SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20201125-29F4C-2147367912. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Apple MacBook Pro 15" with Retina Display (2015 MacBook Pro with Retina Display; 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor; 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM; AMD Radeon R9 Mc70X 2GB Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB graphics). Incident: MacBook Pro 15" with Retina Display - battery is very swollen and bloated, but is not part of current recall per online serial number look-up on Apple's support website. Battery tends to run very hot and is not charging properly. Battery meter does not measure battery information correctly. Have attempted to get help through Apple Store Genius Bar without success. Took laptop to MacMedics (Apple authorized repair center) yesterday. MacMedics confirmed battery is badly swollen / bloated. MacMedics and Apple Store will not replace battery for fire, hazardous fume, explosion-related safety concerns because it's a LiON battery that's glued to the upper case and it's difficult to remove. Indicated Apple's current recommendation for repair is to replace the entire upper case. Cost is $458 even though the issue is the same as the current recall issue because my laptop's serial number is not currently included in the covered list of serial numbers. Apple regards my laptop as "vintage". Several others have noted the same issue in online forums. Their laptops are not included in the current range of recall serial numbers, but they also have swollen / bloated batteries. Some have failed catastrophically. (explosion, fire, hazardous fumes) I attempted to follow up with Apple Support by phone today and was told that it's common and normal for the batteries to swell and bloat. It's expected.