Replacing battery in mid-2009 MacBook Air

[markbruno]

Hello!

Anyone know if the Apple Store would carry a replacement battery for a 13" mid-2009 MacBook Air? Or should I get an aftermarket replacement from a place like fixit.com or OWC? The battery menu bar is telling me to replace the battery soon. I ran coconutBattery to check my current battery's health and it's at 75.2% with a cycle count of 682.

Right now, I get about 2.5 hours worth of battery life on a full charge and I'm wondering if a replacement battery will get me a longer battery life.

 

[Boyd01]

Have you seen the FAQ here under "battery service"? It says replacements are $129 and "may be available at your local Apple Authorized Service Provider". So I guess you need to call your local store and see what they say.

http://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=United_States&product=Macnotebooks

 

[markbruno]

Thanks!

I may just buy this replacement from OWC and install it myself.

Even with shipping it will be cheaper than what Apple will charge it seems.

 

[Boyd01]

I assume the Apple price includes installation and some kind of limited warranty. If you install yourself and damage the computer, then you're on your own.

You will get a whole range of opinions on this, but personally I wouldn't put that much money into a 2009 MBA. The battery died in my 2008 MBP and I did not replace it. The current MBA is way, way faster than the old core2duo machines, they have 4gb standard RAM, very fast SSD's, USB2.0 and very fast 802.11ac wifi. I can rip a TV show from DVD on my 2013 MBA in 15 minutes. Same show takes almost 75 minutes on the 2008 MBP.

And other stuff starts to fail on 5 year old computers. Have you considered selling it as-is and applying that to a new machine?