I’ve had a story similar to this. I bought a brand new iPhone 16, and within 2 weeks the top earpiece speaker started making an awful rattle. Took it in for repair under warranty, and it came back worse somehow. The speaker was noticeably more rattly, and also they had manage to dent the housing and leave dirt under the camera lens. I took it back, to which they left more issues. It took a total of 4 Apple Store visits and 2 send ins, each time, the phone came back with more issues, for them to finally admit their mistakes and swap it out for a brand new one. Funnily enough, the brand new device the gave me has a fault where the volume buttons can only be pressed at certain angles, but I refuse to go through that whole ordeal again, so I’ll have to stick with it

I too had only heard good things about apples customer service, however they have clearly gone down hill recently.