Z3 water damage repair - Xperia Z3 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So, my z3 took a swim in a lake. Wasn't deep at all and only for a few minutes.
Result, water damage, phone completely dead.
Sony have checked the phone and have confirmed the water damage. They will repair the phone, but because water damage isn't covered by warranty, they will charge around USD350 to repair.
Argh, what to do? Only had the phone for about 6 months.
Z5 does look tempting, but so expensive (at the moment) and also no rootability.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Ask to escalate to a manager, don't take no for an answer. They replaced mine and I understand that they acknowledge these problems.

Insist on it, water damage from assembly defect is covered under warranty assuming you didn't misuse your phone. Not sure if it's different in the USA but I talked with a Sony service manager and he confirmed that they can test the device for defects and if an assembly defect is found they'll repair it under warranty.

Thanks guys. Unfortunately in this case it seems they are not backing down (dealing with Sony in Hong Kong, if that makes a difference). They are saying the LCD panel and the mainboard are water damaged. I spoke to them yesterday and they said they are not going to be able to fix it, but instead will offer me a refurbished phone for the previously quoted price of c. USD350.
They did note that the back cover of the phone was slightly lifted, so it is a good chance the water went in through there. In all fairness this was probably my fault (FYI this was pointed out to me when I took the phone in for repair) as I have dropped the phone a few times. As much as I want to claim, I don't think this was a faulty phone situation.

i submerged mine in a pool and rivers several times, last time i did it the screen went black only led working camera glass was foggy what i did was i openned de flaps i left inside my car 1 hour, i too it out after that hour. the camera glass was still foggy then with my mouth started to suck air from the sim card/micro sd slot i did it until the fogg disapered waited a few minutes the camera went foggy on more time i repeated the process of sucking air waited a few minutes the fogg disapered and i turned it on, it was working again without flaws except the camera but one hour later the camera went back again
dont know what happened if it was luck or what but thats what i did

Just an update.
Sony wouldn't back down on the cost, however I was able to make a claim with my travel insurance company. They have agreed to cover the replacement cost. Only wrinkle now is that Sony don't have stock of a z3 and have to put an order in, will take a few weeks to receive.

When you get new LCD screen (if old is broken), the phone isn't anymore watteproof

Related

[Q] NS Best Buy Repair...

I bought my Nexus S at Best Buy when it was free for AT&T last week and I was coxed into buying their Black Tie Protection Plan. I have to say that it was a great idea. However, I took my phone in, because I had a deep scratch in the screen and they told me it's a no go, and they wouldn't accept it for repair. The scratch was deep enough where I could feel it with my fingers... In the end, the phone had to be more impacted, like a cracked screen. They told me Zagg would make it look like new again... All of this while I was waiting for my Case Mate case in the mail...
So I went home and intentionally dropped my phone from two feet from the ground and it smashed the screen! I was "hopping" it would hold up a bit better than it did, but it did have a scratch in the screen. Went back to BB today and turned it in... unfortunately I had read terrible stories of BB repair turn around times, taking up to three weeks!!! So here I am waiting for a commencement email from BB regarding the repair...
Anyone else have experience with BB Black Tie Protection?
The speaker on my first nexus blew out and I also had the black tie protection. Instead of repairing mine they just approved me for junk out about a week later and i went into best buy and got a brand new one. The only way it's gonna take a terribly long time is if the repair center is bogged down or they are having trouble repairing the phone. I wouldn't worry about it too much as the typical time is usually gonna be no more than two weeks.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
I have the black tie. Never did a repair though. however I did have to take my nexus in yesterday because of wonky touch buttons. They said I qualified for rapid exchange. They took my nexus, gave me an LG Optimus loaner, and said I'd h have a new nexus in 3 days. Can't beat that!
Sent from my LG-P509 using XDA App
I took mine in for repair because the screen started to lift up on the top right corner. They said it would be taken care of in 3 to 5 business days. That was four business days ago. Also on the Geek Squad tracking website it still shows my device only as being checked in. Luckily I still have my N1 as a backup phone.
I was with GeekSquad a long time ago and their Policy then was, that Under no circumstances would they cover screen scratches or cracks. I'm sure that still stands now.
3 weeks is normal if they send the phone to Samsung, at least it's normal for European electronic device (phones, laptops, tvs, etc) exchanges/repairs.
Because I work for Geeksquad, I can answer most questions reguarding BTP.
90% of the phones sold at BBY qualify for Rapid Exchange BTP, the remaining 10% are either standard repair (taking approx 3-4 weeks to send it in get it repaired and then shipped back, but they provide a loaner phone everytime.) or In-store exchange.
Rapid exchange is essentially a pre-repaired phone, aka refurb. Instead of waiting normal repair times you get refurbs normally within 3 business days.
As for the OP, whoever told you scratches were not covered is lieing to you. BTP covers everything except blatent abuse, IE smashing the phone infront of an employee or sticking it under a tire and driving over it on purpose(yes they really can tell). This also includes water damage. Next time they tell you its not covered, ask to speak to a manager.
Well, I should have posted this before cracking the screen. And I thought they told me BTP covered everything except lost or stolen! (So I wouldn't have to go through the pain of cracking my screen...) And the rapid exchange wouldn't work because I have an AT&T version, which I believe is sold out...
Now I have to pain through three weeks!!! Dang!
Thanks for the info.
jake.corey.jacobs said:
Because I work for Geeksquad, I can answer most questions reguarding BTP.
90% of the phones sold at BBY qualify for Rapid Exchange BTP, the remaining 10% are either standard repair (taking approx 3-4 weeks to send it in get it repaired and then shipped back, but they provide a loaner phone everytime.) or In-store exchange.
Rapid exchange is essentially a pre-repaired phone, aka refurb. Instead of waiting normal repair times you get refurbs normally within 3 business days.
As for the OP, whoever told you scratches were not covered is lieing to you. BTP covers everything except blatent abuse, IE smashing the phone infront of an employee or sticking it under a tire and driving over it on purpose(yes they really can tell). This also includes water damage. Next time they tell you its not covered, ask to speak to a manager.
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Sorry, BTP was not around back then. I was a GeekSquad DA at launch; remained for two and a half years.

OnePlus Repair Center Nightmare!

So.. a couple of weeks ago, I dropped my phone and it stopped working completely. The back glass is cracked and at first it was completely dead, I wasn't able to turn it on or anything. Later it eventually booted and it's currently working fine (all hardware things are working fine). I decided to get a back glass replacement anyway just because it will cut my fingers when used without a case.
So, I requested a repair, and today OnePlus "approved it", they sent me an email message from UPS and here the nightmare begins.. I also got an email from the repair center that will be replacing my back glass, the only problem is... that this repair center is possibly the biggest scamming repair center in my country. When You Google their company name, You can find hundreds of bad reviews and threads on various forums where people talk about it how they got scammed or how they send their phones to that repair center with for example battery that was draining very quickly (phone still on warranty) and they got an email from the repair center that the phone suffered water damage and motherboard has to be replaced (even though the owner said that his phone never even got close to any liquid or water), and the cost of repair is literally 2x the price of a new phone. (Later the guy replaced the battery by himself and phone was working fine, so as You can see liquid damaged motherboard was BS)
I do understand that bad reviews are normal and most repair centers have at least one or two of those, but.. like 2-3 years ago I bought a tablet (it cost around $75). I just needed some cheap tablet to watch YT videos etc. After some time the tablet randomly died and I sent it to the SAME repair center that OP uses. After 3-4 weeks I got an email saying that tablet repair will cost around $100 (30 USD more than price of a new tablet) and guess what they said when I asked them what's wrong with it. They said that sim card pins are shorted and it killed the motherboard. Well. I'm not a phone/tablet repair expert so I can't tell if shorted sim card pins can break Your motherboard. (Later I tried shorting sim card pins on some old flip phone and nothing happened, but then again, newer technology might be more sensitive IDK) But! The problem is.. that tablet didn't have a sim card slot! . Eventually after 2 months of fighting with the store and the repair center, store agreed to give me my money back and I just saved it and bought Mi Pad 2 later from China (it still works perfectly!).
So as You can see, even I already had terrible experience with this repair center. Now, my question is. What am I supposed to do now? I don't really care about warranty as local repair services charge 1/3rd of the price for repair. So I can just give my phone to them and lose the warranty. Or I can order replacement back and replace it by myself. Or I can send my phone to that repair center that OP uses and most likely never see my phone again or get a 500 USD bill.
What should I do guys? Right now I'm thinking about replacing the back glass by myself. I've done it before like 3 times (on my family's phones) and everything went pretty smoothly. Or I could just give it to local repair service and they will fix it in 1 hour if I'll give them my phone and new back glass.
(Remember that this repair center isn't OP's official repair center, they repair a lot of no brand/generic smartphones and tablets, sadly including OP's phones.)
There are no easy answers. You can purchase the back housing directly from OP or from the following link for under $20
https://www.witrigs.com/oem-battery-cover-camera-lens-ring-replacement-for-oneplus-6-midnight-black
or you can look at iFixit website for the back panel
I would suggest taking it to the place like: https://www.ubreakifix.com/locations (Samsung uses their services). If they ask for around $50-$75 for the labor cost, you will get the back glass replaced for under $100 which (at least to me) seems reasonable cost. Good luck. Keep us posted which route did you end up taking?
Gr8man001 said:
There are no easy answers. You can purchase the back housing directly from OP or from the following link for under $20
https://www.witrigs.com/oem-battery-cover-camera-lens-ring-replacement-for-oneplus-6-midnight-black
or you can look at iFixit website for the back panel
I would suggest taking it to the place like: https://www.ubreakifix.com/locations (Samsung uses their services). If they ask for around $50-$75 for the labor cost, you will get the back glass replaced for under $100 which (at least to me) seems reasonable cost. Good luck. Keep us posted which route did you end up taking?
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Huge Thanks for telling me about Witrigs website! They even sell all tools needed for the repair.
I decided that I won't send it to that repair center. Even reviews posted this month are negative. So they haven't changed for sure. I don't care about warranty so I'm just going to fix it by myself most likely. Tomorrow I'll go to my local repair service and I'm going to ask them how much they want for back replacement if I'll give them new back glass + phone. If it won't be too expensive then I'll order new back from Witrigs or AliExpress and then I'll give them everything and they will fix it. And if they are going to ask for too much then I'm just going to fix it by myself.
Last time I asked them for display replacement cost (Galaxy S6) they said that they will charge me $30 + new display price. It was some time ago though.
We will see. Thanks for the links!
Good luck!! I think other users will benefit if you loop back and let us know the total cost and difficulty in getting the parts, etc. Take care.
Do it yourself. Slow and carefully. Watch some youtube video how to do it. Good luck!
Another vote on doing it yourself, especially since you've done this type thing before. Just be mindful of trying to do this in a somewhat dust free environment since you are removing the camera cover... don't want to get dust or fingerprints on inside of that cover or the lens that will stay forever. And make sure to seal that camera good.
Good luck :good:

Warranty repair, check moisture sensors befoer shipping it back?

Edit: forgot to mention what the issue is: the speaker does (most times) not work when being called/calling out. But not realy relevant for the question at hand imho.
The phone is still under manufacturers warranty but I forgot to claim warranty before the credit-card insurance ran out
So now I want to make sure the warranty is honoured and due to many horrorstories with repair companies, make sure I have all my bases covered.
Where are the moisture sensor(s) in a Note 6 pro? Can I open the housing without damaging anything? (Link to random note-6 youtube video) Is this enough or are the sensors burried deeper in the phone? Am I allowed to open it up or is this in itself reason for not honouring the warranty?
Or should I just trust the repaircompany to do its work properly and am I seeing ghosts?
The phone has never been wet, it might have been looked at while there was a drizzle, but that's it.
When cycling through the rain it was stored inside a bag, not just a jacket-pocket (how an earlier Samsung died). So I have no reason whatsoever to suspect moisture damage, but I have first hand experience where a repair company refused warranty where I later found out this was bull (HTC HD2 with broken home-button, very common problem).
If I were to ask for proof, they can just keep the phone over a watercooker and voila, moisture damage....

Burn in, should I send the phone in warranty?

So, I bought my OnePlus 6 about 9 months ago from someone, it's total age being about 1.5 years right now.
During this time I got some burn-in on the screen. Especially around the notch and bottom.
The guy gave me his order receipt but I lost it, so I just have the box now. From what I heard the warranty is just via serial number isn't it?
Also, the biggest problem: I took the phone in the bath many times (few times the speaker got water in it) so that might've tripped the humidity sensors. Is this the deal breaker?
Any luck sending it in warranty and not get refused for water sensors, or get a second hand display when this one dies?
First of all, the warranty is 1 year not 2. Burn in is not covered by the warranty i think because it's due to the user's fault. and 3 why would any one goes with their phone into the bath lol.
Chinaroad said:
First of all, the warranty is 1 year not 2. Burn in is not covered by the warranty i think because it's due to the user's fault. and 3 why would any one goes with their phone into the bath lol.
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Well I keep it for background music only, don't wanna get speakers or a TV there.
Whatever, so it's 1 year only. Thanks for that.
I'll get to finding good panels on AliExpress in the next few months as the burn in worsens. It's still relatively ok now except for lower overall brightness.

Dead Pixels!!!!!!!!

I set my phone down and picked it up only to find dead Pixels in the lower right of the screen! Anyone else have this happen. I haven't dropped the phone or gotten it wet. I am sending it off to Samsung Thursday. I hope they fix it and don't come up with some excuse to to warranty the dead Pixels.
I've had this happen as well. I sent it off to be fixed but when it came back, the front display wasn't working. Now I'll have to send it off again...
What a mess. You would think they would just give you a new phone. They wanted me to take it to one of these fix it places here in Dallas. I opted to send it to the official samsung repair. We shall see.
Yep, me too
This just happened to me an hour ago. I have not damaged the phone in any way. I hope this doesn't turn out to be another Galaxy Fold debacle.
Update: I just called Sprint and since I am within the 30 day satisfaction window, they are going to replace my phone. If this happens again then I'll be highly disappointed!
yopiggy said:
What a mess. You would think they would just give you a new phone. They wanted me to take it to one of these fix it places here in Dallas. I opted to send it to the official samsung repair. We shall see.
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Hey what was the update ? I live in dallas too. and I have exactly the same concern. Its good to know what they say before i go there.
Same here. I sent it in for repair, got slammed back with out of warranty due to an invisible scratch in a totally different spot, with their own admission is unrelated to the dead pixel and fault in the screen, and is only on the outer cover...but still invalidate warranty....I switched to Samsung 3 years ago, I might be trying google next...can't replace a good customer service when it matters.
I took my phone to the Samsung repair place uBreakiFix located at 6205 Coit Rd Suite 336, Plano, TX 75024. They fixed it under warranty. Now my phone is really getting hot. So hot is is starting to burn my face when I talk on it. Looks like i will be calling samsung again. I am afraid this thing is going to explode.
Dead Pixels x2!
I am already on my 2nd Galaxy Z Flip and now trying to get #3! My first phone developed a spot of dead pixels in the middle of the screen. They magically appeared less than 24 hours after I received it. It was only plugged in to charge overnight, so I know that they were not caused by me. It then took over 3 weeks of multiple calls to finally get it replaced! At first, they kept trying to get me to send it in for a refund, and then told me that I could just buy a new one to fix it. I told them that they were dumb and that this was not a logical option. I received this phone through the Samsung Device Insights program for 1/2 price and a replacement would cost me the full amount.
Finally, after spending another hour on the phone and telling my story for the 50th time, I finally got through to someone in a higher up support office. He agreed with me that the previous calls and my experiences were ridiculous. He took the time to contact a local authorized Samsung repair store where he could send a replacement phone for me to pick up. On the bright side, I only had to turn in the phone, and I got a completely brand new one in the box. He said I could keep all the accessories from the original phone. While it did take a few days longer than I was originally told, I did eventually get the new phone.
Fast forward to today, I have had this replacement device for exactly 20 days. I am presently at work and when I opened the phone to check my messages, I found MORE DEAD PIXELS! Just like the last phone, they are always visible, only this time they are at the top of the display. I made another call back into Samsung, and I am currently waiting for a return phone call from Anthony. He just so happens to be the same upper level support person that I spoke with last time. He was the only one that was able to get the phone swapped out. Now I am hoping he will call me back to get this taken care of again.
I will say that If I do not get a call today as promised, I am sending it back for a full refund and I will never again buy another Samsung product. I am leery about even getting a 3rd unit after the horrible experiences I have had. Have any of you had similar problems and did they get your defective phone screens repaired/replaced as promised? So far, I am very underwhelmed and think that Samsung has a long way to go to provide proper customer service.
Me too
I've had a Z flip for 5 months and tiny dead pixels on the top of screen.
I've never dropped nor wet.
I went to Samsung repair shop in London and they told me that they can't repair under warranty and I had to pay 99 pounds.
They mentioned that they could see tiny scratch on the screen which I couldn't see my eyes.
My friends told me that Samsung after care are terrible and I agree that.
I've been carefull this phone and I've never had a problem with dead pixels before.
I felt I was conned and very disappointed with Samsung

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