Well, 289 cycles later my “vintage” i7 MacBook Pro needs a new battery. I called Apple to discuss this and they said they don’t officially stock the parts anymore. You’d think they would still be interested in selling consumables but apparently not.
Apple’s become a bit hard and fast with discontinuing service parts for certain models. The Early / Late 2011 era machines especially so.
(The repair extension program for video issues ended on December 31st, 2016 and the supply of service parts was discontinued one day later on January 1st, 2017. Guess they decided they were tired of fixing them. Resulted in a lot of consumer law claims when replacement boards started failing 6 months later too.)
Somewhat frustrating is the fact that these batteries are still available from Apple. You just can’t order one because your machine is classed as a vintage product.
For a 15", it’s part number 661-04563, interchangeable between the MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011), MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2011) and MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012) models.
For a 13", it’s part number 661-04559, interchangeable between the MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010), MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011), MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011) and MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012). I believe it’s possibly also compatible with the 13" 2009 models too.
My recommendation would be to contact some Apple service providers - not Apple Stores - and see if they can offer a battery replacement. Otherwise retailers like MacFixit Australia sometimes sell aftermarket and used genuine batteries.
I may even have some good condition genuine batteries for that model around here still, but I’d have to check, and shipping loose batteries is sometimes a bit difficult depending on couriers and shipping regulations.
AASPs can still order parts when machines are classed as vintage?
I’ve had refurb batteries in the past they don’t tend to be much chop. What is my major gripe on this is computers on the same CPU Arch if not stepping are being discontinued for a couple of reasons, but among them is forcing people to upgrade to a new mac. At this point with the way the dollar is, I don’t need one. I can’t really afford one either.
What should be a like for like swap turns into a massive pain in the bum for a battery with only 289 cycles on it. I’m in the process of backing up… Because of the way it crashed its managed to corrupt the boot disk also. I’ve been staving this off for a few days but I’m needing to get this done.
Its an annoyance at this time of the year. However I’ve also made a booking for my local repairer. I’ll talk to them and see what they can do about it. I expect at the least it will be the cost of a new battery, and then maybe servicing costs on top.
Apparently, I was talking over the phone with an Apple tech and he was saying there may still be some floating around…
Thanks.
They’re not supposed to. Some however may still have those parts available because they’re interchangeable with still-supported models.
I’m going to find out tomorrow whether its logic board, battery, SMC or cable related. If its logic board related its pretty much game over for that computer and move on to the next. At $1800 by todays dollar I probably wont be buying a Mac.