My MacBook Pro is now 13 months old.
When it was two months old the hard disk died. Fortunately I’m real anal about backing up and I had a day old image on my Maxtor One Touch. My local reseller Mac House replaced the hard disk under warranty.
Four months later my firewire ports were not working. Again I had a recent image, which was fortunate since I need my FW800 to back up. My local reseller Mac House replaced the motherboard under warranty.
And now after 13 months (and no Apple Care of course) I cannot start my MacBook unless the power adapter is attached. The battery is no longer recognised. Again I went to my local reseller. Replacing the battery did not do the trick. So they need to investigate.
It seems like I need a new motherboard. Mac House advised me to phone Apple to discuss this with them.
Apple listened to my story and extended the warranty.
Perhaps there is some truth in this year old article Quality control problems or growing pains at Apple?. I for one am not to convinced about the quality of their hardware.
Customer care however is excellent.
Oh and always backup. I use SuperDuper.
KnobsLeversButtons 
Sorry to hear you have had so many problems with your MBP version 1(?)
Touch wood… I’ve not have any problems so far with my 2,2 version. I did have a problem with my MacMini… the airport had a really crap connection – Anyway when I investigated it myself it seemed that the aerial connection cable had simply come loose – i guess during transport – You need dainty fingers or some decent tools but I added more memory and replaced the 80Gb hard disk for a high speed 160Gb. Everything works just fine now. I am really pleased with both of my CoreDuo macs.
You’re right – SuperDuper is a great backup tool – it just works and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.
yeah…over the years I have seen quite a few macs…with quite a few problems.
the illusion of a better product is finally wearing off. (took about 14 years or so) Looking into the Lenovo 17 inch now. (May not be as ‘pretty’ as the mac…but pretty is what pretty does.’
Peace
dAlen