spilled coffee on my 3G.......

[todesto]

:frown:
as said in the title, coffee spilled, actually poured right on iPhone 3G......
got a serious liquid damage, and as you expected, it is not operable.

I see the LCD lits up when plugged, and that's about it. LCD is blank and have not idea whatelse is damaged. I took it to Apple store and said due to water damage it is not covered under warrany (I already figured that).

Anyway, does anyone know where I can have this repaired rather than buying a new one?

Thanks in advance.

[acosmichippo]

well, do not turn it on anymore for at least a few days. let it sit in a cool, dry place... or even in a bag/bowl/box of rice (helps to draw the moisture out). This has worked before with water... so it's worth a shot at least.

[VIPERxGTx2000]

well, do not turn it on anymore for at least a few days. let it sit in a cool, dry place... or even in a bag/bowl/box of rice (helps to draw the moisture out). This has worked before with water... so it's worth a shot at least.

What he said

I live in Florida and if I drop my phone in the water I take the battery out and leave it in the car for a few days, it gets nice and toasty. Since you can't take the battery out, I would recommend putting it in a bowl of rice, in your car, in the sun, for a few days.

[rmfnla]

Coffee, huh?

Let us know if that makes the 3G run any faster.

[dcom]

Coffee has oils in it from the beans and if you had cream and/or sugar in it, that'll make it worse. Drying it out might work ok for plain water, but for coffee, I don't think so.

I'm pretty sure you're going to have to get a new phone or, if you're already resigned to doing that, you could try removing the battery using one of the techniques you can find online. Once you get the battery out, try rinsing/soaking the phone in clear water (not the battery, obviously) then let it dry out thoroughly and reassemble it.

[jarofclay73]

What he said

I live in Florida and if I drop my phone in the water I take the battery out and leave it in the car for a few days, it gets nice and toasty. Since you can't take the battery out, I would recommend putting it in a bowl of rice, in your car, in the sun, for a few days.

Can I add that if you use the rice technique - it should be a bowl of UNCOOKED rice. Cooked rice may make it worse. :laugh2:

[jptolife]

Really, That's funny cuz TODAY my iPhone fell in the toilet!! All I did was blow dry it and everything works fine now. I turned it on after like an hour of heat. I thought I had lost it but its working! The water detector turned red though. I cant take it back to apple if anything happens :(

[Starry]

Actually.. I was standing in our Apple store last week with a friend who's getting a computer and a guy walked in with his phone and they said that the water sensor changed.. HE said he sprayed compressed air in the hole and at the bottom of the charger area to keep the dust out and the guy said OH ok yeah that might change it, we'll change it out. And they did.. So that might be a way to get a replacement :)

Just food for thought worked in Austin LOL

[jptolife]

Thanks for the tip :) I have also read of other things to do but since it is working fine I will not do anything yet.

[Starry]

Yeah I read somewhere that you can take Liquid Paper correction fluid from Office Max or Office Depot and put a "drop" in it and it covers it nicely LOL

[jptolife]

Yeah I read somewhere that you can take Liquid Paper correction fluid from Office Max or Office Depot and put a "drop" in it and it covers it nicely LOL
Or use a drop of bleach or a piece of paper to cover it. It has supposedly worked for many people.

[Starry]

well aren't we the smart ones LOL :)~

[rmfnla]

...especially when it comes to scamming the "geniuses" at the Apple store!

[mlass]

:frown:
as said in the title, coffee spilled, actually poured right on iPhone 3G......
got a serious liquid damage, and as you expected, it is not operable.

I see the LCD lits up when plugged, and that's about it. LCD is blank and have not idea whatelse is damaged. I took it to Apple store and said due to water damage it is not covered under warrany (I already figured that).

Anyway, does anyone know where I can have this repaired rather than buying a new one?

Thanks in advance.

Did they say how much it would cost to replace it? Just wondering, had one go thru a spin cycle.

[acosmichippo]

Coffee has oils in it from the beans and if you had cream and/or sugar in it, that'll make it worse. Drying it out might work ok for plain water, but for coffee, I don't think so.

I'm pretty sure you're going to have to get a new phone or, if you're already resigned to doing that, you could try removing the battery using one of the techniques you can find online. Once you get the battery out, try rinsing/soaking the phone in clear water (not the battery, obviously) then let it dry out thoroughly and reassemble it.

that's what i was thinking, but we'll see...

[Saverino]

jptolife: A friend of mine dropped his iPod Touch in a pool and obviously, it was dead. He tried to change the sensor back to white with the bleach technique and after a few weeks, when he went to go take it in, the first thing they said was that they smelled bleach and they denied him a replacement.

[scudder]

I just looked down the barrel of the headphone socket on the 3G with an Auriscope and I don't see any water detector paper down there like I have on the 2G. there is a metal contact sticking out, but no paper? As far as I know, the only detectors are inside on the board screen covers x2 so I do not understand how a Genius could tell it was water damaged.

[johnnydicamillo]

just take the battery out and put it by the window and let it dry out and if you are lucky it will still work

[dcom]

just take the battery out and put it by the window and let it dry out and if you are lucky it will still work

Um, the battery isn't "just take-outable". It requires a bit of disassembly which isn't all that easy.

[Tex]

Burying in rice worked for my iPod last year. It sat submerged in a pool of Diet Coke that was in a bag (I thought the bottle was closed...it wasn't). I left it in a bowl of rice for 10 days. At 5 days, it still didn't work. At 10, it wouldn't turn on.....I plugged it in, and suddenly it started working just fine.

If it did it with a coke spill, I do not see the problem with trying it with coffee. Downside to you is that it is your phon, which is hard to keep off for 10+ days unless you have a backup phone.

[eye-Fone]

If it did it with a coke spill, I do not see the problem with trying it with coffee.

Did your "Home" button get sticky?

I had a Samsung BlackJack smartphone and it had a beer problem once. Things were fine just afterwards, until the next morning, when many of the keys were "sticking". Some were hard too push and make a "separation" sound, like breaking loose from something sticky. Evidently, that "something sticky" was the result of the sugar residue being left behind when all the liquid evaporated (or just dried up).


.

[w_reavis]

i found a great place that will repair water damaged or any other type of damage to the iPhone
they work with AT&T and Apple with non warranty repairs

www.northbayelectronics.com (http://www.northbayelectronics.com/) is the website

[Londonrockz568]

Guys All the suggestions are great...but lets take a second to think about it.

He spilled coffee on the iphone so treating it like its a water damage would be partially wrong and right to say the least.

The coffee prolly had milk or half n half, sugar and it was hot. Yeah sure putting the phone in uncooked white rice will suck out the moisture, but those elements in the coffee have probably corroded the circuits not to mention the odor that will come from the phone since coffee does stain and leave a smell.

That said... i doubt covering the moisture stickers with bleach or whiteout will do much if the genius can smell the hazelnut roast from the phone.

Your best bet is to get a brand new one, sorry mate...i know it sucks. Coffee is just as bad if not worse than dropping the phone in salt water (which is VERY corrosive to circuits). If this was just fresh water, then you woulda been fine with just drying it with the rice.

[acosmichippo]

well, aside from this thread being nearly 3 months old... yes, we know it's gonna be difficult to clean up coffee... but my point was it is at least worth a shot to put it in some rice for a day or so... it's something to try instead of just telling him to immediately go buy a new one.

[Londonrockz568]

If you read what i said correctly, then you'd see that i wrote nothing from deterring him to try the rice method. I didnt say just go out and buy a new one, he can try the rice method to suck out the moisture, but all those elements in the coffee can more than likely corrode the innards of the phone.

Aside from the post being 3months old others posted and pushed it to the top. I answer all posts that are in bold on the first page.

[acosmichippo]

You clearly implied that we did not "think about it" before making the suggestion.

At the very least, a poor choice of words on your part.

[Londonrockz568]

No, i was implying that yeah all the help is great, but the posts were treating it like he only spilled water....or at least thats wut i tried to convey whatev.

[todesto]

I tried Northbay electronics. I wouldn't recommend them. Late reply, no tracking system, you have to call them over 10 times a day everyday to get them recognize you.
plus they just do same service who is more honest located in Missouri (I can't think of their name right now.)
bottom line is, Northbay electonics couldn't fix it.

[jareknyc]

guys what is the replacement $$ for iPhone? 8 and 16 gb?

[Tug]

If it did it with a coke spill, I do not see the problem with trying it with coffee. Downside to you is that it is your phon, which is hard to keep off for 10+ days unless you have a backup phone.

That would be a tough one, do you buy a cheap phone while your iphone is submerged in rice for 10 days or do you do without a cell phone to see if the rice technique is going to work?

[TarekElsakka]

My father spilled some cappuccino on his E90i's screen before, he took it to Nokia. They took out the screen, dried it out for 10 minutes, and then put it back and told my father not to switch it on for at least two days. He traveled for a week and came back and left it here, then he came back, opened it, and it worked just fine.

[IphoneTony]

was it at least Dunkin Donuts coffee???

[Nakai]

The waitress was serving my coffee and she brushed across my iPhone, the coffee spilled, but my iPhone was on the ground.....sigh

[tfawbush]

There's a water detector?

[TarekElsakka]

was it at least Dunkin Donuts coffee???

Haha, we never buy from Dunkin Donuts, I kind of find it disgusting. We only buy from Starbucks and Cilantro.

[cpolaris502]

There's a water detector?
just like in everycell phone. I just dont know where it is on the iphone though.

[acosmichippo]

on the v1 and 3g, there's one in the headphone jack.

the 3g also has one on the data connection slot.

[bshannon]

If you search for "www.northbayelectronics.com" you'll find many
entries that are exactly the same as the one posted above on this
forum. Clearly someone from the company posted all these identical
entries under different user names. Let me balance that entry with
the perspective of a real customer.

I sent my iPhone 3G to NorthBay Electronics to repair water damage.
I called them before I sent my phone in and they said they were getting
so much business that it would take 3 - 5 days to fix my phone.

In the end, they had my phone for an entire week (let's say 5 business
days), and with the shipping time I was without my phone for 12 days.
I sent the phone in via USPS Express Mail. Apparently no one was home
the first time they tried to deliver it, so a day was lost there. I
chose FedEx for the return shipment. The phone was shipped back to me
via FedEx on a Friday. The price for the FedEx shipment was more than
what I paid for overnight Express Mail, but it was only for the FedEx
2day shipping, so I didn't receive my phone until Monday, despite the
fact that I'm only 3 hours away from them.

They claimed the battery in my phone wasn't working as well as it
should, which is plausible for damage such as this. It's also the
kind of thing where they could claim the battery is bad, charge me
for a replacement, and do nothing. So, I asked them to send me the
old battery. When I got the phone back, the old battery wasn't
included. Almost two months later, and after several emails to them
and several promises from them, I still don't have the old battery,
which makes me extremely suspicious.

In the end, although they did actually fix my phone, I can't recommend
them. Their customer service is poor, and their business practices
are questionable. There are plenty of other companies that offer
this service, some of them very well established. Take your business
to one of these other companies.