In July 2011 I took the plunge after years of dithering and bought myself a top of the line 27" iMac.  It cost me a fair whack, but I was pretty damn happy with it, and given the house here is a full Mac shop, it's made life pretty streamlined.

In all the years before switching, I never had a hardware issue with any of the Windows boxes I ran.  If only that was the same for my iMac.

First issue arose during the first year, and Apple's "warranty" period.  HDD failed, and was replaced by a local service centre.  I had a full back-up so apart from the hassle, and 5 days with no machine while Apple agreed to replace, it wasn't too painful.

Second issue arose in June 2012, just on two years from original purchase.  Half the backlight on my screen stopped working.  Apple said "sorry, out of warranty, that'll be $1,650 to replace the screen".  Three weeks of debate with them, finally threatening the Disputes Tribunal over their product not being fit for purpose, and they relented, agreeing to pay for the replacement screen.

Fast forward to yesterday.  Still 2 months off the iMac's 3rd birthday and another issue has arisen.  I appear to be suffering from the blank white and blank black screens that warrant a video card replacement under an Apple agreed recall (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5167).  My serial number is one of the covered machines.

While I can probably get this replaced fairly quickly (maybe a week or so) my issue is now more that I've had a third significant hardware failure on a machine that cost me almost $4,000, in less than three years.  I'm concerned about what will be next, and whether I'll be able to get Apple to agree to any replacement on that.

I'm almost at the point now where after three failures I believe the machine was never fit for purpose, and Apple should be offering a full replacement, rather than just swapping out bits as they fail.

Before I begin that discussion with them, I'm keen to canvass opinion here.

Any thoughts on what tack I should take?

Cheers
Andy