Hi,

Can someone please explain exactly how the warranty works when purchasing a drone from DJI?  I've been flying for a while, mostly cheap Chinnese drones and I'm pretty good.  I figured I'd start with some cheaper drones before moving to something more serious like the Phantom 4.  Really want to get into videography again.

Now, from experience I've had a few drones that completely glitched out through no fault of mine.  Losing power, sudden erractic movement, loss of control, premature battery failure, etc. Now with cheaper drones, the loss of a few hundred dollars can be acceptable, BUT when spending upto 2000.00 I really want to know what happens for example if I'm flying and suddenly for no reason the drone drops out of the sky and breaks, or losses signal and breaks, etc.  Basically am I screwed if the drone breaks?

I've been learing to fly without any autiomated controlls, and the Phantom 4 has a lot of cool automated features but you can't always trust software/computer to fly for you and what if for example in a hover, it just drops?

BTW, I've been practicing mostly with a Tarantulla X6, which is quite a nice little drone for under 100.00.

DJI usually seems to be pretty good if the issue was not pilot error.  The problem is, lots of people think their unit didn't work, when in reality, they did something wrong (flew with low battery, flew or calibrated by large metal objects throwing off the compass, etc...)  If it really is nothing but a unit malfunction, you should be good to go.

The aircraft has a 12 month warranty. If you purchase a Phantom 3 it is not going to fall out of the sky or take off and crash with no reason at all. It just about always has some sort of user input that caused it.
But if anything were to happen, you send it in and the data analysis team looks at the flight data recorder to see if it was user error or malfunction. If malfunction then DJI will repair/replace it. If user error then they will email you the cost to repair.
You can purchase DJI Care and if it's a user error then the Care insurance would cover the repair/replacement.

thanks.

data analysis sounds interesting.  

bart3645@gmail. Posted at 2016-8-13 02:16
thanks.

data analysis sounds interesting.

Every P3 and later aircraft has a flight data recorder in it to analyze errors or crash data.

If you are really worried about crashes you should purchase either DJI care or neary aerial 3rd party insurance.
Officially, the warranty does not cover crashes...as an accurate answer to your question.

DJI will sometimes help out if the problem is completely on their end - but, again, that is not official as per the warranty (6 months on some stuff, one year on others).

Given human nature none of us want to think crashes are our fault - and, truth be told, many crashes are a combination of factors.

The good news here is that if you fly conservatively and take basic care of your Phantom you are likely to get a lot of flights without it acting up. It's much more reliable than any of the toys and easier to fly also.

Just sent my P4 in with camera problem and repair was only a few days, she is on her way back now but slow travel from West Coast to the Southeast (one week each way). Had to take my P3A out of retirement..lol

Great Service from DJI with emails and RMA Number and a printed label for shipping and a link to check status of the repair.  ;-)

scgene31 Posted at 2016-8-13 05:58
Just sent my P4 in with camera problem and repair was only a few days, she is on her way back now bu ...

Great, thanks for posting.

droneflyers.com Posted at 2016-8-12 17:37
If you are really worried about crashes you should purchase either DJI care or neary aerial 3rd part ...

You're right it's probably because I've been using toys (even though the Tarantula x6 is crazy fast, and has great range) which are prone to failure, it's just made me paranoid.  I'll look into DJI care as well.

one time I was using my Tarantulia x6 and was maybe 300 feet up and it just lost all signal and fell. LOL.  I rode around on my bike and found it 3 blocks away in someones front yard. LOL. and it still works well.

I doubt that could happen with all the safety features of the DJI. Battery indicator, auto fly home, etc.

Seriously, compared to the yizhan tarantula, the Phantoms are awesome.
My last quad before the Phantom was a tarantula with a Xiaomi yi stuck on the bottom...
The main difference is that with the Phantom, you feel more in control, even if using automated features.
You won't regret the jump, they really are a different league altogether