Late april this year I noticed the battery status of my 2016 13" MBP had changed to "Service Battery". It runs on macOS 10.14.6. The battery cycle count was only 114. CoconutBattery said the design capacity was down to around 72,6%.
The MBP was bought new in december 2017 from an authorised reseller. It came with 3 years of warranty and is still well within that period.
There are no other problems with the 13" except that the up and down arrow keys do not register when pressed lightly. I feel the key click but nothing happens until I hit the key again, this time firmer.
I took the MBP to the dealer where I bought it. They acknowledged that the battery needs to be replaced. They warned me I had to pay at least part of the replacement cost. I told them that was unacceptable to me since the MBP was still under warranty and had a Cycle Count of only a fraction over 10% of what Apple advertises on its website. The store kind of agreed with me, but also said that they had to ship it to their certified repair center to know exactly what their position (and Apple's) would be. Because of Corona, the Apple stores in the Netherlands are closed so the seller is processing most Apple repairs in and around Amsterdam. There is a waiting time of up to a month before you get your laptop back. They advised me to wait a few weeks because replacing the battery was not an urgent problem and I had about 6 moths of warranty left. By that time (which is now) the waiting list should be much shorter and I should come back.
However, after running Security Update 2020-3 a few days ago, System Report now says my battery condition is "Normal" and according to coconutBattery it is "Good". System Report states a Full Charge Capacity of 2964 mAh, while I know the battery's design capacity is 4315 mAh. So only 68.7% of its Design Capacity is left at (now) 117 Charge Cycles.
How is that "Good" or even "Normal"? How can a battery that needed replacement suddenly be acceptable when in fact its condition is worse? Only when I boot the laptop holding the "D" key, the diagnostics tool tells me the battery needs replacement.
I am a bit at a loss here. Did Apple start to hide battery condition from regular users or did some of the Catalina battery management system trickle down to the latest iteration of Mojave? Did anyone else notice this? I will be bringing my laptop to the repair center this week, even though I hate missing it for a while. But now I have an extra hurdle to convince them the battery is broken. The Apple stores are still closed and the waiting list is still there.
Oh, did I kill my battery because I am always running my MBP through a CalDigit TS3+ dock? My previous 2011 17" MBP was also always hooked up to its charger and I never had a battery problem. It was in great condition when the laptop died in 2016 because the dedicated GPU card gave up just outside the repair program.
Cheers from Amsterdam!
The MBP was bought new in december 2017 from an authorised reseller. It came with 3 years of warranty and is still well within that period.
There are no other problems with the 13" except that the up and down arrow keys do not register when pressed lightly. I feel the key click but nothing happens until I hit the key again, this time firmer.
I took the MBP to the dealer where I bought it. They acknowledged that the battery needs to be replaced. They warned me I had to pay at least part of the replacement cost. I told them that was unacceptable to me since the MBP was still under warranty and had a Cycle Count of only a fraction over 10% of what Apple advertises on its website. The store kind of agreed with me, but also said that they had to ship it to their certified repair center to know exactly what their position (and Apple's) would be. Because of Corona, the Apple stores in the Netherlands are closed so the seller is processing most Apple repairs in and around Amsterdam. There is a waiting time of up to a month before you get your laptop back. They advised me to wait a few weeks because replacing the battery was not an urgent problem and I had about 6 moths of warranty left. By that time (which is now) the waiting list should be much shorter and I should come back.
However, after running Security Update 2020-3 a few days ago, System Report now says my battery condition is "Normal" and according to coconutBattery it is "Good". System Report states a Full Charge Capacity of 2964 mAh, while I know the battery's design capacity is 4315 mAh. So only 68.7% of its Design Capacity is left at (now) 117 Charge Cycles.
How is that "Good" or even "Normal"? How can a battery that needed replacement suddenly be acceptable when in fact its condition is worse? Only when I boot the laptop holding the "D" key, the diagnostics tool tells me the battery needs replacement.
I am a bit at a loss here. Did Apple start to hide battery condition from regular users or did some of the Catalina battery management system trickle down to the latest iteration of Mojave? Did anyone else notice this? I will be bringing my laptop to the repair center this week, even though I hate missing it for a while. But now I have an extra hurdle to convince them the battery is broken. The Apple stores are still closed and the waiting list is still there.
Oh, did I kill my battery because I am always running my MBP through a CalDigit TS3+ dock? My previous 2011 17" MBP was also always hooked up to its charger and I never had a battery problem. It was in great condition when the laptop died in 2016 because the dedicated GPU card gave up just outside the repair program.
Cheers from Amsterdam!
