I have a disassembled laptop in my garage after a failed attempt to replace the battery on my 8 year old MacBook. Apple no longer offers repairs nor is there anyone else in the area I could find to do it. I replaced my wife’s (10 year old) battery a few months prior to attempting mine: hers required a few screws and was done in about 5 minutes. Mine required disassembling the whole computer dissolving the adhesive on the old battery and replacing then reassembling. If you’re going to plan on having apple fix your battery do it 5 or 6 years from now regardless of the condition and then pray you have some repair option when Apple stops providing support.
Good advice, thanks. I've replaced the battery on my wifes 2013 MBA and it was incredibly easy.
My MBP is maxed out and was quite an investment so I want to keep it around for as long as possible. I'll probably just be safe and have Apple replace the battery around 5 years assuming it stays usable for that long.
