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Keyboard replacement

teknikal90

teknikal90

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jan 28, 2008
3,385
1,949
Vancouver, BC
Hi all,

If you replace the Macbook keyboard by way of the keyboard recall, do you get a new battery as well?

I have a 2016 Macbook here.
 
When my battery needed to be replaced due to swelling, the keyboard was replaced as well. Both keyboard and battery are part of the upper case assembly, so I imagine both would be replaced at the same time. It's possible that they keyboard is removed from the assembly and replaced separately, but this seems unlikely. Perhaps The Samurai could elaborate on why they say no.
 
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The MacBook Pro keyboard replacement will also yield a new battery, so I imagine it's the same with the regular MacBook.
 
so only a few keys have this issue and they elected to just replace those specific keys vs the whole top case...
weird.
 
the battery is part of the top case. if they replace your keyboard you will get a new battery. this is on the new design 2016 and up.
When they swapped mine out the whole top case is replaced and that includes the battery.
 
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Just had my early 2016 MB keyboard replaced. The battery was NOT touched. Apple only replaces the top case with keyboard. New keyboard is a million times better than the old one though. Hope this helps.
 
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pugxiwawa said:
Just had my early 2016 MB keyboard replaced. The battery was NOT touched. Apple only replaces the top case with keyboard. New keyboard is a million times better than the old one though. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Whats early 2016? is it the last design? I thought the new ones came out in November 2016.
 
x-evil-x said:
Whats early 2016? is it the last design? I thought the new ones came out in November 2016.
Click to expand...
From MacTracker:
Three generations of Retina 12” Macbook

“Early 2015”.......April 2015
“Early 2016”.......April 2016
“2017”...............June 2017 and is the current model.

First two had the original first gen butterfly keyboard.
2017 has the second gen keyboard
 
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Apple did not replace the battery on my 2015 MacBook when I did the keyboard campaign. They replaced the whole keyboard and top case assembly. Hope this helps.
 
2015 rMB 12” w/ a Return key that wasn’t working very well. In early March of this year (2019), the guy at the store said they might need to replace the battery too, because of its relationship to the top case. He sent it away and said to expect it in several days or a week or so, but I got it back a couple days later. The battery wasn’t replaced, but the top case looked brand new, and the keyboard worked well.

The document that came with the fixed MacBook noted the battery condition as “normal,” same as the battery health noted on-screen. Not sure if this had anything to do with their not replacing the battery. I wasn’t expecting a new battery though, so it wasn’t a big deal.
 
I've had the top case with keyboard changed twice on my '16 Macbook, and it is still the same battery.

...That or they gave me another with around 500 cycles used too.. :p
 
According to the teardowns, it looks like the logic board and battery are attached to the lower case on the Macbooks, not the top case. This is unusual for an Apple laptop, where usually the bottom case is simply a lid. So replacing the top case, which houses only the keyboard and touchpad would not get you a new battery absent some other reason to replace it.
 
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I just had the keyboard and top case replaced on my 2016 12" MacBook, and it has the same battery as it did before. New top case, new keyboard, same battery. Fine by me, since the keyboard is the only issue I've ever had with this machine :)
 
MultiFinder17 said:
I just had the keyboard and top case replaced on my 2016 12" MacBook, and it has the same battery as it did before. New top case, new keyboard, same battery. Fine by me, since the keyboard is the only issue I've ever had with this machine :)
Click to expand...

Is the replacement keyboard the Gen 1 or Gen 2 butterfly switches?
 
The keyboard and top case are only replaced when they are affected by the battery.

For example in my 2015, 13' the battery had started swelling which in turn started pushing up the keyboard from the inside. The lid couldn't close flush, the touchpad's edges started protruding and the laptop had started to rock because the bottom was also affected. In which case they completely replaced the battery, keyboard and whole top case assembly (to their credit they only charged me for the new battery, not the rest as they said it wasn't due to my mishandling of the device and it was because of the battery going bust).

If it's a matter of the battery dying or underperforming or w/e and the rest of the laptop is not affected, they won't replace the keyboard and top case.
 
@geokarbou that doesn't make any sense. Of course they will replace the keyboard and top case if you take your MacBook in for a keyboard replacement by way of Apple's keyboard replacement program that they issued for every Apple laptop released since 2015 (save for the MacBook Air 2017). What they will not replace on the MacBook is the battery because apparently it is glued to the bottom case instead of the top case. On the MacBook Pro, on the other hand, they will replace the battery as well if you take it in for a keyboard replacemeht because the battery is glued to the top case.

I've received three new keyboards on my 2016 MacBook Pro, and each time I also received a new brand-new battery.
I've received one new keyboard on my 2017 MacBook, and the battery was not replaced
 
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