[acadian]

As of 10 days ago MBP started acting up when running on battery power, would randomly shut down when fully charged etc... Called Applecare on Thursday, requested replacement after convincing them that I had done enough testing to ensure it was a battery issue. recvieved replacement when I go home tonight and just in time because when I got to work this morning and set the book on my desk I noticed it was wobbly, lifted it up to find the battery burst....

17" MBP ICD 2.16

[bigmike]

I notice there's a small gap between the grey plsatic and the metal casing on my 15" mbp battery as well, it's not as worse as yours and it's barely noticeable. But my laptop would shutdown randomly when battery level is less than 40%.

May I ask what is your usage for the battery? Do you keep it in the battery bay when plugged-in? And how many recharge cycles did your battery go through?

I usually would remove the battery when it's plugged in, therefore I am guessing that's why the external appearance had not change much, but rather, only performance is affected.

[chris m.]

I just had the exact same problem on my MBP17 (2.16) as well. It seemed normal this morning until I called Apple about the problem I had with it shutting down after 15 mins on a full battery. They were going to have me send the whole machine in (or go to the Apple store, which I didn't really want to do), but I asked if there was anything else we could do, so tech support had me shut down the machine and asked me to remove the battery. Lo and behold, there's the battery bulging out.

Then there's this story about a MacBook bursting into flames:
macbook inferno - MacTalk Forums

Not good, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a recall soon.

[cbrfanatic]

Originally Posted by chris m. 

I just had the exact same problem on my MBP17 (2.16) as well. It seemed normal this morning until I called Apple about the problem I had with it shutting down after 15 mins on a full battery. They were going to have me send the whole machine in (or go to the Apple store, which I didn't really want to do), but I asked if there was anything else we could do, so tech support had me shut down the machine and asked me to remove the battery. Lo and behold, there's the battery bulging out.

Then there's this story about a MacBook bursting into flames:
macbook inferno - MacTalk Forums

Not good, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a recall soon.

my mothers macbook caught fire the day she got it, first time booting it a capacitor blew out and smoked up near the rear vents...

[highstakes]

Wow...I am surprised it didn't catch on fire or something like that.