iPhone 3gs exploding expanding battery

The crazy thing is this is happening even if the phone has not been charged for months. Some chemical process has the battery start expanding and pops out the display on top while two small screws at the bottom holds that side down. This causes enormous tensions in the frame of the phone and can even cause the display to shatter. Especially if the phone sits inserted in an aftermarket cover it is prevented from popping the display and this could lead to tensions causing what people would describe as an explosion when the power of the expanding battery builds up internal pressure forces.

I got a new / refurbed iPhone 3GS from apple under the battery replacement scheme. I paid a total of 82 euro including VAT.

IMHO, it's not bad as the replacement is, for all intents and purposes, new.

As I stated in my original reply, I contacted apple support to basically be told a load of horse ****. I was told that it was a safety feature, when I stated that I had never heard of a battery expanding as a safety measure I was assured this was the case. However, when I asked for some documentation from the battery manufacturer, apple were unable / unwilling to supply this. I was then told, during the same support call, that the batteries were only supposed to last for a certain number of full chemical cycles. Again, when asked, the support representative could not provide me with any data specific to the iPhone 3GS. In fact, the only figures available were for the MacBook Pro. I wasn't happy with this so I emailed Tim Cook directly. The next day I got a call from a person in Executive Relations EMEIA and she asked what had happened and asked for photos. I got a call back from here a few days later to say that an 'Engineer' had looked at the pictures and that what had happened was normal!! She then offered me a new phone, which I would have to pay for. When I declined her kind offer I was advised to contact the shop where I bought the phone (O2) which I did. Iwas told by O2 that the 1 year manufacturers warranty was up and there was nothing I could do, even though in Europe, goods bought in Ireland are supposed to be merchantable for 7 years.

I have kept hold of the phone just in case in the future there is a recall on these.

I have to say though that this is shocking behaviour from apple. I know people who still use 5-8 year old nokia's / sony ericsson's with the original battery and these haven't expanded / exploded. Maybe this is the business model for the world's richest company moving forward??

Yes, it is a technical issue, that is why the technical post and technical parts of the posts are still there. What it appears they removed were the calls to contact the BBB and report, essentially calling people to post on a poll at the BBB.

So far, it appears you have called Apple about this, have you tried taking it in to a store and showed it to a Genius? They might be more receptive if they can see the phone.

Hey David, you, unlike me, living in London, can visit one of the Apple Stores and try to deal straight with them; why don't you give them a chance to really show up their politics? Maybe the evil assumptions will prove wrong. Then, please let us know how everything went on...

Batteries expand, and that's what happened in your case. There was no danger of explosion. You have the option for paying to have your out-of-warranty iPhone repaired, or you can talk about getting your out-of-warranty iPhone repaired. The choice is yours.

All Lithium chemistry batteries have a small but finite risk of expanding at their end of life. This is a chemical reaction, not an explosion. Letting the battery run down completely is one way to trigger this reaction, but it can also happen randomly. As Lithium batteries are the only way to get a lot of power in a small space and reasonable weight the choice is to either live with it or not use any portable electronics. If you are really that concerned get rid of all of your cell phones, laptops, portable game consoles and cordless power tools.

Note that the solution that Boeing came up with was to make the case containing the Lithium batteries in the 787 stronger. They knew there was no way to prevent the batteries from failing in this manner.

Same thing here. Below is the email (typos and all) I sent to Tim Cook. CEOs never read these their executive complaints department handles them.

The bottom line is they won't do anything because the number of cases is not statistically significant. So they won't admit anything.

Dear Mr. Tim Cook,

I realize you will probably not read this, but I feel I need to this. You see I am not the type to complain about bad service nor do I write letters to complain to CEO's about how bad their corporate policies are. But this experience I had at your Stonebriar Mall in Frisco,TX really ticked me off.

I went there after my 3GS, which I was using to play music in my car exploded or popped earlier that day. The phone has always been handled with care by me since I bought it in 2010. The battery was charging and holding the charge perfectly well until the pop occurred.

Pictures attached.

After checking on line, actually own the Apple Forums, I saw that apparently this was not an usual event. Looked through many pictures that showed the phone popped open like a clam.I also read the frustrations other customers had experienced when they went to the Apple stores to seek help. So I figured that this was not going to be a walk in the park.

So to cut to the chase, I went to the store and while. I was waiting for the Genius Bar I had the Manager Brenda Tetu greet me and explain to me that although she was not a technical support person she could tell me that there would be a fee I would need to pay. Another employee told me she had never seen this happen. When I finally got to speak with the advisor he was polite but told me that this is normal that these batteries have like a built in feature that causes them to expand after so many charging cycles. He explained to me that Apple was willing to replace the phone with a good battery for just the cost of the battery replacement, $79.

I think what really upset me is that here is a company worth millions of dollars with millions of loyal customers like me who swear by the quality, innovation and reliability of Apple products and who are willing to "pay a premium" for this quality and then are faced with this???

I am not an electronics engineer but nobody can tell me that this battery failure is normal, predictable and a built in feature??? Are you serious?? Apple made a phone which retailed unsubsidized for about $600 to only last 3 years and promptly self-destruct? Mission Impossible style? Come on please!

What has happened here? Where is Apple's pride for the products they make? Will my iPhone 5's battery do the same? The battery is already needing recharging sometimes twice a day. And it's only one and half years old.

I am not looking for any handouts or special dispensation. I would like to see Apple do the right thing and admit that this is a battery failure and issue a recall even if it partial. Obviously, I don't know how many of these failures have been reported. Perhaps in the grand scheme of things, it is a very small number of failures, but still this does not look good.

Mr. Cook the ball is on your court.

You really need to look up the definition of "exploding". So far, not a single picture posted here shows anything that exploded. Old lithium batteries expand sometimes. That's what these pictures show.

It seems that Apple has already removed and filtered some postings here already, people this is not supposed to happen! LION batteries dont just expand after a few years, there is a production problem here I am sure and it seems a large amount of these are failing. I have LION batteries that are much older than the 3GS and work well still, if everyone can write down all the numbers off the battery that has failed then we can start a list the model and batch numbers, it might show a pattern, there is a batch of numbers on the top and a long number on the very bottom of each battery, lets see if there is a pattern. Stop paying for a replacement phone, Apple should replace this, remember the Ipod Nano first generation battery recall.....

Had same problem with an old iPhone 3G, where the back started cracking a few months ago. Found out that it was the expanding battery issue. It has become much worse over the last week, and the crack on the back is getting larger. Went to the Apple store today, and was told I could trade it in for a "new" iPhone 3G for $150, but since this is the old iPhone, I would be limited to iOS 6.something, and not able to update to the 7.something iOS. I guess I'm S.O.L. then. I agree that such a blatant manufacturing defect should be covered by the company, but I guess keeping customers happy is not a priority (I'm still irritated from being charged $39 for the 30 pin to lightning connectors, when it is obvious that the cost for manufacturing it is less than $1. I'm ready to switch to Samsung. This is starting to look a lot like the way Palm devices treated their customers before they sank.

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.

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.

apple told me the batteries are made to do this at the end of expected life roughly 24 months old they can start to expand

The explanation could be that the 3GS is 4 years old, so it's a time when battery problems are more likely just from age.