MacBook Pro battery expanding – am I out of luck?

I purchased a MacBook Pro (17" Penryn 2.5Ghz) a couple years back in South Africa.  I moved to the US about a year ago and in the last couple months, I have noticed my battery expand.  I cannot use it in the machine anymore as I think it will damage it, and the trackpad button doesn't register a click anymore with the battery in (probably because of the pressure up from the battery).
Am I out of luck with getting a new battery and have to cough up the $125 for a new one?
I checked with the company that I bought the MacBook Pro from (authorized Apple Dealer in South Africa) and they do not cover anything like this.
Am I out of luck?
Cheers,
Calvin

Hi Calvin,
Unfortunately no one here can truthfully answer that question for you. This is a policy & procedure question for Apple and this message board is for user-to-user discussions. Does (or did) the machine have the AppleCare Protection on it?
There's two ways to handle this, as far as next steps:
1.) Call AppleCare via telephone, explain the situation and ask what options are available to you.
2.) Take the machine (and battery) into an Apple Authorized Service Center or Apple Retail Store (Genius Bar) for visual verification and ask what options are available to you.
You'll find that there's no clear cut response to these issues (battery expansion). For every person that doesn't get it covered by Apple, another person posts that they got it replaced free of charge with no questions asked.

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