There’s nothing worse than being forced to deal with a broken piece of electronics, especially when said electronics are as expensive as the iPod Touch. Regardless of how it happened or what components are damaged, though, you should be able to reclaim a bit of money or even repair your iPod Touch.
Here’s a few tips on what to do if your iPod Touch stops working.
Repair – First, the bad news. The iPod Touch doesn’t have many user serviceable parts, unlike the older generations of iPods, which had hard drives you could switch out, electronics to replace, and were generally easy to pull apart and get into. That’s not to say that you’re up a creek without a paddle, though–if you’ve got a broken screen on your iPod Touch, for instance, there are numerous cheap fixes available. I’ve even written one article on a screen replacement that will cost you less than five bucks.
If you’ve got electronic issues, or if your iPod Touch simply doesn’t boot up anymore, you’ll need to contact either Apple or a third party company to get the iPod Touch repaired. If you’ve still got a valid warranty, obviously go with the Apple repair, even if you’re quite sure that you’ve caused the failure. Apple has a very good track record of honoring warranties, and you’ll stand a good chance of getting your warranty fulfilled even if you caused the damage. If you didn’t, they’ll simply ship your broken iPod Touch back to you, and you’ll be in the same place you’d started at.
Third party iPod repair centers will work on iPod Touches, but expect to pay through the nose. There aren’t that many parts in an iPod Touch, and replacement of any of the components will run about $100. Compare that to the cost of an iPod Touch, and you’ll probably decide that unless it was a new iPod Touch with only a single failed component, your best bet is to try the warranty service or sell it.
Selling It – If you decide to sell the iPod, you’ll likely be able to recoup a lot of your costs. The aforementioned iPod repair centers wander around sites like eBay looking for broken iPod Touches to use for parts, so even a broken iTouch can fetch up to $100 or more on an auction site. Be sure to sell with no reserve, take lots of pictures, and explain exactly what’s wrong with the broken iPod to get the price as high as possible. Remember to account for shipping costs when setting the auction’s start price. You can also sell an iPod Touch directly to the third party repair centers, but you’ll usually get less than you’d get on a website like eBay. Now, you can put the money you made towards a new iPod Touch.
Have you had to deal with a broken iPod Touch? Post your thoughts in the comments section below.
