MBA battery bulge? (First Gen Rev A)

[lailaikatong]

Hi everyone,

Woke up this morning to find my mum's Air's bottom case bulging… It's a Revision A 1.6GHz 80GB HDD, purchased in March 2008..

With everything enclosed inside the unibody frame I have no idea what's causing the buldge, but I suspect its the battery… The case is bulging upwards on the right side of the keyboard and on the bottom side as well, so it won't lie flat on the table and I can't close the lid properly:

I dare not switch it on right now, in case it might explode or something LOL… AppleCare hotline is closed on weekends so gonna call them first thing Monday morning… This air had the broken hinge issue which was replaced under warranty, but now that AppleCare has expired I wonder what my chances are of getting this bulge problem fixed? It does seem like a safety issue after all…

Wish me luck guys!

 

[alust2013]

I believe they typically replace swollen batteries (which that very clearly is) for free. I'm not sure what they would be able to do about the case though.

 

[Shoot]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/534.32 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

Bulging batteries are generally replaced free of charge- it's not your fault (at least directly). As for the casing, again it's the result of something outside of your hands. I would head to a large apple store and make an appt. Be polite and they'll understand. In the off chance that the genius is having a bad day and can't see straight politely ask for a manager and explain. I'm sure they'll help. Apple are always great with this kid of stuff in the stores. Over the phone though its hell. Don't try.

 

[OllyW]

I believe they typically replace swollen batteries (which that very clearly is) for free. I'm not sure what they would be able to do about the case though.

Here's an example from a few months ago. They replaced all of the parts which were damaged by the swollen battery.

 

[lailaikatong]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your input and also the link to the other thread showing a similar incident.

I'm in Malaysia, so there's no Genius Bars here that I could simply walk into. There's only authorised service providers who would insist on charging a fee (or at least a deposit upfront) for anything that's out of the warranty period.

Anyway, I made a phonecall to AppleCare hotline a few minutes ago, explained nicely what has happened. The issue was escalated to a senior advisor, and they've agreed to repair everything that's affected (battery, keyboard & bottom case) for free I was issued a case number that I need to provide to the service provider, so I won't need to pay a thing!

Gonna sell of this Air as soon as it's fixed, and get the new one that's due to be released soon! Yay!