Waterlogged Droid

[msartintarm]

On Thursday (3 days ago) I got into a kayak that immediately flipped me over. I realized too late that I had my Droid in my pocket. I immediately removed the battery so power was cut; immediately beforehand, it was showing me the Motorola welcome logo. The battery water damage indicator is red, as is the one you can see on the right around the reset button when you remove the battery cover. The one on the left isn't triggered and is still white with red X's - strange, as the area around the SD card was definitely soaked.

Fast forward 3 days. After rice, sicilia, etc. I decided to turn my phone on today. It worked perfectly with several notable exceptions: the screen backlighting was extremely patchy. I'm assuming water seeped into the screen before I pulled the battery and shorted some of the components out. Also, the part that scares me the most is that there are diagonal break lines running across the screen backlighting. When you start at the Droid head on nothing looks wrong, but from an angle there are huge discrepencies in the lighting making it look like it's going to get worse with time. Can someone with experience in these things confirm that a patchy backlight doesn't progressively get worse with further use?

One last question. The top third of the back of the phone, around the camera lens, got relatively warm much more quickly than the rest of the phone. Could that be because of a water caused short? Or does this always happen when the phone quickly downloads large amounts of data?

The reason I'm asking all this is because I have to use my Droid for the next year and a half, and I don't have insurance The phone works perfectly now despite the patchy backlight, but I'm worried that these problems will get worse causing me to suffer through a year and a half of unworkability. I love my Droid!

 

[droid d'oh]

Sounds like there's still water in it to me. It's a good insulator when still and most likely is causing heat buildup around your processor. Not sure what you should do from here but don't leave it on.

 

[Backnblack]

The reason I'm asking all this is because I have to use my Droid for the next year and a half, and I don't have a warranty The phone works perfectly now despite the patchy backlight, but I'm worried that these problems will get worse causing me to suffer through a year and a half of unworkability. I love my Droid!

Do you mean Insurance?

 

[msartintarm]

Do you mean Insurance?

Yes I do mean insurance, thanks for the correction.

Sounds like there's still water in it to me. It's a good insulator when still and most likely is causing heat buildup around your processor. Not sure what you should do from here but don't leave it on.

It's possible there's still water in the phone but I find it unlikely for a couple reasons. Chiefly is the fact that for the first couple days after the accident, when I blew a deionized hair dryer down the area around the SD card slot the inside of the screen fogged up, meaning that there was still water in the phone. When it stopped doing that last night it meant there was no wet area around the space the air from the hair dryer flowed through, which included the processor. I waited for another day after that to make sure the water was gone.

I've actually had it on for around half an hour since I first posted, and there's no more heat than normal. So that is probably a nonissue. I'm still worried about the patchy backlight getting worse though.

 

[s-one]

Yea 3 days wasn't really enough.. but yea if you got insurance.. that'd be the way to go.

 

[msartintarm]

I I'm not asking how long I should have left it in. The phone's dry. I don't have insurance. My question is whether the backlight will get worse and progressively burn out more over time, or if it's just going to have cool looking water patches, which I'd be okay with.

 

[nycstogie]

water patches screen

My storm got COFFEE in ti got streaks,
didn get worse, got a lil better.
im still using it even tho I cracked outer glass&
lazy to replace w other. One ihave for STORM.

gonna do a swap w water damaged good esn w a bad esn core


soondancedroiddancedroiddancedroiddancedroid

 

[jaysonstaurt]

I got my old droid wet once and I was lucky and had the insurance. But before I made a claim I let it dry out for over a week and it seemed ok, but it never really worked right again after that. It had random reboots, hot spots like you mentioned and some display issues.

You can ride it out and hope for the best but to be honest your best bet is going to be a replacement of some sort.

 

[tburks]

Two weeks ago I drowned my DROID. After a week of trying to recover it (same issues you are seeing) I relented and called Motorola. They have used Droids with full 1 year warranty available. They claim these are simply phones returne by customers who didn't want them within the first 30 days. They have been through extensive testing by Motorola and the price was $389 instead of $559. I negotiated the price down to $199 by threatening to pay the $350 contract buyout and leave them. Call Motorola directly - do not go to a retail outlet as they have no power or incentive to negotiate. So far the replacement phone looks and works great. Good Luck.

 

[HermitObserver]

Can't you buy the insurance over the phone as long as you can make calls over it? I seem to think that they'll insure any phone as long as it can make a call to them. Correct me if I'm wrong and I may very well be wrong.

 

[Corinacakes]

If this is true...you're in luck!!!! http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...ns/45500-verizon-early-upgrade-promotion.html

 

[tburks]

Can't you buy the insurance over the phone as long as you can make calls over it? I seem to think that they'll insure any phone as long as it can make a call to them. Correct me if I'm wrong and I may very well be wrong.

Well, that would be fine as long as one doesn't mind lying. When filing an insurance claim that will how and when the phone was damaged. Personally I refuse to lie and commit insurance fraud just to save a few bucks. My integrity is not for sale at any price.

 

[mad3963]

Can't you buy the insurance over the phone as long as you can make calls over it? I seem to think that they'll insure any phone as long as it can make a call to them. Correct me if I'm wrong and I may very well be wrong.

Well, that would be fine as long as one doesn't mind lying. When filing an insurance claim that will how and when the phone was damaged. Personally I refuse to lie and commit insurance fraud just to save a few bucks. My integrity is not for sale at any price.

I believe you have to purchase the insurance within the first 30 days of purchasing the phone, on VZW.

 

[hookbill]

Can't you buy the insurance over the phone as long as you can make calls over it? I seem to think that they'll insure any phone as long as it can make a call to them. Correct me if I'm wrong and I may very well be wrong.

Well, that would be fine as long as one doesn't mind lying. When filing an insurance claim that will how and when the phone was damaged. Personally I refuse to lie and commit insurance fraud just to save a few bucks. My integrity is not for sale at any price.

If you call Assurion and attempt to buy insurance on a Droid beyond 30 days old, they will deny you UNLESS they are having a special. I was able to get my Droid insured that way. And I had to speak to two separate CSR's before I convinced them that there was a special on.

 

[msartintarm]

I bought my Droid way back in December, so insurance is definitely not an option. But my phone definitely seems completely fine! No hotspots at all. The screen is slowly going back to normal (in a day or two I'll post some before / after pics that show the patches receding). Battery life is awesome (the battery had been drenched as well). So overall.. this phone is a tank.

Two weeks ago I drowned my DROID. After a week of trying to recover it (same issues you are seeing) I relented and called Motorola. They have used Droids with full 1 year warranty available. They claim these are simply phones returne by customers who didn't want them within the first 30 days. They have been through extensive testing by Motorola and the price was $389 instead of $559. I negotiated the price down to $199 by threatening to pay the $350 contract buyout and leave them. Call Motorola directly - do not go to a retail outlet as they have no power or incentive to negotiate. So far the replacement phone looks and works great. Good Luck.

Awesome advice. Thanks. I'll be sure to take that path if some unforeseen issue with my phone arises.