Mavic Pro Disconnects & Crashed at 2 weeks old

[Aminnich907]

After researching a ton of different options and speaking to a Best Buy sales associate (who now I know failed to tell me some very key details about the Mavic Pro) I decided to buy one for my boyfriend who is an avid drone flyer. I purchased the drone on October 5th, 2018 and brought it home, eager to fly we went through the set up, calibration, installation, firmware updates etc. To our surprise we were in what DJI considered to be a no-fly zone which was absolutely absurd considering we live over 2,000 meters away from any restricted airspace per FAA. I contacted DJI support and almost a week later the NFZ issue was resolved. On October 10th he was finally able to fly the drone and took it out for a spin. Roughly six flights over a span of 4 days produced many issues including mid flight disconnections, GPS failure, weird map reformatting etc. Essentially every time he flew something was going wrong. 10/12 was the first mid flight disconnect, the drone hovered and thankfully we were able to safely land it and after reading posts of pilots having similar issues we deleted and reinstalled the Go4 app, checked our firmware which was up to date, shut down the RC and Drone but nothing worked. We decided to leave it alone for a bit and when we powered it back up later it was all back to normal. On 10/13 he took the drone out for another flight. After nearly 5 mins it disconnected again (apx 75ft away at no more than 30ft high) and as he turned to head home it reconnected. Landed the drone, checked everything and it appeared to be ok. The next flight began the same way and then suddently all control to the drone was lost and it flew directly into a tree!! One prop arm was broken off, another has a blown motor and the gimball is damaged. He is heartbroken because he had been so excited to have the drone of his dreams, I on the other hand am completely livid knowing that I had spent nearly $1,000 on a paper weight. Has anyone experienced any of these issues themselves or know anyone who has? My bf took the drone to Best Buy yesterday and initially the guy at Geek Squad said he was going to return it due to a manufacturer's defect but he received a call just today and somebody else at Best Buy said that the first gentleman he spoke to was "new and misinformed" and that because we did not purchase the extended warranty there was essentially nothing they could do for us. Our local hobby shop will have absolutely nothing to do with anything related to DJI, which I think speaks for itself and situations like this, so I am open to any advice anyone may have on how we can get this fixed. I already submitted a ticket to DJI and I'm hoping to hear back from them tomorrow. I could understand if this happened 6 months down the road, but less than a week in? And yes, hindsight 20/20 I probably should have purchased the extra warranty, but after already spending over $1,000 on the Drone itself plus an extra battery I stupidly didn't think it would be necessary knowing this thing had all the bells and whistles needed to avoid these kinds of stupid incidents. Any help or constructive advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[msinger]

What kind of mobile device are you using? If it's not one of the recommended or commonly used devices, then that could explain some of the trouble you were facing. It's also possible that your mobile device was not set up properly.

Did you check out the TXT flight log on your mobile device? It might explain the tree incident.

 

[Former Member]

I already submitted a ticket to DJI and I'm hoping to hear back from them tomorrow.

Give DJI a day or two to respond and let us know what happens. They will probably ask you to upload the flight logs if you are claiming a manufacturers defect caused the crash.

 

[Zeke]

So sorry to hear of your experience! I hope DJI steps up and does the right thing for you. For what it's worth, I've had mine for a couple of months now, have numerous flights on it, and (knock wood) it's performed almost flawlessly for me.

Best of luck!

 

[charliesRig]

Best girlfreind Ever.! (IMO)
Reading your post seems you did your homework first that is awsome......

Bestbuy
should stand up you bought a defective electronic device within 30 day in store warranty
if it was a laptop or phone or TV they would Exchange it
end of story

Don't let this major set back taint your Drone experince

a lot of us have had great drones and drone experinces
................................................ and yes "sometime" we crash................ it part of the hobbie
.

Please keep us posted.......cR
.
.

 

[Possums]

What kind of mobile device are you using? If it's not one of the recommended or commonly used devices, then that could explain some of the trouble you were facing. It's also possible that your mobile device was not set up properly.

Did you check out the TXT flight log on your mobile device? It might explain the tree incident.

If your lucky, they will refund your money, take it back & put it on the wholesale pallet & auction it off by the pound. They ...Walmart & Bestbuy ..will take back drones not near as bad as yours - be the squeaky wheel. You'r doing a good job so far.

 

[DanMan32]

By 'disconnected' do you mean the AC and RC disconnected from each other or you had a connection loss between RC and mobile device? Thanks to the display on the RC itself, you can still get basic information that you'd normally look for on the mobile if the AC is still connected.
If you did have AC/RC connection instability, you could have chronic radio interference, or need to re-bind the connection between the two.
If it is a disconnect of the app and not the RC, there's lots of causes, particularly with various Android models.

 

[sparkorc]

Sorry you had this incident with your new drone I would send the flight data log to DJI this will highly support your case if there was a malfunction of the craft or transmitter during its last flight, I personaly know Yunneec honour such claims because several years ago I had the misfortune of a Yuneec Q500 4k typhoon which decided to fly off out of control and that also hit a tree albeit a mile away, I was able to check the flight log in the transmitter initially to find the craft, after further inspection of the flight data one could easilly see there had been a problem with the control, I phoned Yuneec and explained what had happened and they asked me to send the flight data log and the broken craft back to Yuneec who after viewing the flight data log agreed there had been a problem and sent me a new replacement craft FOC this was within three weeks, so don't despair just speak to DJI support and send the craft and flight data log back to them hopefully they will agree it was a malfunction.

 

[Garritynet]

Have you tried flying in another location? Just to verify it's not local radio interference or with the app on another device just to be sure it's not the phone?

 

[BerndM]

Here is the latest Best Buy Return policy (from BB website)
I don't know how a "defective" item fits into this.