liquid damage - Vodaphone

grumbler

Something that invalidates warranty has to be defined somewhere at least. If you use a good microscope you will always be able to find some sort of 'damage'.
Liquid damage indicators exist for a reason.

Guys_Dad

Sfitzter wrote: »

The fact that there is liquid damage (assuming you believe the engineer) invalidates that warranty. The liquid damage does not have to be related to the fault found for the warranty to be void.

Indeed, Vodafone's site does say the following

In some circumstances our repair centre won’t be able to fix your phone and we’ll return it to the store – specifically if the
fault isn’t covered by the manufacturers warranty or if we identify one of the following problems.

Liquid / moisture damage

Moisture can corrode internal parts – but sometimes the source of this damage isn’t as obvious as rain or dropping your
phone in water. Steam from a kettle, bath or shower, or changes in climate are all common causes to be aware of. Please
note that this kind of damage will not be visible and is only detected when the phone is inspected during the repair process.

But it also says this

English Law: This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English Law. All issues and disputes under this Agreement shall be
dealt with exclusively in the English courts if the parties cannot resolve them by Agreement.

Now I am no expert in English law, but I refuse to believe that liquid damage, if detected but shown NOT to be in any way connected with the fault in question, could exclude ALL and ANY warranty claims, particularly when the manufacturer backs up the cause of the fault being in no way connected with any alleged water damage.

Still waiting for OP to advise if the water damage indicator was tripped or any evidence of corrosion.

gjchester

The issue is that liquid ingress usually means rain or sweat. Neither are pure water (think how you get white marks on your work out clothes or rain "tide" marks on shoes) and there are two main effects.

While the liquid is liquid it can short out components, potentially damaging electronics that end up with the wrong voltage passing though them.

Once the liquid part dries out the dissolved salt remain and can either corrode parts, or electrically bridge components and circuits. This can mean that the fault you end up with is nothing to do with a damaged part, and repairing the damage may not fix the problem.

None of this justifies why so many phones are rejected as water damaged, but explains why manufacturers exclude phones showing any sign of water damage from warranty cover. They simply cannot be sure they have fixed a problem, and in 99.999% cases liquid ingress is down to the owner not a warranty issue.

Guys_Dad

gjchester wrote: »

Once the liquid part dries out the dissolved salt remain and can either corrode parts, or electrically bridge components and circuits. This can mean that the fault you end up with is nothing to do with a damaged part, and repairing the damage may not fix the problem.

None of this justifies why so many phones are rejected as water damaged, but explains why manufacturers exclude phones showing any sign of water damage from warranty cover. They simply cannot be sure they have fixed a problem, and in 99.999% cases liquid ingress is down to the owner not a warranty issue.

Then in a case similar to the OP's where the fault is reported and confirmed as being in no way connected with water damage, then the repair centre could fix the obviously broken part and put in an "advice" - similar to those you get when your car passes its MOT but draws attention to other faults or non-current fail issues - warning customer that there is a danger that the handset might subsequently fail as a result of water damage.

What they should NOT do is use it as a cop out for everything, as per this case and Vodafone's site t&c.

gjchester

Guys_Dad wrote: »

Then in a case similar to the OP's where the fault is reported and confirmed as being in no way connected with water damage, then the repair centre could fix the obviously broken part and put in an "advice" - similar to those you get when your car passes its MOT but draws attention to other faults or non-current fail issues - warning customer that there is a danger that the handset might subsequently fail as a result of water damage.

What they should NOT do is use it as a cop out for everything, as per this case and Vodafone's site t&c.

Maybe, but that if the charging fault was down to a blown regulator not the faulty socket, the cost of diagnosis and repair labour means many faults can put a phone beyond economic repair quite quickly. It may take an hour of time to replace the socket then find it's something else.

It's not right but we live in a throw away society, repairs and spares cost more than replacing an item but thats unfortunaly the bottom line.

Guys_Dad

gjchester wrote: »

Maybe, but that if the charging fault was down to a blown regulator not the faulty socket, the cost of diagnosis and repair labour means many faults can put a phone beyond economic repair quite quickly. It may take an hour of time to replace the socket then find it's something else.

It's not right but we live in a throw away society, repairs and spares cost more than replacing an item but thats unfortunaly the bottom line.

Put all that to one side.

The manufacturer diagnosed the fault and fixed it, presumably economically, otherwise they would have replaced the handset. The vendor didn't. That ain't right.

crrussell

signs of water damage does void any warrenty in theory. people compare to a car warrenty so look at it this way if you crash your car, smash in the front passenger side corner and take the car back to advise that there is a judder on the steering that feels like its from he driver side but you feel its covered by the warrenty the garage would be within there right not to look into this as the problems may be connected to the other damage that is not covered. If there are signs of water damage then more often than not network provider will not investigate any further as they dont have to take out any warrenty repairs they can just forward you to maker in this case samsung. to compare them again fix the smashed car and take car back they will look into any problems with the phone take it back repair water damage if problem still exists then they will have to investigate further

Guys_Dad

crrussell wrote: »

signs of water damage does void any warrenty in theory. people compare to a car warrenty so look at it this way if you crash your car, smash in the front passenger side corner and take the car back to advise that there is a judder on the steering that feels like its from he driver side but you feel its covered by the warrenty the garage would be within there right not to look into this as the problems may be connected to the other damage that is not covered. If there are signs of water damage then more often than not network provider will not investigate any further as they dont have to take out any warrenty repairs they can just forward you to maker in this case samsung. to compare them again fix the smashed car and take car back they will look into any problems with the phone take it back repair water damage if problem still exists then they will have to investigate further

What a ridiculous comparison !

The point is that, under English law, the contract is between the vendor and the purchaser, not the manufacturer. It is the vendor's job in the first 6 months to prove that the fault was not down to manufacturing problems. How a broken charging point could be caused by "sweaty armpits" or similar defies logic.

Clearly, this particular fault fell into that category and was not caused by water damage. Regardless of Vodafone's T&C, to have any fault whatsoever being refused repair should be classified as unfair contractual terms.

crrussell

the vendor did not investigate as the phone showed signs of damage beyond general wear and tear if i stamp on my phone and break it then take it back to t-mobile and say the speaker wont work that they have to investigate to check the fault is not covered by warrenty. the liquid damage issue has been done a thousand times over and everyone knows network providers are alot tighter with warrenty than manufacturers as it was stated before if voda repaired the problem dispite water damage they could lose there right to repair that make of handset and in worse case (this would never really happen) the person that repaired the problem could have commited warrenty fraud as liquid damage voids warrenty. I personally feel that alot of times liquid damage is used as an easy way out by phone providers but at that stage company has given a reason for not repairing the handset it would be down to customer to prove fault was not related to liquid damage.

grumbler

crrussell wrote: »

company has given a reason for not repairing the handset it would be down to customer to prove fault was not related to liquid damage.

The law says that during the first 6 months it is the company that has to prove everything, not the customer. Are you saying that 'giving a reason' is the same as proving? So far I have not seen any proofs in this thread.