If there's a documented problem that affects your hardware model and the given software versions, they're extremely unlikely to try to charge you for anything.
If it's not documented and you have a problem then you are usually shit out of luck. The early days of butterfly keyboards was hell for a lot of people. I managed to get mine back to them for a full refund 3 days after I got it thank fuck.
I got a full MacBook Pro replacement when my MBP had something wrong causing it to charge extremely slowly - completely on Apple's dime. They first sent me an overnight shipping box to send in my MBP, where they then replaced the top case assembly. After that didn't work they overnighted me a brand new in box MBP.
I had to spend 6+ hours on the phone over multiple days with a senior tech support staff to make it happen, but at least it was eventually resolved and I didn't pay anything for it. Obviously it wasn't a documented problem because we troubleshooted everything possible before replacement.
You paid 6+ presumably stressful hours of your time. That sounds like a crazy high price to me that you should be able to bill them for.
I wonder whether they could've done it faster if they were required to reimburse you for the time and nerves you had to spend to get them to fulfill their (assuming you were within warranty) law-mandated responsibility of providing you with a product that works as described.
How did you even get to the point of talking to them on the phone? When I last had a problem (extreme instability up to full crashes when RAM pressure is high, which is apparently a problem with every single ARM Mac out there) they wanted me to come into an authorized store as the first thing.
I eventually caved in and just bought a machine with bigger RAM. My god, I can't imagine spending several hours over several days turning the device off and on, resetting NVRAM and re-installing the system ...
Uh, what? You mean the actual Apple Stores (which are only available in select countries) are not run by Apple? That would be new.
If you mean various third party resellers then of course, it's just a run of the mill shop that happens to sell Apple products, a completely different experience.
These are licensed shops that serve as effectively local Apple Store (as they are primary contact with Apple for majority of clientele) and then completely 3rd party stores which do not carry Apple branding.
Yep, my experience has usually been the opposite. "We normally charge for fixing this, but we're a little embarrassed that this happened so it's free".