen to be parted out is true, at least here in the US. "Chop shops" are a real thing; a stolen car will be brought to one and parted out in a couple of hours.

And consider this: a stolen car, reported to the authorities as such, cannot be registered, which means it cannot be sold nor can it be driven on public roads. If there's no buyer for the car, there's not much in it for the thief.

To clarify all of this: here in the US (I cannot speak for anywhere else in the world), the owner of the vehicle needs a title (indicating ownership) and to drive it legally, the car must be registered with the state and insured. Ownership of a car cannot be transferred without the title changing hands, and to do that, the seller signs over the title (and that's witnessed by a notary), and the buyer must immediately take the title to the state motor vehicle agency and register the vehicle. The person at the agency runs the title through the computers; if the car was reported stolen and not recovered, the agent will immediately flag that! If all is clear, the buyer will then be given a new title in his/her name at a current address.

(If you move to another state, your car must be registered in the new state and you must present the title to the new state to do that. You'll get a new title with your new in-state address.)

The thief won't have the title to the stolen car (the titles to my cars are in a safe-deposit box at my bank), so the title transfer can't be done legally and the car can't be registered, so no fence will take it and no private person will buy it. This leaves few options: obviously, the chop shop. Here in Arizona some cars vanish across the border into Mexico, but that's tricky because a car carrier truck will be checked at the border. A private driver might get lucky. Of course, the border is porous, so going out and driving through the desert might be a route.

As for stolen luxury vehicles, that's often done by joyriders who end up wrecking the cars, though I'm sure there is a black market for BMW parts as lucrative as the one for Toyota parts.

[rstofer]

[
Tooki's assertion that the cars most commonly stolen are stolen to be parted out is true, at least here in the US. "Chop shops" are a real thing; a stolen car will be brought to one and parted out in a couple of hours.

And consider this: a stolen car, reported to the authorities as such, cannot be registered, which means it cannot be sold nor can it be driven on public roads. If there's no buyer for the car, there's not much in it for the thief.

I don't know where your numbers come from but in my neighborhood, stolen cars are usually recovered a few miles away.  Strictly joy riding.

The high dollar cars may be parted out but that's a minority.  Sure, park your Ferrari in the driveway overnight and it will be in parts by sunrise.  A Toyota Camry, not so much!

Another thing about parting out, we have legitimate salvage yards so if you need some expensive part of a car, all you have to do is go take it off a scrapped car and pay the lady.

One thing that gets stolen all the time is the catalytic converter.  It's so bad that the police agencies have public fairs where they etch ID into the converters.  This is a really big deal and happens fairly often.  There is no VIN on the converter.  It helps if they are welded to the exhaust pipes but they aren't.

As to driving on public roads, steal plates from a similar car.  Or don't worry about it, the cops have bigger issues.  Yes, they will stop suspected stolen cars (that's one way they are recovered) but just holding down the gunfire keeps them pretty busy.  The thing is, there's no real penalty from 10851's as they are called around here.  It's usually a non-violent crime so even when convicted, there won't be any incarceration.  We have to have space for the violent offenders and the Governor's kicking felons loose by the thousands.

It's all joy rides.

[Richard Crowley]

One thing that gets stolen all the time is the catalytic converter.  It's so bad that the police agencies have public fairs where they etch ID into the converters.  This is a really big deal and happens fairly often.  There is no VIN on the converter. 

And air-bags.  Apparently it isn't difficult to pass them off as "new".  And especially with the unnaturally high demand because of the millions of units from Takata which have been recalled.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/10/15/airbag-thefts-hondas-up-thieves-aim-resell/1523799002/

[PlainName]

The high dollar cars may be parted out but that's a minority.  Sure, park your Ferrari in the driveway overnight and it will be in parts by sunrise.  A Toyota Camry, not so much!

I thought it was the other way around: there is a /lot/ of demand for Toyota Camry parts, so stripping it down makes sense. On the other hand, there is a very small market for Ferrari parts (maybe none - you ain't going to have it serviced in a backyard workshop, after all) so they get shipped off to another country. In fact, I understand that many, if not most, high-value vehicles are stolen to order whereas run of the mill stuff is opportunistic.

[wraper]

Also I disagree about time needed for diagnosis. I have some repair department experience myself and you quickly learn what the common defects are. The first diagnosis of a new device / unknown fault may take long but subsequent devices with the same symptoms are repaired quickly.

If you actually have repair department experience, then you also know that SOME failures take a long time to diagnose. I NEVER said that ALL diagnostics take that long!!!   

It's a very low time to diagnose if you don't do component level repair, but just replace mobo or RAM. In case of apple repairs it actually takes much less time/effort as you repair a very limited number of models. Also you just set a time limit for one repair, if you cannot fix the fault in that time, say just swap the board instead of trying fixing it or declare BER (beyond economic repair). There is no requirement of fixing difficult problems at all costs.

Usually, yes. But occasionally (especially on new models you're working on for the first time) it can take much longer, especially if the fault is caused by something seemingly unrelated. (Like a repair someone told me about on some PC, where it was crashing or something, and the cause was a bad floppy cable.)

With apple you work on a new model maybe once or twice a year  . And considering total amount of repairs it's insignificant.