Imac under guarantee was swapped with refurbished iMac

Question

Hello ,
to make a long story short : On the 18 th of november I bought a new imac 27 inch in our local apple store . After about two weeks I got some hardware issue's with the imac . Since it was covered under guarantee I took it back to the store . They checked it and there seemed to be some problems . The salesperson swapped my imac with a new one . So far , so good . I registred this new imac on my personal profile page on apple . When checking the technical telephone support it was already over date . I thought there is a three month telephone support on the date of purchase ? So when I buy a new imac on the 14th of december , I should get technical phone support untill the 14th of march ?
Also , when checking my one year guarantee the date states 1 september , very strange when you buy a imac on the 14th of december . So, the only thing I can imagine is that the swapped mac they gave me is a refurbished model and not a new one . Is this the policy that apple follows when swapping a mac under guarantee ? Is there anyway to check if the swapped imac is a refurbished model looking to the serial number ?

Answer 1

You can download the hardware warranty here:
http://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/
Most companies will repair or replace with a refurbished unit; occasionally, you will get a new unit. That is up to Apple. Did you take the first one back within 2 weeks? If there are problems right away, you could have claimed DOA (dead on arrival) and then gotten a new unit.
As for when the warranty date starts on a replacement unit (refurbished or new)  - the best thing would be to call Apple and find out; unless there is an official Apple policy published, we (as users) probably would not be able to give a definitive answer.