In the last two months a bunch of users have come to me telling me that there laptops were giving them warnings about their batteries reaching the end of their useful life. When the first two were reported, I assumed they were unusual flukes just gave the users new batteries. When the third came in, I suspected something was up.
With six basically dead batteries in front of me (the oldest only 14 months old) I give Dell technical support a call. Once again I learn that Dell can't track an items serial number back to an original system or order. I also learn that Dell has a one year warranty on batteries. The support rep suggests I check to see if the batteries are part of a recall at the Dell Battery Program.
Nope, none of the batteries are part of a recall. With service tags for some of the batteries, the support rep looks to see if the batteries would still be under warranty. Nope, not under warranty. Requesting his manager gets me the response "There are some recalls involving runtime issues that I can look up". I guess the Dell Battery Program page is only for recalls that might be dangerous to the user.
It turns out to be my lucky day, as the rep can replace all six batteries under one of those apparently top-secret recalls. With a case number and a promise for new batteries to be on my doorstep within two business days, I was off the phone in under 30 minutes.
