Project PC's

So I did a little digging and came up with 360 Pros. Some key points for me were the 90 Day Warranty, and the 1-2 day turnaround time. This way I have it in writing how long my 360 will be gone and I have 90 days of Warranty to help protect me. This also indicates that their not using the quick fixes you can find online such as the thermal fix or the towel fix, which only temporarily resolve the issue.

• September 20th, 2007 - Purchased Xbox 360 Repair Service, Upfront cost $12.63.
• September 25th, 2007 - Received 2 Xbox 360s from eBay.
• October 3rd, 2007 - Shipped 360 to Xbox Pros
  Side Note: I had to ship via UPS because Xbox Pros emailed me the prepaid postage. It was ridiculously difficult to find a UPS Store to drop the package off. This would have been way more efficient, in my case, to have the address and mail it myself through Fedex. I'd recommend the Xbox Pro's open up their shipping options a bit more, as I'm already annoyed with the process.
• October 8th, 2007 - Scheduled Delivery to XBox Pro's
• October 8th, 2007 - XBox Pro's called me to report they found the problem. Pretty much, the processor was overheating (common on the 360's). They cleaned it up for me and added all the updates. They gave me and estimate of $109. I was a little surprised because the site indicates $59.99 to $89.99. I guess $20 bucks to ship it back.
• October 10th, 2007 - Received email notifying me the 360 has been shipped.
• October 15th, 2007 - The Xbox 360 arrived on my door step. I opened it up and it looked alright, had some grease (or something) on it. The annoying thing is they put labels on the 360, and they weren't the nice kind that pull off smoothly. That annoyed me a bit, but hey, my 360 works.

Cost of Project:
Xbox 360: $162.49 for two. $81.25 per Xbox.
Xbox Pro's: $12.63 for shipping, $109 for repair. $121.63
Xbox Power cord and AV cables: $43.45.
Xbox 2 Wireless Controllers: $48.94.

Cost of a Working Xbox 360: $295.27
Saving from Retail Xbox 360: ~$50.00
Saving from Used Xbox 360: minimal

I guess the main difference between buying a broken Xbox 360 and buying a used one. Even at a Electronic Boutique, you only get a 30 day warranty. With the Xbox Pro's I now have a 90 day warranty. If you can find a broken Xbox 360 that you'd like to get repaired, make sure you get one with the Power Cords and AV cables as that is the bulk of the cost. Buying a System alone tends to cost more in the end to get all the miscellaneous accessories. If you find a Xbox 360 for sale that's broken with accessories, I'd say you'd be well off if you get it for less than $100. More than that and the Savings would be negligible.

To compare the savings; I just did an eBay search for an Xbox 360; here's what I found:

US $309.00
US $287.90
US $341.98
US $295.00

Links died, here's a new one: eBay Search