AirPods 1st Gen - Charging from 15% to 99% in Few Seconds

My pair of 1st gen AirPods are nearly 2 years old and not used often. A few months ago, I noticed that the battery level indicator is registering erroneous data about the AirPods ear pieces charge levels such that the charge levels will shoot up to 98% from 15% in a matter of seconds after inserting the ear pieces into and closing the AirPod battery case. I took it to the Apple repair center and they said that the batteries in the AirPod ear pieces require replacing. I told them that I could still get 1.5 to 2 hours of listening time on the ear pieces and that there is no need to replace them for the time being as it will be wasteful to do so. I explained that the fault lies in the AirPods firmware that is not reporting the correct battery charge levels in the less than perfect batteries in the ear pieces. If the firmware is reporting the correct battery levels, despite the deteriorated batteries in the ear pieces, at least I would not know when the battery will be fully charged rather than guessing by leaving them in the case longer than necessary. The Apple repair center insisted they can do nothing about it since they only dealt with hardware issues!!

Any idea how I can get Apple to address this rather than insisting that customers should replace the batteries.