Last week, I found out that when I unplugged the power from my Macbook it instantly shut down. This, even though the battery was showing up as fully charged.
A little searching online showed that this is a known Issue and Apple have a mechanism in place for replacing defective batteries for free.
So armed with a few Google search results, I phoned Apple Care. After about 10 minutes of waiting, a real person answered me.
I told him the problem and he said it sounded like my battery was defective and offered to sell me a new one for about $100! When I told him that this was a known issue, he forwarded me straight to a “mac specialist”.
So after another 5 or so minutes on hold, the specialist answered the phone. He asked me a few questions, and after I told him that I’d already gone through all the necessary software updates and debugging steps he asked me to open the System Profiler and read him back all the values under the power section (couldn’t he just ask me for the relevant ones).
He told me that it didn’t sound to him like my battery was the problem, but I probably had a logic board issue (!!) so my only option was to get a new logic board. As I didn’t have a spare battery to test with, I couldn’t really do much - I just thanked him for his help and resolved to go to the Apple store and talk to someone face to face.
So today, I scheduled an appointment at the SF Apple Store Genius Bar. A nice lady accepted me there on time and after about 20 seconds came to the conclusion that the problem was indeed my battery. She then told me that the warranty on my computer had expired and so they really should be charging me for a new battery. But “that doesn’t seem right” so she’d give me a new one for free.
While I appreciate the quick service, I know that there’s an official policy to replace these - so why give the impression that they’re making some kind of concession in my case??
I guess the bottom line is, I have a new battery now and everything has been resolved to my liking. Thanks Apple!
Everyone involved was very courteous. And to their credit I will say that they didn’t treat me like an idiot (like tech support people at many other companies). When I said that I’d tried the usual steps of reseting my PRAM and installing the software updates, they believed me and kept going.
But seriously - with an official recall like this why did I need to jump through all these hoops?? Shouldn’t the first person I talked to just check that I met requirements and send me a new battery?? Why did they have to give me the impression they where doing me a favor?
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