The batteries are stuck in my MagLite

While cleaning and reorganizing the garage in preparation for building a new workbench, I came across an old silver mini-maglite.  My Dad buys these for me every year for my birthday (and for my brother, too), and he always gets two different colors, so we can pair the flashlight with the person.  No more fighting over the black flashlight.

As soon as I picked up the light, I immediately twisted the front, just like anyone would do, to see if it would come on.  It didn’t.  Why is it whenever you reach for a flashlight, the batteries are always dead?  Is that Newton’s fourth law?  Must be.

So I began to unscrew the bottom, and slide the AA batteries out, when I learned they were stuck fast inside.  There’s not much clearance inside the flashlight tube to begin with, so I knew there wasn’t much hope in getting the AA cells out.  To complicate matters, the top end, where the bulb is isn’t readily removable, so I might as well throw this thing out and buy a new MAGLITE Mini Flashlight.

When I opened the back end, I didn’t see any corrosion (which is a good sign), but apparently batteries swell in size right before they pop open and leak their corrosive battery guts all over.  You can see in the photo where I tried to use a pair of tweezers to grab the back end of the battery.  I stopped before actually breaking the battery and making a big mess.

That’s when I decided to do a quick search on Google to see if there were any brilliant ideas.  The very first  result was from the Mag Instrumet website describing what to do to send it in to get your Maglite repaired or replaced.

Simply send it in, and they will replace or repair it.  Even if the batteries leak!  You see Major brand batteries have their own anti-leak warranty – Duracell, Eveready, Ray-o-vac, and maybe others.  MagLite has an agreement with these companies that cover your flashlight, it seems.

So off it goes for repair to the address on the website.  I’ll keep you posted!

UPDATE!

About 5 weeks after I sent in the flashlight, I got a small brown package in the mail with a brand new flashlight in it.  There was a nice letter, thanking my for my business, too!  So Yes, the process works!