Well what a day. All I can say is I'm 56 years old and never have I experienced anything like this. As many of you know this all started 3 weeks ago when I sent my perfect
P4P in for service. Fan stopped working in the gimbal. Otherwise perfect. I have owned P3, P3P, three P'4s and
P4P and I have never ever sent for service. I've also put DJI Care and then Refresh on every bird. So, when I had to part with the
P4P to repair I went ordered a new
P4P from B&H as I didn't want to be without a drone. I figured when my bird came back I'd sell the temp bird for a little less then I paid. Well a couple days after buying it it drops out of the air for an unknown reason and is unrecoverable. Back and fourth with DJI on that and its NO on Warranty No on DJI refresh...tough luck but that's another thread on here.
Today my beloved
P4P arrives, all week I looked forward to it arriving from California. I open it seconds off the UPS truck and first thing I notice, my FAA sticker isn't there. Then a quick glance of the serial on the bird and oh boy it isn't my bird. I called DJI and got pretty much nowhere. At one point I was promised a supervisor and then was on hold, #2 in the queue for 1 hour 15 min and the phone goes dead. Basically from the 10 calls I made, they decided my
P4P was not repairable, even though the timeline said for 8-9 days, repairing, repaired flight test etc...so they sent me what they are calling a drone of greater or equal value. Well it was a used drone, surely not any refurb. It was dirty and used. Also first thing I notice when starting is the sideways gimbal...hmm. Well guess what, it needs to go back. I said let me do some calibration and fly it and see what gives..well I got the camera straightened a little bit but when I flew the camera was working independent of me. When I'd accelerate the horizon had severe tilt, then when I stopped the camera would slowly creep to level over a few seconds as I sat there and watched...then I throttle and crooked. Also sometimes when I'd let off throttle I'd have the whole camera thing I forget what it's called but the camera flips and it looks like your crashing. One of the biggest issues is language barrier, I couldn't understand them and they me. For instance one exchange was : ME - I sent my drone for repair and you sent me a different drone and that one isn't working right. DJI - Oh so we sent back your repaired drone and it was repaired right? You want to pull your hair out.
Finally after more calls I get someone that's going to create a case for the drone to go back. They do so but no shipping label...so then I'm thinking I'm gonna send this back and this is the ONE time they will probably return the same beaten down replacement back to me. So I went to BB and bought a brand new
P4P and whenever they send me a suitable replacement I will just sell it and be done with this craziness.
Few things I learned.
1. There is NO WAY they are testing or refurbing the units. This drone had the original November firmware installed. You could easily see the crooked camera idling and flying.
2. DJI Refresh is a waste of money for the most part. If this is indicative of what they send you as a replacement and the down time incurred your better off seeking other insurance.
3. I've never had a worse customer service experience in my life. I don't intend to ever again. If I had to do this over again I should have bought a new drone from DJI, removed fan from it and returned it to them. Let them suffer as we have.
So, I'll let you know in 3-4 weeks what if anything they send me back.
