Swollen MacBook Pro Battery
I started this morning with the intention of writing a quite upset rant about Apple's support and hardware replacement policies. Yesterday after returning from a three week vacation I plugged in my MacBook and started to work away. For some reason the trackpad button was not behaving as it should and in the end stopped working. I was for a moment really baffled, but when I turned the notebook around it was obvious that something was wrong. My battery had swollen up as described on AppleDefects.com.
I took my notebook immediately to Macforum Göteborg where I purchased the notebook in 2008. Even though the warranty on the notebook had already ran out, I still expected to get a new battery without fuzz. I can accept that the capacity of the battery over time degrades. Hey, I could have lived with a battery so bad that I pretty much have to be plugged in all the time, but a battery swelling up like this is not acceptable. It shows poor quality parts and/or manufacturing errors, neither anything I expect from a 30000 SEK notebook. Damn, didn't I already pay the "Mac price premium"?
At Macforum I was then surprised when they told me that they have seen this before, but Apple supposedly refused free replacement. They recommended me to just buy a new battery. WTF! For me that was not acceptable and I started to argue the case. It took over an hour and finally Macforum agreed out of - what I understood at the time - "pure kindness" to replace my battery. However, the battery had to be ordered and I will hopefully receive it within a week.
I went home determined to write about the kindness of my Mac shop and to rant about Apple's replacement policies. But when I started to research the issue today, I noticed that actually many people had the same problem, but with very different experiences regarding the replacement of the battery. Some said Apple replaced the faulty batteries without problems others said Apple refused replacement. The same seems to apply to the resellers. I am not sure what to believe at the moment. My only recommendation in this case is to not accept a no from either Apple or the resellers! I will try to get more information from Macforum when I pick up my new battery. Stay tuned.
--Hardy
I took my notebook immediately to Macforum Göteborg where I purchased the notebook in 2008. Even though the warranty on the notebook had already ran out, I still expected to get a new battery without fuzz. I can accept that the capacity of the battery over time degrades. Hey, I could have lived with a battery so bad that I pretty much have to be plugged in all the time, but a battery swelling up like this is not acceptable. It shows poor quality parts and/or manufacturing errors, neither anything I expect from a 30000 SEK notebook. Damn, didn't I already pay the "Mac price premium"?
At Macforum I was then surprised when they told me that they have seen this before, but Apple supposedly refused free replacement. They recommended me to just buy a new battery. WTF! For me that was not acceptable and I started to argue the case. It took over an hour and finally Macforum agreed out of - what I understood at the time - "pure kindness" to replace my battery. However, the battery had to be ordered and I will hopefully receive it within a week.
I went home determined to write about the kindness of my Mac shop and to rant about Apple's replacement policies. But when I started to research the issue today, I noticed that actually many people had the same problem, but with very different experiences regarding the replacement of the battery. Some said Apple replaced the faulty batteries without problems others said Apple refused replacement. The same seems to apply to the resellers. I am not sure what to believe at the moment. My only recommendation in this case is to not accept a no from either Apple or the resellers! I will try to get more information from Macforum when I pick up my new battery. Stay tuned.
--Hardy
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