M4400 6-Cell battery dying after a year of use

I don't think there is a precise definition of the threshold for replacement but a 50% loss of capacity within the first year should qualify. A 30% loss might struggle. My E6400's 6 cell (exactly the same battery but from a different source - Samsung) has lost less than 15%.

John

 

Don't forget to keep us up-to-date on how things are going. I'm sure there's more than just a few of us that want to know how well Dell backs their warranties.

 

Just got a reply to my email this morning that they will send me a new battery and pick up the old battery. Yay!

 

Nice. Odd, my Inspiron is almost 2 years old but only lost about 15%.

 

i use batterybar to check battery wear and such. I had my battery replaced by dell a couple of weeks ago with 35% wear after 9-10 months or so. My advice is to regularly check your battery and when it reaches levels of wear that are unacceptable for you just tell them so and ask for a replacement. The key is to do this within the year though since that's how long the warranty is valid.
My new battery already is -5% now after a couple of weeks and i think i'll call them whenever it reaches more than 30% to have it replaced again. Anything under 2hours of battery life isn't acceptable really and is a result of too much battery wear.

good luck

 

Do you think you can claim a warranty period on the replacement battery as well? I'm not sure whether that's true.

 

I would expect that every new item you get has a normal warranty.

 

I found this in Dell's standard Terms and Conditions:

John

 

I'm hoping this doesn't go for the battery then. Also because the battery isn't part of the warranty i have on my system. I've got 3yrs NBD servicer but the battery is only 1 year. I'll just see what happens next time....so far Dell has been vey lenient with me in case of 'not necessarily within warranty' issues. It's faitly easy reasoning that a new battery should work longer than 1 year no matter if it's the 2nd or 3rd battery you have. Ofcourse if they want to keep you to the letter of the warranty they might be right and not replace it.

 

When I configured my E6400 I opted for the extended battery service.

So I only get an entitlement to one replacement battery within the 3 year period.

I also think that 90 limit applies to batteries supplied under normal warranty so, that could be for up to 3 months beyond the end of a 1 year warranty.

John