Failing battery but Apple will not honour £199 battery replacement price

[nigelbb]

My 2015 MacBook Pro has a failing battery. I used to get 4-6 hours normal use out of the battery but now I only get 1-1.5 hours before I need to reconnect the power supply.

I took my MBP into an Apple Store as I wanted to get the battery replaced for the advertised £199. The 'Genius' ran diagnostics & said that the battery was OK as it had 86% of capacity & that I could not have the battery replaced for £199 but would have to pay full price for the top case including battery which would cost £460. I objected that this was more than the MBP was worth. I kept telling the 'Genius' that whatever the diagnostics said the battery performance had declined significantly & that I wanted a battery replacement at the advertised £199 but he wouldn't budge. He said that I could only have the battery for £199 if battery capacity was 80%.

Is there some way that I can escalate a complaint? I cannot find any email contact to complain to Apple Support only phone & chat. It seems ridiculous that I have cannot get the battery replaced even though real life performance is markedly reduced.

 

[EDK9Trainer]

Did you try to escalate it within the store to someone in authority or just come on here?

 

[laptech]

you have a 2015 laptop and after 7 years the battery is showing that it has 86% capacity still in it. For a 7 year old macbook battery that is pretty good.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I've warranty/ insurance through a 3rd party and they also followed Apples guidelines of 80% or less to replace. About an hr of battery use with the dGPU sounds about right. The tricky bit was finding a decent battery but my model is much, much older. I guess you may just have to wait, but in the long run it'll be a better quality option to go the Apple route.

 

[nigelbb]

I've warranty/ insurance through a 3rd party and they also followed Apples guidelines of 80% or less to replace. About an hr of battery use with the dGPU sounds about right. The tricky bit was finding a decent battery but my model is much, much older. I guess you may just have to wait, but in the long run it'll be a better quality option to go the Apple route.

The issue is that I used to get much longer life running only on battery typically 4-6 hours now I only get 1-1.5 hours & my use of the MBP hasn't changed. Unless Big Sur is very power hungry compared to Mojave I think I need to replace the battery.

 

[nigelbb]

you have a 2015 laptop and after 7 years the battery is showing that it has 86% capacity still in it. For a 7 year old macbook battery that is pretty good.

It's irrelevant what the battery diagnostics report in my real life experience battery life has declined from 4-6 hours to 1-1.5 hours.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

The issue is that I used to get much longer life running only on battery typically 4-6 hours now I only get 1-1.5 hours & my use of the MBP hasn't changed. Unless Big Sur is very power hungry compared to Mojave I think I need to replace the battery.

Hey I'm totally on your side. I too was at around 84%, having to wait until it degraded to 80% so that my insurer would cover the replacement. Realistic expectations unfortunately don't come into play if you're not at the 80 mark. It's frustrating.

 

[laptech]

It's irrelevant what the battery diagnostics report in my real life experience battery life has declined from 4-6 hours to 1-1.5 hours.

Looking at the original specs of the macbook pro 2015 on everymac.com it says the battery life is 10-12 hours and i noticed Apple support site stated similar values for using itunes and video watching. Therefore this would imply that a battery with 100% capacity has a life of 10-12 hours and as the battery degrades over time, it's life of hours would drop also. I openly admit I am hopeless as maths but I am sure someone could work out if a battery has 86% capacity what it's battery life should be if 100% capacity is 10-12hrs battery life. If the figure comes out way more than 1hr to 1.5hrs you then have something tangible to go back to Apple with and say that something is wrong regardless of the capacity being 86%. The problem you will then have is how do you prove to Apple that with a battery reported to be at 86% capacity it's only lasting 1 to 1.5hrs. The only real world test i can see they could do is to have the macbook running some sample video and have the video running on loop to see if your claim about the battery is true but i wouldn't have thought the Apple store would have the space and time to do a simple test like that. Maybe they could actually do such a simple test. It's worth asking because if the battery is only going to last 1hr to 1.5hrs, they could leave it on a shelf and see what happens whilst you go round town doing a bit of shopping/site seeing and then come back 1 to 1.5hrs later to see if your macbook battery has died.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

Are you getting a "service battery" alert yet, or not?

This might "make the difference" as to whether they'll offer you the "199" replacement... or not.

My advice:
If the computer is still working -- even with less battery capacity -- keep using it until you get the warning. Then try taking it back.

Or... go to a DIFFERENT brick-n-mortar Apple Store (even if it's some distance away).
Perhaps you'll get a more receptive treatment there.

 

[doolar]

My experience with battery replacements is that for the battery service fee quote it needs to be 80% or less, or the “service battery” message to be present. I’ve tried a couple of MacBooks at the local Apple Store and they’ve been declined until they were 80% or less, I’ve though the computer’s batteries was pretty far from the original capacity in daily use.

 

[Fatus_Asticus]

Really sucks. This is why I don't bother with Apple Care. Between the deductible and the original cost it is a lot of money and on top of that you can get stuck where your performance is trash but you haven't met the hard line number for Apple to take action. I'd rather take that money and just buy something else sooner.

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/c1e0d8

 

[nigelbb]

What's the best way to accelerate battery deterioration to reach the magic 80%?

 

[Alpha Centauri]

What's the best way to accelerate battery deterioration to reach the magic 80%?

Have to laugh, it's the exact opposite of what everyone's been asking repeatedly for years re battery longetivity.

I guess turn off any battery-preserving utilities, up the charge count, 100% screen brightness...do the opposite to what has always been suggested?

6% degradation though may take a while. Instead of going the extra mile to run it down, just use it normally. The time will come!

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

86% battery on a MBP that's now around 7 years old isn't all that bad.
You just have to charge it a little more often.

I'd stop "worrying about the numbers" and just keep using it.

 

[nigelbb]

OP:

86% battery on a MBP that's now around 7 years old isn't all that bad.
You just have to charge it a little more often.

I'd stop "worrying about the numbers" and just keep using it.

Perhaps you missed where I said it used to last for over six hours on battery & now only lasts for two. That's not me "worrying about the numbers". That's me seriously pissed off that Apple won't honour their advertised price for replacing a battery that now lasts one third of the time that it used to.

 

[Christopher Kim]

Yah this is unfortunately not uncommon... and Apple is pretty strict with its 80% rule for battery replacement. I sort of understand why they do it (given to change the battery, they replace the topcase so you get a new keyboard, speakers, etc.), but it was Apple's choice to design it so that you can't just replace the battery easily... so there's the consumer perspective of "why should I care?"

I unfortunately haven't heard any anecdote / story of Apple being lenient on the 80% level, even with escalation, so I think that's probably not a good use of your time, and will lead to more frustration.

Here's what I would do:
- Keep using it as much as you can on battery and leave it plugged in 24/7 when not using it (get cycles in). The "problem" given your goal is that the 2014-2015 MBP generation of batteries were much heartier than the Thunderbolt/Touchbar 2016-2020 generation (and now as well looking like the new M1 Pro/Max based MBPs) when it came to "battery health degradation" and leaving plugged in all the time. So it may not degrade that quickly... For most people, that's an advantage. In your case, it's a negative given you want to get Battery Health <80% lol
- Try to do what you can in the meantime to maximize your battery life while using so it minimizes inconvenience. Turn off bluetooth when not using. Reduce screen brightness to what you really need
- Did you recently upgrade from Mojave to Big Sur (per your post above)? Often the first few days of use post-upgrade, indexing of files uses intense resources and can reduce battery life significantly, but it settles down after a few days. Could that be happening in your case?
- If you have the early-2015 MBP, you could upgrade from Big Sur to Monterey (https://www.macworld.com/article/673697/what-version-of-macos-can-my-mac-run.html) I think based on this the early-2015 MBPs could still do so. It's very possible there's something with Big Sur that was draining your battery life more than usual...

 

[Unami]

What's the best way to accelerate battery deterioration to reach the magic 80%?

Probably by running it down below 10% as often as possible and having it plugged in all the time when you‘re not using it.

Also, first try a clean install of the OS and wait a few days - maybe it‘s a software issue.

 

[okkibs]

I'm gonna be the devil's advocate here and say that Apple is likely correct: If the battery diagnostics are somewhat accurate and the battery has 80% of its original capacity, then you lost only a fifth of the original runtime due to battery degradation. And that doesn't warrant throwing the battery on the landfill already.

The reason why battery life is much worse now than it was years ago is for a different reason. I have a 2015 Macbook Pro as well and it's now on its fourth and last battery since a couple weeks ago (this time from ifixit as Apple told me it's out of support and refused), all 3 original Apple batteries swelled up within 3 years and I am really annoyed how bad of an experience I had with this Mac. They made me pay full price for a replacement each time, despite discussing this with the store manager the third time around.

In any case, the battery runtime was terrible with the last Apple battery and it's equally bad with the ifixit one. Originally I got 7-8 hours which is the most you can expect, the 12 hours Apple claimed were never reachable anyways with Intel Macbooks.

As soon as I open up a couple browser tabs or play some Youtube the CPU usage spikes pretty high and the device is always under load even with the simplest tasks. Just browsing with some Youtube music playing keeps the CPU above 30%.

And that's why the battery life is terrible - the only way to get more than 2-3 hours is by opening text edit on medium brightness. Idly on the desktop with no apps open it even does 7-8 hours. Open any modern app and you can cut that in half and more.

This isn't exclusive to this specific Macbook or even Macbooks in general. All older computers have the issue that their old CPUs can't keep up anymore with modern apps.

In other words, a new battery wouldn't fix it, you'd get maybe an hour or so more at best, but the issue really is the old power hungry and overwhelmed CPU, not the small decrease in battery capacity.

You can confirm this on your own Mac by rebooting, not opening a single app and verifying in Activity Monitor that the CPU is not doing anything. Then set the display to remain always on, 50% brightness and from 100% it should stay alive for 5-6 hours, way more than you get out of it during normal use. I get about 8 hours that way with the brand-new 3rd party battery.

 

[dpny]

Just had the battery in my 2018 MBP replaced for $200 because it was swelling. Took it into the Apple Store with pics of the battery and they asked no questions.

Might be worth removing the bottom to visually inspect the battery.

 

[iksretep]

I'm at 91% capacity on my less than year old M1 Air ... Always on latest OS and always using Optimized Battery Charging. Yes I can squeeze quite a bit of time without charging, and have AppleCare+ ... but it does worry me a bit.

 

[nigelbb]

It's a few months on & I've been running the battery right down then leaving it on charge all the time when I'm not using it & I think I have reduced the battery capacity below 80%.

I open up Terminal & enter this command

ioreg -l -w0 | grep Capacity

I get "AppleRawMaxCapacity" = 6896 & "DesignCapacity" = 8755

6896/8755 = 0.78766419 or 79%

I will take it in to an Apple Store ASAP as after the disappointment I had with trying to get the battery replaced on my 2014 MBP I don't want to discover that the batteries are no longer available. https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...vailable.2372482/?post=31785589#post-31785589

 

[hexagenia]

I feel the pain in this thread. Just last week I sent my Mid-2015 Retina in for a battery replacement. It went in with 81%, but I was getting unannounced and unexpected outages when the laptop was as low as 35% remaining. It was truly becoming unusable.

Well, apparently all Apple authorized service centers (in the States) have to provide diagnostic information that is less than 48 hours old for any battery being replaced. In the course of running diagnostics, the laptop apparently "just failed." So I went from $299 for a battery to $1535 for a repair at the mothership, which was just a bridge too far.

I can't believe they make a battery replacement such an ordeal, especially when we're the one's paying for it outside of AppleCare. IMHO, how to turn a great experience with Apple hardware into a terrible experience with Apple Customer Support. Works every time...

 

[nigelbb]

I went to the Apple Store on Norwich when I attempted to get my 2015 MBP battery replaced because it only lasts a couple of hours not the six hours i got formerly (refused because battery capacity was 86%) & my 2014 MBP (agreed as it said Service Recommended but there is no more stock of spares). I saw the same Genius on both occasions. Now my 2015 MBP is below just 80% I am going to take it to the Apple Store in Cambridge as I can't bear to see this particular Genius again.😀

 

[okkibs]

Batteries for the 2015 model are no longer in production as of mid 2022, so now you'll be in the same situation that it depends on whether there is any remaining stock. My Early 2015 MBP was already refused the battery replacement due to not having the part. I had to take the swollen fire risk battery out myself as the Apple Store helpfully just offered to recycle the entire device for me and wouldn't remove the battery for me.

I'm not really mad at Apple for any of that though, the Mac was relatively cheap to begin with and after the free staingate replacement in 2019 and another battery replacement back then with a new topcase and keyboard that Mac still looks and (now with an ifixit battery) works like it's brand new. The design makes it look more modern than many brand new Windows laptops. And the USB ports transmit around 250MB/s with my best USB thumbdrives, which is plenty fast. The big display bezels give away the age though. Still a nice laptop in 2022, I added a 2TB M.2 SSD as well.

 

[giffut]

Battery Capacity Indicator in macos and iOS is crooked. We have no way of a third party audit. Remember when they downclocked iPhones to mask their deterioating batteries to aboid those replacement costs.

It is all part of nudges and pushes to get new hardware sold. It is so unfortunate.