iPhone 3gs exploding expanding battery

efithian wrote:

This issue has not gone away. Two years ago my iPhone 3GS started swelling, slightly cracking the screen. Last month the expanding battery cracked the back of the case. At the very least, Apple should replace the battery for the usual charge, and replace the iPhone at the same time at no additional cost. This is a safety issue and should be handled. I am a rather large investor in Apple and would expect my company to do this.

You need to contact Apple about this.

Did you contact Apple two years ago when you first noticed a problem? Have you contacted Apple at all? If so, what did they say?

I will take it to my local Apple Store and see what they say first.

efithian wrote:

I will take it to my local Apple Store and see what they say first.

You will take it to the local Apple store first before you contact Apple about it?

efithian wrote:

I will take it to my local Apple Store and see what they say first.

Sounds like a good idea. Now, odds are, that since you're now reporting the issue to them well after the warranty has expired, you may only qualify for a out-of-warranty replacement, with an associated cost. Be prepared for that.

MMy iPhone 3GS. Has also exploded today?? Has anyone on here had any success taking it to an apple store?

Well, there is a burning process, a bit blurred, was in a hurry 🙂

Just thought I'd add my $.02.

I've had 5 or 6 3GSs over the last 4 years. Every. Single. One. Has expanded to the point of cracking the back or popping off the screen.

😐

Hey my 3gs battery expanded but the entire mother/logic board is split in half and it keeps expanding I'm going to the apple store to complain

I don't consider this very rare, its not just this Apple forum that talks about this issue, it has been on many News channels and web sites also that has documented the 3GS battery problem, there are probably thousands of these phones experiencing the same LION chemical failure and Apple knows all about it, they are just glad its an older phone. This is my second iPhone 3GS that exploded out of 4 family owned 3GS phones. I have a 50% failure rate in my world, you call that rare, come on TJBUSMC1973 get outside and enjoy life instead of defending Apple. 1 month ago this phone was fine, I was just about to give it to my daughter for her Birthday in 2 weeks as a starter phone and it blew up in the draw, its junk, the LCD is cracked and the case is deformed, the battery cracked the logic board in half, this is a major safety issue sitting in your draw. Can you tell in the picture which phone is bad, the one that has grown 3/8"! If someone plugs this in and charges the phone who knows what could happen. One lawsuit will open up the can of worms.

billymac1 wrote:

I have a 50% failure rate in my world, you call that rare

Yes. 50% failure rate is extremely rare.

I don't care about your 'personal sample'. A sample of four units is an abysmally small sampling. If you asked 4 people on the street if they think that ghosts are real, and two said yes, does that mean half of Americans think ghosts are real?

You quoted 'thousands' of units may have this issue. While you have no evidence to support this claim, let's use it for argument's sake.

Thousands out of millions is rare. That's 0.1%.

Contact Apple for your options. Contact a lawyer if that's what you want to do. No one here cares if you do that or not.

I have worked with hundreds of iPhone 3GS units in the past. None of them ever had this issue. However, I wouldn't say that the failure rate is 0.0%, even though that is my personal experience.

If I'm not going to use my experience with (and I just checked my records to verify) 200+ iPhone 3GS units to state that the issue is a non-occurance (and that's the rate of incidence in my sample: 0.0%), then you have no justification to use your 4 units to present it as a common occurrence.

That's how math and statistics works; larger sample increase the odds of accuracy. If we add yours to mine, then it's around 0.8%. Still rare, even with our combined samples.

Chris CA wrote:

billymac1 wrote:

I have a 50% failure rate in my world, you call that rare

Yes. 50% failure rate is extremely rare.

LOL! I see what you did there...

How about the guy 5 posts up wedge07 comment ? 5 or 6 3gs iPhones all failed. Rare ??????

Just thought I'd add my $.02.

I've had 5 or 6 3GSs over the last 4 years. Every. Single. One. Has expanded to the point of cracking the back or popping off the screen.

It is a statistical failure of a batch of Chinese made LION Polymer batteries, I am guessing that a huge batch of batteries were made with a chemical failure.

Here are some pictures of one of my batteries, if someone has any to compare batch numbers I bet they will be the same production series. I have batteries in Laptops from the 1990s still working perfectly and holding a good charge, NIMH though not LIOP.

We all know there is only a select few that take the time and effort to make it to post in this forum, the rest of us humans could care less about talking about there iPhone blowing up if it did not cause bodily harm or property damage. Fact is that this is happening a lot and the small amount of people who post here are showing it happens over time. Just call Gazelle or Uselll.com and ask home many 3GS phones have doubled in size and went to the dumpster.

billymac1 wrote:

How about the guy 5 posts up wedge07 comment ? 5 or 6 3gs iPhones all failed. Rare ??????

5 or 6 phones with bad batteries would be extremely rare!

That guy should buy a single lotto ticket as he is almost guaranteed to win!

I think we need to warn people about this. This could have burnt my house down had it exploded.

My 3gs was under a bunch of stuff in a drawer. I just went and looked for it cuz I wanted to use it as a webcam server, lo and behold the lithium battery looks like it's about to explode. Had it exploded and burnt down my house does the warranty cover that?

the proof:

http://i.imgur.com/57s5XKZ.jpg?1

P.S. I have no idea what to do with this thing now, do I just put it outside?