[Galaxy S 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] AngelzEye:
Hi Everyone

I'd like to start off by apologizing that my first post is a question - as the welcome message so nicely encouraged helpful posts :( I promise I do have skills (not related to my question though, only software) & in future, when I have time, will hopefully manage to post something helpful. You can have a good lol at the stupid situation I've gotten myself into though.

I've looked over the internet for days but can't seem to find anyone in the exact same situation as myself... In a way I am extremely lucky but kinda not because now I've been left with a dilemma.

I have a Galaxy S5 and lo & behold it fell off the arm of the chair into a bucket of water (sadly not just any water but containing thoroughly diluted Fairy washing up liquid) which I was using to clean the floor an hour earlier. (Bucket placement fail. Rest assured I now always remove the bucket to the bathroom straight after cleaning.) It was submerged for ~2 seconds, was turned on at the time and when removed it was in the process of shutting itself down. Stupidly, my first instinct was to turn it back on (I know it's actually irrelevant but I was pretty uneducated on water damage before this happened so I thought if it came back on it was a good sign.) It began booting up normally but my second instinct was arguably more intelligent and I turned it back off again.

I went off to dissassemble it & just as I was thinking about how lucky it was that the S5 was water resistant I suddenly noticed a gap where the battery cover had come away (probably from the impact of hitting the bottom of the bucket - it fell bottom first and it was very shallow - still deeper than a phone.) That sucked. On removing it it was painfully obvious that water had got into it - everywhere - the water indicator behind the battery is so red it's half fallen off. So at this point I just consigned myself to claiming on my insurance (it is covered for this situation thankfully but there's an excess) and left it in pieces for a few minutes. I really stupidly turned it on again - just to check (please don't tell me off, I totally admit at this point I hadn't read on google this was a bad thing to do) - and the display did not work at this point, it constantly vibrated until I removed the battery again but I was erroneously relieved that it had powered on.

Remembering I had an emergency wet electronics pack - a rich name for a plastic bag with 2 big packets of silica gel in it - I thought I might as well try it (although I really did think there was no hope at this point.) I left it - and the battery - in the packet overnight and tried again in the morning - still no display (vibrating had stopped =)) I returned it to the emergency packet where I pretty much forgot about it for 3-4 days booting up my old S3 mini to use in the meantime. (Pay as you go so I still couldn't ring the 25p a minute insurance line.)

I was just about to pop to a relatives to use the house phone to make my claim when I thought I'd give it the S5 one last shot, not expecting anything, I pressed the power button & realised it wouldn't power on at all, so I wiped it with alcohol (having finally googled my problem... the cleaning kind, not the drinking kind), dried that off, plugged it in and lo & behold - again - it appears to work perfectly. This, ironically, is the crux of the problem.

I've read the insurance T& Cs over and over and whilst it covers water damage it says, in a totally unrelated section, that it doesn't cover damage that does not prevent the normal functioning of the device.

So I started googling some more. I read that water damaged devices may have some problems (namedly with the screen, audio or signal) yet I have none of these. I am ridiculously paranoid that every bit of lag is water damage but then again I have a lot of apps installed *naughty* so it's probably not... and tbh it does perform pretty well (my nonwater damaged laptop is lagging as I type & the S3 mini performs worse.) I also read that water-damaged devices frequently appear to work then give up the ghost within a few days of drowning - this also didn't happen. Aside from the indicator being red (and possibly soap residue inside knowing my luck) it's working. So, because of the fairly large excess I haven't reported it yet (there is no time limit on when you report the damage on my cover, I assume this is because most people want their phone replaced sooner rather than later.).

Soooo... phone is still working what I think is fine. Battery life sucks but tbf I think that's the case with all the droids I've had, if it did actually become a problem it's likely fixably by replacing the battery anyway. What I want to know is do I ring the insurance people anyway? There's no T & Cs regarding time of accident or when it breaks la de da but the clause that's worrying me is that the phone has to not be functioning normally. I don't want them saying "you can't have a new phone because it still works" and then snidily cancelling my insurance the next day because they know there is a heightenend future risk of breakdown. Or is water damage so bad that they will replace it anyway regardless of whether it's showing any signs of damage yet? I just want to know what the typical approach to that is.

I'd also like to know, based on the high-level of detail I've provided on what occured post-plunge - what are the odds & likely timescales of future breakdown? Is most the damage likely to have been done by now or is it still likely to turn into a brick at any second? If problems emerge are they likely to appear gradually or suddenly? It has been 4 weeks since the incident. I think I can safely rely on it day to day at this point but do you think it could last another 4 weeks? 4 months?

I guess I could dunk it again just to be sure it breaks :angel: but that seems like such a waste, both of the phone & the excess money... and not to mention stupid if there were any problems with the claims process or the new phone...

Thank you very much, Im really not much of an expert on what water does to phones. Especially not fairy liquid.

Many thanks

AngelzEye

TL;DR = Dunked S5 in water, waterproof cover failed on impact, did turn it back on whilst wet *idiot*, left it in emergency wet electronics pack for 3-4 days, works perfectly, insured for water damage but there's a clause that says damage that doesn't affect the normal functioning isn't covered - I'm guessing their talking about minor cracks here but does it apply to me? . What the hell do I do?? Should I break it properly and claim because the future risk of problems is so great, do I just wait it out and claim only if problems happen, will I get a replacement if i ring the insurance or will they refuse to replace it cos it still works and threaten my future cover.