My iPhone battery has expanded and it's popped the screen out, chances Apple will fix it for free?

UberTiger

UberTiger

UberTiger

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The battery in my Mum's Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max has expanded and popped the screen out.

Due to the safety concern I immediately turned it off and we haven't plugged it in since.

Being an iPhone 12 it's 4 years old, however to me this is a pretty serious safety concern and defect as opposed to a normal hardware failure, so really I think the onus should be on them to fix for free.

Anyone know if Apple will replace under warranty or if I should phrase the request in a certain way when I go to the Apple store for a repair to try and avoid having to pair a large service fee?

I first talked to them on chat and they offered for me to post it in with a £629 deposit, from which they could deduct any fees and I thought no chance, so going by in person in a couple of hours.
 
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UberTiger said:
Anyone know if Apple will replace under warranty or if I should phrase the request in a certain way when I go to the Apple store for a repair to try and avoid having to pair a large service fee?
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A friend of mine had pretty much the same scenario, he took a four year old phone in with an expanded battery, it wasn't as bad as you described because the screen hadn't popped out but they just replaced the whole thing for him with a refurb. He was very happy!

Let us know how you get on.
 
They refused to do a free or even reduced rate fix, which I wasn't happy about.

I tried to argue that it was incredibly disconcerting and worrying and a potential fire risk, however the manager explained that the expanding is a safety mechanism and that the battery operated as intended by expanding, but it's also has a fixed lifespan and at 4 years old it's not covered under any warranty.

£85 for a new battery with them, or £45 from my local independent repair shop.

I didn't kick up a fuss as my mum was there, I was probably a bit too nice not to push a bit harder, but I figured if my pretty sensible and reasoned logic (at least in my mind) about the fire risk didn't get through to them, then it's unlikely being a difficult customer would do any better.

Quite disappointed in how they handled it tbh.
 
That's the expected service TBH. When your phone is old they'll not do anything out of goodwill.

Years back I had an iPhone 5 that had a faulty battery which wouldn't keep it charged. Took it to the Apple store and the "Genius" there even admitted the cycle count was significantly less than the expected lifespan but it's not their fault it failed. They wouldn't replace the battery without paying £50 so I ended up buying a battery and doing it myself.

In those days you could replace components with some work however if you know about the right to repair situation now, Apple have made it harder by tying the components to the device so only authorised shops can do those repairs, which drives the cost up.
 
Feek said:
Not correct. Apple have a self service repair programme where anyone can do certain repairs, including battery changes.

Self Service Repair – Apple Support

Self Service Repair
support.apple.com
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On the surface that looks great, but in the details it's still worse and costs more than when you could repair it yourself.



They've only done that to comply with self repairs in the least helpful way possible. The channel of the first video did a test swapping parts from two genuine iPhones to each other and showed that the non genuine parts message would pop up on the iPhone showing that those messages are pure BS.

More recent pairing/repair testing video -

Still all within Apple's control whether you can repair as you need to pair all sorts of parts (such as the glass back, pointless). Still harder/more hoops to jump through than when you could replace parts yourself.
 
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