2008 Unibody owners, check your battery...

Well, I was doing my yearly desk cleaning and I noticed that the battery cover wasn't flat, so I went to pop it off and the battery popped out, I was like "Umm.. Okay.." I went to put it back in, but I couldn't even get the cover closed, I looked at the battery and noticed that it was bulging. So I'm not running with a battery, and will be off to the Apple store on the weekend. Yay! This may also be the reason why some times when I can home my Mac had restarted.

 

Weeee just got off the phone with Apple Care, they said it's not covered. She said it meant that it's at the end of its life cycle, it's just over 2 years old and less then 20 cycles on it, I don't care if when it get's older it doesn't last as long, but I can't even put it in my machine.

 

That's fairly common from what I understand.
Swollen and bent out battery in MacBook Pro - MacRumors Forums

 

Yeah, after some googleing it seems like it's what they do, but I don't get why some people got their's covered with Apple Care and they said they won't cover mine.

 

Is this an issue with the integrated MBP's? I recently bought a MBP 13 and wonder what damage a possible bulging battery would do to the unibody. Don't want to ruin the case.

 

Yeah, I was wondering what would happen to those MBP's if the battery bulges.

 

Hmm, It seems like I may have other problems, over the last couple months I notice that my MBP would have restarted by it's self, after finding this battery problem I thought maybe that's what was causing it, Well, after a 3 hour nap I come back and my Mac is off. Hmmm.

 

I don't have a lot of time to elaborate, but try the usual SMC and PRAM/nvram resetting.

My 2008 unibody MacBook battery swelled up too. It was rated at 99% health and had around 170 cycles on it. Apple told me I was SOL because I was both out of warranty and it was a consumable item. Despite the fact that this has happened to countless people.

 

Okay, I should probably stop reading these threads, because I've been seriously considering making the switch from PC to Mac, and this is exactly the type of situation I'm hoping to avoid after having several PC laptops with defects. :/

 

This is a rare problem, and the newer Macbooks aren't affected.

 

No computer is without flaw. Doesn't matter what you get, you have a chance of having an issue.

 

The battery is not a problem, it's what it's suppose to do, according to Apple.

As for the rebooting, I've read that resetting the SMC should fix it, Like SauronMOS said. I haven't tried it yet because I forgot about it after it took 8 hours to back up my drive.

 

Batteries aren't supposed to puff up like rigor mortis. There have been cases where the batteries cause damage to the case, trackpad, and internal components.
I don't believe Apple for a second on that one. That's like saying that the gaskets in an engine are supposed to leak. =/

 

My late 2008 MBP seems fine still. Even has like 95% battery health.

 

My battery, according to Coconut, has 101% battery life remaining in my 2008 unibody

48 Charge cycles though, still breaking it in I guess. 20 months are logged according to it.

No bulging though, everything works fine still. I have always had good luck with Apple batteries, in iPods and my Macbook. My 30gb 5th generation is 3 years old and the battery still works fine.