Water Damage Questions

[droiduser02]

My Droid was left to charge on a windowsill overnight. After a storm rolled in, I woke up and the phone was sitting in 1/16" of water. I unplugged it from the wall, and it immediately shut down. It seemed at first like the water was all external, (there was not much water on the sill at all), so I wiped it down and tried to turn it on. In retrospect, that was a bad decision. When it didn't go on, I removed the battery and noted that some water had penetrated the battery compartment. The water damage indicator inside the phone was unchanged (perfect red x's with white background), but the one on the battery had a pinkish tinge. You can still clearly make out the x's, but I'm not sure that would be enough for Verizon to replace. I also noticed that when sliding the keyboard in and out a couple of times, there were a few drops of water on the back of the sliding panel, meaning it must have penetrated the phone somewhat.

So I left the phone to dry out, and I'm hoping that after a day or two it will work. That said, I know the chances are not great. My main question is whether the battery itself can be damaged by water. If so, would I risk damaging a different Droid by testing the water damaged battery in it? Again, there is no indication on the actual phone itself was damaged, since the indicator there looks perfect. So if the phone itself is damaged, I could in theory put in a different battery and take it in for a replacement from Verizon. Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Jmart922]

If you send out your Droid for a replacement you get to keep yue battery if I remember correctly, along with the memory card and charger, the battery should be fine, but I believe they replace that along with the phone, however to increase your chances of not getting caught by Verizon of what happen to your phone then you can't tell them the battery indicator got submerged, I've done it in the past ans got away with phones being water damaged but its been a few years so they could have upped the inspection process of real causes of malfunction, good luck on whatever happens

 

[droiduser02]

Thanks and Follow-up

Thanks Jmart. So you think it shouldn't be a problem to test the battery in a Droid that wasn't exposed to water? Can a shorted-out battery damage an otherwise working phone?

 

[Jmart922]

No problem, ya know I'm not an expert by any means but I've had phones from other manufacturer and I've used batteries that were exposed to water or submerged and often I would use them as a back up when my replacement battery would die, never had any problems

 

[DroidGlobal]

Water damage droid

i know this was almost a year ago but did you ever got the phone replace and if you did, did verzon charge your account at all the reason that im asking is because the same thing hapend to me i forgot to put my phone back on the car and i jump on a pool the phone does not show water damage on the outside but the battery does please let me know if they charge and how much they will charge for this.

 

[droiduser02]

If the indicator on the phone hasn't turned pink/red, you're in luck. You can buy an OEM Motorola battery brand new for about $10. That actually solved my problem, and the phone has worked fine ever since. If it doesn't do the trick for you though, you should still be able to get a Verizon replacement since there will be no evidence of water damage. This assumes you're under warranty of course.