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MBP 17 - Battery expanded - Apple won't replace (pic. inside)

N

Nightkrawler

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 4, 2006
171
0
Vienna, Austria
MBP 17
On Saturday while surfing the web battery got incredible hot and expanded like mad, i quickly removed it from my MBP and let it cool down.

I called apple today and had a lengthy discussion with them about it.
In short they don't want to replace it because - get this - "a bloated battery is a normal sign of wear":mad: and my notebook is out of warranty. I asked them about the battery replacement program, that the program was there because some batteries would expand/explode, but he just said that my battery wasn't in the list so it couldn't be replaced (duh well it did expand!). After a lengthy discussion they just hung up. :mad:

If i wasn't working on the notebook while it happened who knows what would have happened. :eek:

What do you think? Is asking for a replacement battery too much? Is "a bloated battery a normal sign of wear" ?
 

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How old and how many cycle counts?
I've had arguements with Apple over batteries and most of the time they replace them for me Once they are within a quota they have...
 
Its 2 1/2 years old, same as my mbp, but only has 130 cycles. The status from system-profiler was "good" last week. (don't know about now, i wont risk it)

But even its old normally batterys don't expand at normal usage...
 
Well I know batteries should not expand. But with your laptop being two and a half years old I think you're out of luck.

Warranty on batteries is 1 year.... If you're still covered under the extended applecare like I am, I just kept going on and on and on for a day or two til they sorted my prob. You could try that.
:)
 
I really want to, but i am in Vienna/Austria where no official apple store exists, only Authorized Service Provider who are just calling apple care for me and can't do anything... :mad:
 
If you bought Applecare, Apple will fix it for you for free. (As long as the battery is under 300 cycles) If you didnt, its your fault.
 
I don't think he means that it's your fault the battery expanded, he probably means that since you didn't get AppleCare you are probably going to have to pay for whatever repair or replace costs yourself.

Try calling again, who knows, something might happen and you have nothing to lose by calling.
 
lol if that is all you need consider yourself lucky. The applecare (retail) costs , about 350, but a new 17 inch battery should be much less than that. But yes, you cannot expect Apple to be responsible if you didn't choose the extended coverage. This isn't to say that this should have happened but..
 
Nightkrawler said:
so its my fault the battery expanded?
If i wasn't there while it happened and it would have destroyed my MBP or even more, it would be my fault? :confused:
Click to expand...

Don't worry about him. I'm not sure who it is (might be him) but someone on the forums has been going around telling people "its your fault" anytime someone has a hardware malfunction.

If Steve Jobs took a screwdriver to your laptop before you even bought and your screen came with a huge gash, the guy would find a way to make it sound like it was your fault.

To address your question. If you have Apple Care and are under warranty Apple should replace your battery. If you're not under warranty though, then Apple doesn't have any responsibility because the battery warranty is 1 year I believe.

It's not your fault that the battery expanded, in fact it's a manufacturing defect. Unfortunately, defects are only covered if they appear under the first year.
 
MVApple said:
To address your question. If you have Apple Care and are under warranty Apple should replace your battery. If you're not under warranty though, then Apple doesn't have any responsibility because the battery warranty is 1 year I believe.
Click to expand...

All Apple hardware has a warranty of 1 year, which is why everyone should get Applecare, because all things break some time or another. In future buy it from Ebay and save 80%, buying it direct from Apple is a rip off.

You can buy it in another country to, to save money, as its universal.
 
Just buy yourself a new battery from ebay. It's a lot easier than trying to hassle over something that is out of warranty anyway. Replacing a battery after almost 3 years isn't really that bad in the scheme of things.

It's messed up that it expanded, but at least that's all that happened. Just buy yourself an OEM battery and be done with it. Especially because you live in a place where there are no Apple stores - you're not going to be able to ever talk to anyone face to face. Having no Apple Care doesn't help you, they'd probably just say the battery needed replacing.
 
Im sorry, i didnt mean the battery expanding is your fault, but it is if you didnt buy Applecare, everyone needs it just incase.
Click to expand...
my apologies, i got that the wrong way.

Ill call Apple Care tomorrow again and see what i can do.
but it seems that i have to buy replacements... :(:(:mad:
 
Nightkrawler said:
Its 2 1/2 years old, same as my mbp, but only has 130 cycles. The status from system-profiler was "good" last week. (don't know about now, i wont risk it)

But even its old normally batterys don't expand at normal usage...
Click to expand...

They won't replace it because batteries are covered for
- 1 year
- 300 cycles
- 80% capacity

Your battery is way out of warranty.
 
mine expanded but not as much. just made my track pad button stop working sometimes. I had it less than 2 years but had 600 cycle counts. Ended up just buying a new one, Apple Store told me regular warranty for batteries is 1 year.
 
This just happened to me last week. I do have AppleCare extended warranty on my MacBook and Apple still won't replace the expanded battery. Funny thing, this is a replacement battery that they gave me for the replacement program (because the first one did this, too), with less than 25 cycles on it.
 
I don't get Apple and there warranty.

In the last three months that I have been waiting for the new 17" MBP (still waiting) and reading these threads I have heard more stories about people WITH APPLE CARE! that have had a battery go or a warped laptop or a logic board die or screen problems and contact Apple and get some stupid runaround about getting it fixed!

Bottom line is that if that machine is under warranty and ANY hardware issue happens apple needs to fix it or replace the machine. If they try that crap with me there going to hear about it. Hopefully I will have a pleasant experience but it makes me a little wary of apple and there warranty service....
 
All these problems in the past with batteries, I didn't stop to think what would happen if the battery expanded inside the 17" unibody. You wouldn't be able to tell until it's too late, and it's not exactly easy to spot and replace quickly.

Still haven't placed my order on one yet, still sitting on the fence.
 
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