Time to find out if my iPod AppleCare is valid

I got my iPod a year and four months ago. This one was a replacement for a replacement for a replacement, the whole sorry story of which can be read here. However, when I got the one that this is a replacement for, I got AppleCare. But that one died in a matter of a few days, and they fixed it by sending another one with a different serial number. So the serial number isn’t the same as the one on the AppleCare registration.

And here’s why suddenly I care about this: Most of the time when I listen to my iPod, it’s plugged into the wall charger (and I have a very long headset cord so I can leave it there while I roll my chair around in my cube, but every now and then I disconnect it from the wall and wear it downstairs to the lab). But this Friday, I took it with me in the car. It had been plugged in right up to that point, and so it was fully charged, but I only got three hours of it before it died. This is really bad. Apple claims a 10 hour battery life for a new iPod, and I know I’ve seen at least 8 hours in the past. Apple also says that if your iPod’s battery life is less than half the advertised value, and it’s still under AppleCare, then you get a free battery replacement.

So either I find out whether I wasted my money on the AppleCare, or I say to hell with it, it’s not broken, just live with it.