M5 MacBook Pro Owner Says Creaking Laptop Exposed the Limits of AppleCare

Buying a maxed out 14 inch M5 MacBook Pro is supposed to feel like joining the best of the Apple ecosystem, not like beta testing an expensive prototype. Yet that is exactly how one early buyer, a Reddit user known as noss616, describes his first weeks with Apples newest notebook.

Instead of simply admiring the speed of the fresh M series chip and the mini LED display, he found himself focusing on an odd, faint creak every time he touched the machine, turning excitement into low level anxiety.

According to his description, the sound appears whenever the lid is opened or closed, when light pressure is applied around the palm rest and even when the chassis is gently flexed. It is not a dramatic snap or grinding hinge failure, more like a subtle friction between metal parts that never quite settled in place. On his recording the noise is so quiet that many people need headphones and a raised volume slider to notice it. For some owners that would be a minor quirk, but when you are paying premium money for a flagship laptop, every imperfection starts to feel like a broken promise.

The machine in question is not a base model impulse buy. The owner says he went for a fully loaded configuration and is also paying for AppleCare Plus each month, effectively buying into Apples marketing story of legendary support and stress free ownership. The expectation is simple: if anything feels off on a device this expensive and this new, the company will stand behind it and swap it out. Instead, as he explains, his attempt to get a replacement turned into a frustrating tour of two different Apple Stores and a lesson in how subjective hardware issues can become.

On his first visit, he demonstrated the creak to staff in a busy retail environment. Employees reportedly told him they could not hear anything and suggested that the sound might be normal. He argued that the in store noise made it difficult to notice the problem, and later posted a video online to show that he was not imagining it. Still, peoples reactions to the clip were mixed. Some viewers admitted they had to strain to catch the noise at all. Others recognised the kind of faint rubbing sound that sometimes precedes bigger hinge or chassis problems and said they would not ignore it on a brand new machine.

At a second store, technicians took the MacBook Pro to the back room for a closer inspection. When they returned, the message was essentially that everything was within tolerance. One employee is said to have explained the creak as simple metal on metal interaction in the body and insisted it was normal behaviour rather than a sign of a defect. That in itself might have been disappointing but manageable. What really angered the owner was the reasoning he says he was given for refusing a swap: replacing the laptop could set a precedent that leads to endless exchanges if the new machine behaved the same way.

For a customer who has just dropped around 2000 dollars on a supposedly bulletproof professional notebook, that logic feels cold. The idea that Apple would rather avoid opening the door to further returns than keep an early adopter happy runs directly against the brand myth of white glove service. Commenters were quick to poke fun at the phrase legendary customer support, joking that the legend part might simply be that it no longer exists. Others saw the situation as a textbook example of a customer feeling gaslighted, being told that the thing he hears and feels every day simply is not real or does not matter.

Not everyone is fully on his side, though, and that nuance is worth noting. A number of users argue that a barely audible creak which does not affect performance, thermals or display integrity may not justify a replacement. In their view, every mass produced aluminium chassis has some variation, and chasing absolute mechanical perfection through repeated RMAs wastes time for customers and support teams alike. Some even suggested waiting to see whether the sound gets worse or starts to accompany visible flex or damage before pushing harder, pointing out that any constant disassembly and shipping also carries risk.

The bigger issue hiding behind this tiny noise is the gap between what AppleCare Plus feels like on paper and how it sometimes plays out in real life. Monthly payments suggest a kind of subscription to peace of mind, especially for professionals who rely on their laptops daily. When the answer to a quality concern is essentially that the problem is too minor to deal with, it raises questions about where the boundary really lies. Is AppleCare Plus mainly there for clear cut component failures and cracked screens, or should it also cover the gray zone of build quality oddities that undermine confidence in a new machine?

There is at least some history suggesting that persistence can pay off. In another widely shared story, a 2019 Intel based MacBook Pro owner originally sought only a battery replacement and was turned away. After escalating the case and refusing to drop the complaint, he eventually walked away with a brand new M5 MacBook Pro at no additional cost. That saga took time and energy, but it shows that the first no from support is not always the final word, especially when you can demonstrate that a device is not matching the standard users reasonably expect.

For noss616, the creaking hinge and palm rest might never evolve into a catastrophic failure. The laptop will probably keep compiling code, exporting videos and handling daily workloads just fine. Yet the story resonates because it illustrates how fragile trust can be when customers pay top tier prices. A barely audible flaw can become a daily reminder that the companys promises are conditional and that the fabled Apple experience depends heavily on which support employee you happen to meet. Whether you see this case as perfectionism gone too far or as a fair request for quality, it underlines an uncomfortable truth for premium brands: when you sell a product as the best, even the smallest sound can be deafening.