My brother took his phone in today to an Apple store for a similar problem. His volume down button was smashed in from a drop. They replaced his 4gb with an 8 for free. Im pretty sure that if you have any damage problems short of water/cracked screen, you are covered by Apple care. Im definately going to renew my applecare policy for another 2 years seeing is that I have had 4 replacement phones since Iday.