Swelling Macbook Pro Battery

Apple completely refuses to replace my battery. Mine started acting up a couple of months ago and progressively got worse. Then I found out about the swelling battery issue and saw that most people were gettign them replaced by Apple.

I set an appointment with my local Apple store and had them look at it. Teh tech took out teh battery, showed me that it was swelling and said that was my problem. Then she said unfortunately, Apple was no longer replacing them and I would have to buy one myself for $99.00. I said this was a defective battery and I would hope Apple would replace it for free. She said sorry...I told her to just put it back together.

I then called Apple support and told them waht happened...again they said sorry, Apple will not replace it. Then when I got home I opened up my computer so I could write a letter to Apple. Well now my mousepad is even worse than it was before.

So I called Apple again and talked to a tech support rep and explained the situation. She transfered me to a Senior tech. I told him what was going on. He then started telling me that batteries could be compared to the tires on my car and should be replaced when they are at the end of their life or they could have swelling problems. Waht a bunch of nonsense. My battery is 2 1/2 years old and has 208 cycles on it.

Again, they REFUSE to replace my battery when it is clearly a defective battery.

I have always been an Apple advocate and every member of my family: Wife, kids, step kids all use Apple products, but I am very unhappy about being treated this way.

At 2-1/2 years old, your battery would soon be due for replacement even if it hadn't swelled. The average lifespan of an MBP battery is 2-4 years, depending heavily upon usage and treatment. The people whose swollen batteries have been replaced for free have mostly had batteries that were less than a year old.

Seriously, 2 1/2 years old and only 208 cycles and it is normal to swell? I might add that the charge works just fine.

I have never had this happen in any of the other 5 laptops I have used.

It seems like it's just been individual decisions by Apple techs to give people a new battery...I've seen the comments in here about people with older batteries and more cycles than mine getting replaced. This is not the right way to show Apple's concern for their customers.

Also, mine is worse now that the Apple tech messed with it.

As soon as a battery begins to swell, it will rapidly get worse whether or not anyone messes with it. You need to replace yours immediately instead of trying to keep using it.

I have taken it out...

I work for a large school district with thousands of mbp's and mb's. Contact your local apple store to see if your machine qualifies for the Apple Battery Replacement Program. It's worth a phone call. Just have your serial number handy.don't let some half brained bench tech tell you that he can fix your battery. It's bull , there is a wicked chemical reaction going on inside the battery. Apple needs to replace it, just press the issue you can get a new one, trust me.

I did that twice today...even talked to a "senior" tech support advisor. He gave me the run around on it too. Even though I had done my research and found that this has been a known issue with the batteries, he at first tried to down play it and say it's just because my battery is a the end of it's life and probaby had a lot of cycles on it. So I looked it up and it had 208 cycles. Then he said, oh that's not even close to it's estimated life of cycles.

Then he did admit there was a time when the batteries were being replaced for free when their "engineers' were investigating the problem, but that is over now.

That's fair, huh? All those others got their batteries replaced for free since Apple knew there was a problem, but now that most fo them were take care of, they stop and I ended up with one of those leftover bad ones.

Myself and the rest of my family use many Apple products and promote Apple products as much as possibe, and they can't even do the right thing to keep a good customer happy with their service. This doesn't give me a good feelign about Apple and their service. I could get this kind of run around from Dell or HP.

Can you please post the Machine model and like,"Macbook Pro late 2009 2.53 GHz Glossy" I will check on a battery exchange program for you.

I have a Late 2008 Unibody Macbook Pro. 2.53GHz Glossy with the same issue.

There are 176 cycles on it and it shows 85% health.

No one should expect a 2.5-year-old battery to be replaced for free, regardless of circumstances. Some users have gotten lucky. That is not the norm.

Mine is a mid 2008 MacBook 2.4Ghz Glossy. 208 battery cycles, good health.

They claim it is not on the list, but yet I have the same symptoms as described over the past few years.

I've come across multitudes of articles since 2007 about this problem.

Apple decided to end the replacement program May 2009, but yet sometimes they do replace customers batteries for free sometimes and sometimes not. It seems like it just depends on who you get to check it out. When there is a known problem, a company should continue repalcig the defecive parts until it is resolved, not just decide to stop but still keep using the defective product.

These are not the ways to provide service to loyal customers.

thanks

Totally disagree...

Have never had a battery in any other laptop do this.

The problem is not the battery not working...the problem is swelling. A battery should not swell...period!

My battery has 208 cycles...way lower than the 300 that Apple says it should get. The Apple rep was surprised when he found out it had 208 cycles...that's when he started back tracking about it being at the end of it's life and then fessed up about the replacement program that was in effect earlier. During that program, the age of the battery made no difference. So why now should they ahve chanfged the rules? Because they had to replace too many defective batteries. And the problem still has not been resolved....

Also, my MacBook is a 2008, but the battery it came with seems to be a 2006. If this is the case, Apple should not have sold me a 2008 with a 2006 battery...should they?

The physical age of the battery is somewhat irrelevant. Heres what we do. We have about 2,000 2.53 MBP's deployed in our district. We are still to this day getting batteries replaced on those machines when the battery is swollen or has deformed under normal opperating conditions for FREE under the program. We run Notebook Battery and Adapter Diagnostics tool on the machine. If the battery is bad, we remove the bottom cover of the MBP, visually inspect the battery, if its swollen it comes out. The battery validation code is then uploaded to the apple website for approval ( this is the part where you need the apple store to upload that code). When approved they will ship you a new battery when they receive KBB. If not approved you will just have to buy a new one from Blue Raven or someplace like that. I hope this helps you out.