Water damage after several weeks of exposure
I bought 16GB Moto G on the launch day (6th Feb 2014) in India. Just after a week, I had gently wash the touch screen due to a sticky hand. I carefully placed the phone under the stream of water and washed it. In spite of my careful approach it seems some water has gone inside and the phone restarted itself.
I immediately took it off and wiped it well. After restart the phone had issues for few minutes like the touch screen was not working, camera's glass had water droplets and SIM1 was not working. After leaving it to dry and idle, the touch screen worked first with in few minutes, then the SIM1 was working after few hour and then the water inside the camera disappeared after a day.
Then onwards till last week (almost 3 months) the phone was working fine and no further liquid contact happened. During 1st May 2014 the phone started to vibrate on its own suddenly when it was lying on my desk. Thinking that it was due to an incoming call I took the phone in my hand found surprised to see no such incoming call, but a low battery warning (I think 4% remaining warning). The phone was vibrating continuously and I first thought it would be a software glitch. With that mind set, I switched off the phone to restart it. To my surprise the phone was vibrating even after it was switched off. When I tried to restart the phone, the phone remained dead. I tried few power up strategies like holding the power button more than 20 seconds, holding the volume down and then power key. None of the method powered up the phone, which was still vibrating.
Since I was trying all these by reading suggestions from Internet, the phone's battery was depleted so badly the vibration was very feeble and soon died. Then I attempted to charge the battery, plugged in the charger. The moment I connect the charger, the phone started to vibrate and the LED was glowing solid. If I remove the charger both vibration and LED stopped but phone was not starting up at all.
I left the phone for a night at this condition (vibrating constantly) and still the next day there is no improvement.
I submitted my phone to service centre who when opened it claimed that the are corrosion in some parts which resulted in this issue. I explained the time difference between the water exposure and occurrence of this problem. The personnel at service centre says that the working of the phone after exposure to water is not a way to judge the immunity of the phone. Rather after such an exposure the phone has to be opened and dried soon to avoid corrosion, which will grow slowly over a period of time. I had to pay for the service as he denied warranty due to water damage. The component that has to be replaced is not available and it is said to take a week to import. At this time of writing, I am hoping that the cost of spare and service charges should be less such that the repair makes sense rather buying a new phone.
If the service centre personnel's statement is true, treat your Moto G as if it does not have a splash protection as you cannot identify the effect immediately. Even if it is not correct, this could be a chance for the service centre person (I mean we can't debate to claim free service under warranty) to reject a free service even if the nature of the problem is not related to water damage.
I just thought to share it with all Moto G owners so that those who got a good impression that our phones are water resistant realize that they might be not as immune as seen.
