Other Authorized Apple Repair Shop Declined To Replace My Battery

[SpotOnT]

Apple gives third party shops a hard time about ordering parts…so I can totally see them being hesitant to do something “off spec”.

Instead, try bring it to an Apple Store. Be persistent. If you have to, tell them you are giving the phone to your friend/relative as a gift and you want to make sure they get a fresh start, new battery and all. Never been turned down before, after giving them a bit of pushback.

 

[SpotOnT]

What's the reason to replace a battery thats 87% of maximum capacity?

I have replaced a 5-year old battery on an iPhone 8 that was still at 91% but was only getting about 1-2 hrs of screen time. The heath percentage isn’t super exact. I think it is mostly based on charge cycles, where the reality is that batteries degrade with both time and charge cycles.

My sister replaced her 2-year old battery at 87% because she was leaving the country for another 2 years, and iPhones were pretty uncommon where she was going.

I replaced a 2-year old battery at 89% before giving the phone to my mom. Wanted to make sure she could keep the phone for another 3-4 years, without having to deal with replacing the battery herself.

Those are just my personal experiences - I am sure there are nearly an infinite number of “legitimate” reasons to replace a battery above some arbitrarily chosen level of 80%.

 

[MrAverigeUser]

I agree, but like I said, it wasn’t the point.

I’ve seen people who were talking about replacing an iPhone 15’s battery something like 7 or 8 months in with 87-92%. Sorry, but I’ll never not find that ridiculous.

The thing runs iOS 17, it has like-new battery life, what do you need a new battery for? At some point it feels like they’re replacing them just to see 100% on settings.

We all like that, sure, but it’s pointless.

Please don’t mix up and compare different things …

iPhones 15 have a case made of titanium.
compared with aluminium a case made of titanium has only 50% of the ability to uptake and transfer heat to the outside of the case. design a case of a high-tech smartphone using Titanium instead of Aluminium is therefore an amateurs fault.

So it was clear that the iPhones 15 often got overheated when used intensely and often enough even in situations of normal use or higher environmental temperatures.

apple seems to have reacted purely on the symptoms by automatically lowering performance if the IP 15 got too hot.
They could not exchange the titanium case case by the better aluminium case…
But they learned by the hard way that they should never ever use titanium cases.
Now you know perhaps why they stepped back to aluminium-cases ?

But overheated smartphones means also overheated batteries.
And we all know that heat is very bad for reliability and function of batteries.

So, you can say the catastrophically bad reliability of the batteries of the iP 15 was at most part NOT about the IOS, it was because the „engineers“ ignored facts that you learn even in school at the age of 15 or 16 years in lessons about chemical basic knowledge…

I did write about this already in threads about the overheating of the iP 15… at the time people started to critisize the bad battery performance of the iPhone 15 at that time…
but most people didn’t understand… which is very astonishing because these facts are not a secret science this is well known since about 100 years…

So - if people talk about SPECIFIC battery problems of iPhones they should exclude the iPhones with a titanium case and talk only about iPhones that are made using Aluminium cases . Because iphones build with Aluminium cases (like the iPhone 14 line) did NOT have the same problems with overheating although they ran as well on the new IOS Versions…


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[JPack]

1. Battery capacity is only an estimate. If you do not regularly charge to 100% and discharge to 0%, that capacity estimate is probably wrong and is likely much lower in reality.

2. Consider other battery health factors. Having a capacity estimate of 87% does not mean other factors remain perfect. The internal resistance of a battery is affected by age. Random shutdowns are the result of high internal resistance, i.e. the phone demands current but battery is unable to supply it. A battery with 100% capacity and high internal resistance is useless.

 

[Shamalow]

Following my previous message, I replaced my battery at 85%, and I feel it's important to justify myself here.

I bought an iPhone 13 mini Premium on Black Market.
Premium = all genuine parts and battery health > 90%.

The iPhone arrived in perfect condition, but with a battery health of 100%, without any repaired parts in the settings. This was very suspicious.

So I checked the analytics files.
- Battery produced in 2021
- 854 cycles
- Actual battery health 85%

The iPhone had therefore undergone a BMS modification to display 100%. This is a well-known scam.

So I replaced the battery at Apple to fix this.

After a battle with Black Market, they paid me €81 for the replacement of the Apple battery and for not respecting their premium quality pact.

 

[RSB96]

My partner had her battery replaced with 82-85% battery health at an authorized Apple dealer (in Spain).

I consider that the battery health percentage is driving certain people to battery madness. It is an element that wears out, and if you use the phone a lot, the sooner it will wear out and if you use it less, well less. It also depends on other factors such as climate (in hot climates the phone heats up more and demands more from the battery), location (if you live in areas with poor coverage the phone spends more battery), how you charge it.

However, if the battery does not comply with what it did at the beginning, I consider that the consumer has the right to change it even if it is out of warranty. If you are willing to pay for the replacement, I do not understand the refusal to do so.

 

[hyperreal]

If this is your worst experience ever, you have had phenomenal service.

I have, and so did my dad back when he ran a business that relied on Macs. It's one of the reasons I have been happily paying "the Apple tax".

In a country with no Apple Stores whatsoever, Apple's premium resellers and authorized service shops used to have top tier service. They were the face of the company after all.

Now, judging by everything said in this thread about how Apple gives these businesses a hard time, and also what the manager of this particular repair shop has told me in the recent years, I feel like Apple no longer cares about the face to face customer experience outside of Apple Stores.
Or even if Apple as a company does, the people running these places don't, because of how Apple treats them.

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

I have, and so did my dad back when he ran a business that relied on Macs. It's one of the reasons I have been happily paying "the Apple tax".

In a country with no Apple Stores whatsoever, Apple's premium resellers and authorized service shops used to have top tier service. They were the face of the company after all.

Now, judging by everything said in this thread about how Apple gives these businesses a hard time, and also what the manager of this particular repair shop has told me in the recent years, I feel like Apple no longer cares about the face to face customer experience outside of Apple Stores.
Or even if Apple as a company does, the people running these places don't, because of how Apple treats them.

Okay.
Apple.com/feedback

 

[TechnoMonk]

Apple never refused to change my iPhone battery. Ofcourse they won’t replace for free under AC+ if it’s more than 80%. They told me I could pay 89 $ and replace it.

 

[doogm]

I replaced my old iPhone 13 Pro at 86% health last year when I upgraded to the 15 Pro, and then handed it down to my son. I'd rather pay for a new battery than he pay for it.

FWIW, I live in a place with bad cellular coverage, so my phone drains battery hard, and 87% max capacity gets close to a point where I need to charge a few times a day. That said: for my everyday carry I would generally wait until the low 80s at the earliest before I thought about paying to replace a battery. I can generally manage to charge my phone if I know I'm going to need it charged later in the day - charge it before going out; carry a battery pack; etc.

 

[brilliantthings]

I had the battery in my iPhone 13 mini replaced at an Apple Store last week. Battery Health was 84% but the battery charge was going from 80 to 20% overnight even with the phone reset to factory settings.
It's important not to have blind faith in the Battery Health number.
The Apple Store techs broke the phone's screen while changing the battery. They replaced the screen free of charge.
I wonder who would foot the bill - labour and parts - if the techs at the Authorised Repair Shop broke the screen? This might make them less inclined to do "unnecessary" repairs.
I would chat to Apple Support first, get their advice to replace the battery and get their direction about where to have it replaced.

 

[Parowdy]

Hmmm, I remember vividly people correcting me here on MR that this is nothing but a myth and I was wrong spreading this kind of misinformation…
However, I really wish I was wrong because I understand your situation and it is indeed very ridiculous. Hope you get this resolved somehow. People probably already suggested this but, get into contact with Apple Support via the app and see what they tell you.