Mavic Pro bought in China - Warranty in Europe?

[JeeHaa]

Hello, for dji warranty i can confirm that you will not be covered outside of your buying area. I bought mine when i was in taiwan from an autorised reseller. Come back to france then after 4 month the mavic crash due to an update (confirmed by dji themself). But no warranty coverage because i am outside of china area (even if i send het drone to them in china)

Did you activate it in Taiwan or back at home in France?

 

[b2n]

Did you activate it in Taiwan or back at home in France?

It dosnt matter were you activate it, with the serial number dji can know if the mavic was sold in china area, europe area or US area.
And you also need to provid the "bill"

 

[JeeHaa]

Undoubtedly they could, but the question is if they do keep track of the serial during shipping, or just register the activation location. So did you activate in Europe or Taiwan?
If you did in Europe it means they do track it, otherwise... a local invoice of a drone can easily be obtained (usually does not contain the serial).

 

[b2n]

Undoubtedly they could, but the question is if they do keep track of the serial during shipping, or just register the activation location. So did you activate in Europe or Taiwan?
If you did in Europe it means they do track it, otherwise... a local invoice of a drone can easily be obtained (usually does not contain the serial).

What do you mean exactly by «activate»? If it is just «the first power on» it was in taiwan. Otherwise i havent activate or registred anything.
When i contact dji warranty they send me a file whith many question that i have to answer and they ask for serial number in this file.
After they received the file they tell me that my mavic was bought outside of europe so no warranty...

 

[JeeHaa]

The activation part is when you first powerup and connect to the drone using the DJO GO app (after entering your DJI account email/pass).
So if you connected the drone in Taiwan that means that that location was registered/activated by the DJI servers as "home" for activation, which would explain why warranty back in Europe was not granted.

 

[b2n]

The activation part is when you first powerup and connect to the drone using the DJO GO app (after entering your DJI account email/pass).
So if you connected the drone in Taiwan that means that that location was registered/activated by the DJI servers as "home" for activation, which would explain why warranty back in Europe was not granted.

Ok but i didnt send the drone to them, they have seen it just with the serial number they asked to me so even if i had activate it in france they will say the same thing

 

[JeeHaa]

Yes, they can lookup where that unit/serialnumber was activated (=first started) on their server/system. In your case in Taiwan, if you would have waited until you got home it might have been in France. This is just a hypothesis, but it makes sense.

 

[b2n]

Yes, they can lookup where that unit/serialnumber was activated (=first started) on their server/system. In your case in Taiwan, if you would have waited until you got home it might have been in France. This is just a hypothesis, but it makes sense.

I dont think so because a letter in the serial number means china, europe or us. So they dont need to check anything else than the serial number

 

[JeeHaa]

I doubt they produce aircraft with region specific serials, my guess is they are all equal and function based on the location where they are activated, just like CE/FCC mode is determined by the GO4 app based on current location.

 

[JeeHaa]

After talking to DJI support chat I think I have a clue what might be going on:
- Some serials are on a blacklist, for example from stolen batches (they will not start/activate at all).
- They told me they can only see where the serial was first acivated/used, not by whom.
- This region is based on the GEO of the drone IP when it makes contact with the DJI servers for the very first time (which is not always by the customer so it seems).

I have an imported Spark that was manufactured in CN and sold in january 2018 from HK, but support could see that it was activated in HK in december 2017 (where the reseller is based).
That would indicate that either the reseller (or maybe importer) activated it when it came from the factory, even before it is sold to a customer.
Not sure if this procedure is performed for all regions though, but in those cases the units are indeed effectively locked to a region in the DJI systems.

The only way around this:
- Make sure you get warranty through the reseller (they can send the unit back to HK for DJI warranty),
- And/or get Care Refresh in your region and have it repaired there (pay for minor repairs or pay a Refresh replacement fee).