Battery Swelling and Fire Risk

The MBPro 15" (2015) model had a battery recall for a safety issue where the battery could possibly spontaneously catch fire due to a manufacturing defect. This safety issue only refers to this one exact Mac model from a very limited specific serial number range.

Lithium-ion Batteries in general are known to swell from time to time especially with older batteries. Apple does not consider swollen batteries a safety issue, but you need to disconnect the charger from the laptop immediately to help minimize further swelling. Make sure you have a good backup and power off the laptop to minimize the chance the battery will continue to swell.

Lithium-ion Batteries are known to catch fire if they have a manufacturing defect, but this should be a very rare occurrence for official OEM batteries. Third party Lithium-ion batteries are much more likely to catch fire because they are made much more cheaply (in both senses of the word) without the same oversight of the OEMs (also because people don't want to pay for quality). Third party Lithium-ion batteries are also much more likely to swell than OEM batteries. Not all OEM swollen batteries are due to a wide range manufacturing defect. Unfortunately Lithium-ion Batteries have a lot of ways they can easily fail.

Apple does offer unofficial unacknowledged free battery replacements as long as the laptop is less than three years old, otherwise Apple feels you have gotten proper use from the battery since a battery is considered a consumable item with a limited lifespan just like you must replace the battery in your car every five or seven years (a Lithium-ion battery is really only expected to last three years with typical usage on average). You need to have Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider examine the laptop to confirm if it qualifies for a free battery repair program. We have had swollen batteries replaced by Apple for free on our laptops that were less than three years old.

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