The short answer? Yes. You can replace the battery yourself.
As a matter of fact, iFixit has a guide to show you how to do just that. Located here:
MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Mid 2009 Battery Replacement
And yeah, the battery being "manually inaccessible" is a complete fabrication. Though Apple does tend to try to make it as difficult as possible by throwing as many obscure screws with uncommon heads of variable sizes as they can find into their machines.
You'll see what I mean when you read the guide.
This particular model uses the illusive Tri-wing Y1 Screwdriver to try to keep its owners out. Luckily for you, the iFixit store happens to sell the tool you need (you know, in case collecting obscure and rarely used screwdriver heads isn't a hobby of yours).
Here it is:
Tri-point Y1 Screwdriver
They also throw in a bunch of randomly assorted Phillips head screws. More common, but iFixit sells the tool for that as well just in case:
Phillips #00 Screwdriver
The price of those two tools plus shipping and handling plus the price of a few hours of your time should at least be marginally cheaper than Apple's battery replacement service.
Oh, and here is the battery if you don't already have one:
[linked product missing or disabled: IF163-019]
Good luck. And happy hunting.
2 Comments
This question is more valuable now than ever. Now Apple will not replace batteries on mid-2009 MacBookPros. They regard them as obsolete, although their 2017 laptops are neither very much faster nor have more storage than the mid-2009 model I have (2.53 GHz dual core & 256 GB). A 2017 model with a 2.3 GHz processor and a 256 GB SSD costs $1500, and is not their lowest-end model. So much for Moore's "Law"!
Therefore, battery repair cost is no longer the issue: How reliable is the replacement battery?
Can we demand that producers extend their responsibility for the computers (phones, etc) they make by engineering simple reparability into perfectly usable products? This extended responsibility will benefit all of us by avoiding excessive ewaste. Kudos to ifixit!
by Mike
Moore's law refers to raw processing power which has been consistent. Just because an individual company decides to not put high end hardware in computers and sell based on their logo alone is another story.
by Bryan Edwards