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ab2013

macrumors member
Original poster
May 5, 2013
32
0
My 2011 MBA is reaching the end of its second year, and right now the battery health is at 80% (20% wear) with 341 cycles. Battery life started out at around 5-6 hours in Lion 10.7.2 and dropped to around 3-4 hours in 10.7.5 before upgrading to Mavericks 10.9, which did help with the battery situation.

According to Apple, they offer a battery replacement program:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/replacements.html

They seem to be a bit vague about battery wear vs defective battery, because a worn-out battery isn't exactly a defective battery. My MBA is covered by a 3 year AppleCare plan. Can I ask Apple to replace my battery in my MBA before the warranty expires?
 
Apple will only replace it for free if the battery is defective. If it has just been used heavily and the capacity is starting to drop, then they will offer to replace it for the standard battery replacement fee. You might get lucky and find a nice genius that would replace it without the fee, but don't hold your breath.
 
My 2012 13' MBA had a battery go bad after just one year and they replaced it. The Mac Resource Inspector said it was fine but in OS X it said under the battery bar "Service Battery Now". So they replaced it.
 
Hmmm ... ok. Do you mean the battery bar at the top right corner close to the clock?

When I check the System Report, it says that the battery condition is normal so it's clearly just wearing out.

I'll probably keep this computer for another 3-6 months before reselling it as used but I'll check with Apple before I retire this computer.

Funny. I had a Genius Bar appointment a week ago because a couple of the keys on my MBA weren't responsive and the Genius simply ordered a new keyboard for me even though I couldn't reproduce the problem in front of him. Hopefully I do get lucky!
 
Hmmm ... ok. Do you mean the battery bar at the top right corner close to the clock?

When I check the System Report, it says that the battery condition is normal so it's clearly just wearing out.

I'll probably keep this computer for another 3-6 months before reselling it as used but I'll check with Apple before I retire this computer.

Funny. I had a Genius Bar appointment a week ago because a couple of the keys on my MBA weren't responsive and the Genius simply ordered a new keyboard for me even though I couldn't reproduce the problem in front of him. Hopefully I do get lucky!

Yes. Under the dropdown.
 
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