Battery capacity went down, overnight

Question

So i bought my MBP Nov 06, and since then it has been working great. Then about half a year ago i would find that the battery, when discharged completely, and then charged back up, would have significantly less max capacity then it did the day before. I would then use the computer for a while, not on AC power, and the max capacity would jump back up to 99% or so, as stated in coconut battery but it can easily be calculated by dividing my current capacity from 5500mAh, from anywhere between 60% and 80%. I didn't think of it too much, but then a few weeks ago, it did it again, but now it is not going back up to the max capacity. It is staying at 67%-68%. The battery only has 74 load cycles on it, and it has been at 99% for about a year, since i don't use it on battery that much. I found this:
http://www.apple.com/support/macbook...batteryupdate/
However it looks like it only extends the warranty of the battery on CD MBP, not the C2D. But this shouldn't matter, my battery is terrible, and i just noticed last night that it was charging for five hours. I thought it would have finished, but it just kept going, and was down to 47% max capacity. Then i left it in sleep mode, and it used 10% battery, and went back up to 67% this morning. Any suggestions, otherwise over christmas break i'll bring it to an Apple store.
Here are the details:
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 3739
Remaining Capacity (mAh): 3722
Amperage (mA): 196
Voltage (mV): 12632
Cycle Count: 74
Thanks
Message was edited by: silbeej
Message was edited by: silbeej

Answer 1

They certainly haven't charged me. The on-line instructions said you'd need to take the machine into an authorised dealer or such, fairly inconvenient from where I live, but I just phoned the number given for UK service (see http://www.apple.com/support/contact/phone_contacts.html for worldwide contact details) and described the problem. I started by saying that the MBP was certainly out of warranty but that I believed the battery failure fell within their extended warranty period as described on their web site. I'd got full details ready - serial numbers of the MBP and of the battery and all the information about the battery from System Profiler - which was really all a dealer could have checked. They agreed to send me a new battery for free and a pre-paid label for returning the old one: they wanted credit card details and, not unreasonably, will charge me if I don't return it. I got a couple of helpful emails from the guy I spoke to (in one of Apple's Indian call centres) withing two minutes of putting the phone down and an order reference quickly followed by a dispatch notification within ten minutes. I've been critical of Apple's service before, but this was exemplary.
It was pretty clear that my problem fitted into one of the categories listed in the url I gave in the previous post and I'm not sure that yours does, but it can't do any harm to ask.