Is Apple's Battery replacement program purposefully slow?

[Lone Deranger]

So my mid 2014 13" Retina MBP is reporting that I'll soon need to replace its battery. At 1397 cycles I can certainly notice in every day use that it has seen better days.
I've visited the Apple store on Regent St. in London to enquire about the cost and hoping to schedule an appointment to get the procedure done. Much to my dismay, they informed me it would take 2-3 weeks. So I tried another Apple store... same thing. An Apple authorised service provider even quoted me 5-6 weeks!
I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed in Apple about this level of service. 2-3 weeks without my precious. Is this considered normal? It strikes me as bizarre that for a procedure that would take a qualified person maybe half an hour, my MBP needs to sit on a shelf for 2-3 weeks. What happened to making an appointment on the day, drop your device off and pick it up a few hours later? Am I overly suspicious in thinking this is Apple trying to dissuade people from battery replacements in favour of pushing them to buy new products instead?

 

[Samuelsan2001]

So my mid 2014 13" Retina MBP is reporting that I'll soon need to replace its battery. At 1397 cycles I can certainly notice in every day use that it has seen better days.
I've visited the Apple store on Regent St. in London to enquire about the cost and hoping to schedule an appointment to get the procedure done. Much to my dismay, they informed me it would take 2-3 weeks. So I tried another Apple store... same thing. An Apple authorised service provider even quoted me 5-6 weeks!
I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed in Apple about this level of service. 2-3 weeks without my precious. Is this considered normal? It strikes me as bizarre that for a procedure that would take a qualified person maybe half an hour, my MBP needs to sit on a shelf for 2-3 weeks. What happened to making an appointment on the day, drop your device off and pick it up a few hours later? Am I overly suspicious in thinking this is Apple trying to dissuade people from battery replacements in favour of pushing them to buy new products instead?

A victim of their success I'd imagine just too many products to service.

 

[Lone Deranger]

They certainly have enjoyed great successes over the past decade or so and no doubt face some growing pains. Waiting times have no doubt increased. However that still doesn't explain why they need to have it sit on their shelves for a few weeks before they get a chance to look at it. Better to let the customer use their products right up until a scheduled appointment.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

They certainly have enjoyed great successes over the past decade or so and no doubt face some growing pains. Waiting times have no doubt increased. However that still doesn't explain why they need to have it sit on their shelves for a few weeks before they get a chance to look at it. Better to let the customer use their products right up until a scheduled appointment.

They don’t do it in store any more as it involves replacing the whole top case and keyboard they ship it out for the replacement. And recycle the parts taken off.

 

[Fishrrman]

I would guess that the batteries are giving out at a rate faster than Apple anticipated or prepared for...

 

[Modernape]

I had my 2012 13" battery replaced (inc top case/keyboard/trackpad) in about 4 hours at the Leicester Apple store.

 

[jerryk]

I suspect it has to be sent into to a central repair depot. Every thing is glued down these days.

 

[ZapNZs]

Apple has had some battery supply problems in the States with some other models. I assume it is vendor-related as I highly doubt Apple owns the production facilities for their cells.

 

[BaggieBoy]

When I took mine in a few weeks ago, they initially said it might take a while to get the new top case but then got a call in a couple of days to say it was in. Got it back 4 days later to only realise that the new top case had in fact a US keyboard, and not a UK keyboard. So it went back a few days later and I expected them to say it would take some time to source the correct top case, but in fact they had one in stock and it was replaced overnight,

This was the Basingstoke store.

 

[KGB7]

My guess they might not have parts on the shelf for a 3 year old device, thus parts would have to be ordered.

Ask them to order the parts and bring it back for service when the parts have arrived. Tell them you’ll pay for parts upfront.
I used to work as a tech at a retail store and we used to order parts all the time with out having to hold on customers computer, just as long they prepaid for parts.

 

[BaggieBoy]

My local Apple store was happy to order the part and didn't want any payment, they said when it came in they would contact me and if I still wanted the repair done I had a week to bring it in or they would release the part for general use.