Apr 22, 2007
Bad MagSafe plug
When Apple announced MagSafe back in January of 2005 I simultaneously thought “it’s about freaking time” and “how long until the fires?”. Of course, it was the batteries that turned out to be the (un)safety culprit for Apple, but those MagSafe adapters didn’t get off entirely scot-free. There were a few incidents of fire seen around the internets, but now it’s hit a little closer to home. Pictured is my spare adapter, which sees fairly light use. I call it sparky, although, and I’m knocking on wood right now, it hasn’t yet caught fire. Who’s got odds on whether or not Apple will or won’t exchange it for a new one?
Co-founder of 
Same thing happened to my spare plug. It started fraying only about 3 months after use before going dead earlier this month. I went to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store and was told they couldn’t do anything for me, but perhaps if I got in touch with AppleCare something might happen.
Mine caught fire last month: melted, and stopped working. I dropped by the apple store to pick up a new one, which they gladly agreed to replace (original adaptor, under laptop warranty). Unfortunately, they didn’t have a repair inventory unit on hand to give me, and they refused to open up the retail box sitting in front of them and give me a replacement from that. Instead, they advised me to buy the retail one that they refused to give me, and return it 2 days later when the repair unit arrived at the apple store. Oh, and they refused to ship the replacement directly to me, guaranteeing my return to the store . It was frustrating – waste of a good 90 minutes.
Apple adaptors have long had a problem of the cord breaking at this point – my powerbook adaptor a long time ago caught fire/melted about 1.5 years into use.. unfortunately it was out of warranty and I had to spend $70! to get a new one.
The same thing happened to me.
I called Apple Care and said, “My magsafe connector is very very hot and is melting”. They instructed me to unplug it and sent me a replacement within two days. I was outside my 1 year warranty, but have a 3 yr Apple Care agreement.
I find it a little scary that at least three people I know have had this exact same thing happen. It’s really a wonder there haven’t been more incidents!
Picture of mine:
http://tinyurl.com/2whnr7
I went to the Apple store to get mine looked at. They pretty much grilled me on what I did to it, tried making it seem like it was my fault then acted like they were the ones doing me a favor by replacing it “free of charge” (which took 4 days).
The newer ones have a longer jacket at the joint of the plug so I guess they’re addressing the issue. They just would prefer your house burns down over a recall.
[...] actually just had two really good experiences. The first bit: a few weeks ago they replaced my massively defective MagSafe adapter with almost no questions asked, contrary to some of the issues faced by commenters of this blog. [...]
same exact thing happened to mine. like the same exact picture. I bought another one, but the original still works fine.