[Boost King]

Yeah, I have to agree with your concerns. I've completely treasured my xbox 360 since I got it, some 15 months now. Anyway, if it were to die I'd be extremely pissed off because it died to begin with, but more so if MS sent me a different one back. If I received a 100% brand new console, I'd be happy, but I am sceptical of a refurbished unit. I'll explain.

Lets use the example of little Freddie. Little Freddie got a 360 for Xmas and plays it all the time. He constantly eats doritos, and has greasy cheesy hands. He's always touching the disc, and bits of food fall in side the console. Freddie likes to rest his soda on the top of the console, and the small droplets of condensation make its way into the upper part of the hard drive because Freddie has his unit standing up vertically! Now Freddies mum bless her, has had to clean Freddies room and happens to knock over his console while its downloading overnight and thus rattles the disc thats in the drive so when Freddie boots up his console later that day the disc starts to shudder inside the drive and cause more potential damage. Freddie also has to ensure his room stays some what presentable, so freddie has moved his 360 to the cabinet and closed the glass door, essentailly toasting his 360 in the process. So finally Freddie gets the 3 rings of death and sends his, GROTTY, WET, DORITO COVERED, OVERHEATING, MOISTURE IMPACTED, BUSTED DISC DRIVE, 360 into microsoft for Repair.

Little Freddie, bless him gets a brand new 360 later that week because MS ran out of refurb units to give him.

On the other hand, you my friend, wind up with Freddies 360. Now Microsoft opened up Freddies 360 and fixed the 3 red lights by ammending the GPU, they fire it up and it works, so of it goes to you.

However, all the other issues are still potentially looming and that dorito is bound to melt on that motherboard soon enough, and you'll be shipping your repaired console off once more.

Now I know I am being Anal, so please no responses pointing out that MS does thorough checks etc etc. I am just annoyed because its like a 2nd hand car, you never know how well the previous owner looked after the unit, nor what had ever gone wrong with it at all.

Also Elderscroller, you actually have 3 years warranty mate, and even if you bought it at launch, Nov 05, your still covered till Nov 08 anyways.

I feel ya dawg, I would rather have my 360 opened, repaired, and sent back, even if it took way longer, as opposed to someone elses refurb unit.

Hope my story was entertaining!

Boost King