Last April, the company also issued a battery-related recall for some 2016 13-inch MacBook Pros, but that one wasn’t considered a safety issue. In general, the company says the recall doesn’t affect any other MacBooks, so this shouldn’t affect the smaller 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display that was also sold between those same years. And Apple says this won’t extend your warranty. That’s quite a while, particularly if you need that machine for work. The bad news: You’ll need to send your MacBook to one of Apple’s repair centers, and the company’s estimating the fix could take one to two weeks.
If eligible, the company says it’ll replace your battery for free, meaning your older MacBook Pro may wind up lasting longer than it might have normally - much as older iPhones did when Apple offered $29 battery replacements as an apology for throttling the speed of those phones. It’s moving your computer from the old frame on to a new frame where the battery is glued on to the frame.A new lease on life for your trusty old MBP? Yes - a tech could be ready, the parts could be there and you could get a same day battery repair, but with glued batteries, it’s not a 10 minute repair like hard drive swap, ram swap or battery swap used to be. (We have about 3 repairs a week - most are damage and battery) Of course, you have overnight delivery so not all times is mail in faster, but for me it’s about 20 hours faster on average over the last 40 we’ve done for work. The repair centers are staffed for max parts, max labor and often they get repaired in less time than I would spend in the store parking / transit / queuing / handing off. I always choose to go mail in repairs in the US now unless I have to take it to Apple. Stores routinely send out involved repairs (and battery repairs on Macs are very involved now) - harder to do than a logic board or display swap or storage / RAM fix. Staffing in the stores is geared to helping people and diagnosing - not fixing. You have no control over how many other people drop their machines off for the same repair as yours between now and when you deliver yours for service.
This is why I'm a strong proponent of having a backup strategy that goes beyond Time Machine you back up your data in multiple places so if you're without a Mac for an extended period, you can continue to work even if the temporary machine isn't Apple. Having technician and parts availability is a complex process and (IMO) this is not Apple's wheelhouse. They are usually inundated with iPhone/iPad repairs mostly, then computer repairs. There are only a couple/three technicians that are actually qualified (by Apple) to do the repair. It's important to remember, Apple Stores are set up to sell new products - they are not a repair facility. If it takes more than a day, you can bet it is because they don't have the parts available. However, the total process can take up to a week or more depending on where you are in the repair queue and parts availability. In fact, it's a very simple repair and takes approximately 30 mins from start to completion.
Technically speaking, the repair "can" be done in a day. They need to swap out the top case assembly and this consists of the case itself, the keyboard, track pad and battery.Ĭan the repair be done in the same day, or does it typically take several business days? I was told that for this model, they need to swap the entire keyboard, track pad, in order to replace the battery.