Bought iPhone in USA, warranty in Europe?

[jciapara]

I am sure this type of questions have been answered before but I didn't find an answer to the problem. So I just returned from the USA, I bought an iPhone from a friend of a friend which had upgraded early to the iPhone 3GS. Anyway I bought it the last day I was there so I didn't check it all, as it seemed fine. I arrived and did an upgrade, jailbreak, and unlocking to be able to use it in Germany which is where I live.

I was playing with the different features and I can see that the GPS is off by about 1 Km, which I find weird, I looked in forums and read that it could be a hardware problem and Apple would replace the unit, the problem is, I didn't buy it here in Germany, plus there is no physical Apple store here. I checked the https://selfsolve.apple.com/GetWarranty.do web page to check if the iPhone was still under warranty and according to the Web page is still is:

"Your product is covered for eligible hardware repairs and service under Apple's Limited Warranty. Expires: January 28, 2010"

I don't know how to go about getting the unit replaced here in Germany if it was bought and activated in the USA, any experiences in this area?

Thanks for any advice you can provide, I live in the area of Munich if it helps.

-Julio

Edit: I went to the Support web page in Germany and there seems to be one store in Munich, do you think I could go there and have the iphone simply replaced when they see the GPS missing the location? Munich is about 40 min from where I live so it's not easy to go there (train) just to be turned down.

 

[yg17]

You technically voided your warranty when you jailbroke and unlocked it, so no, you couldn't get it replaced, not unless you undid all those hacks but then your phone would be relocked.

 

[scottness]

You technically voided your warranty when you jailbroke and unlocked it, so no, you couldn't get it replaced, not unless you undid all those hacks but then your phone would be relocked.

Yeah, you're outta luck. Anybody have experience un-jailbreaking their iPhone?

 

[jciapara]

Yeah, you're outta luck. Anybody have experience un-jailbreaking their iPhone?

I can just restore it with the original firmware, and no signs of jailbraking nor unlocking, and it will still be activated because it was activated with AT&T, yes it would be locked, but I could just go with it locked just to show that the gps doesn't work, saying I bought it in the USA to someone who upgraded to 3GS and I plan on activate it here on T-mobile (the official carrier for iphone) but the GPS doesn't work so I would like to get it replaced before activating it. Do you think it would work?

Thanks.

 

[ste1164]

You could take it and try but you would need to restore it to move the jailbreak.

 

[jciapara]

Has anybody exchanged an US iPhone in Europe?

 

[calvy]

Everyone who is worried about cleaning up signs of the jailbreak, just stop it. As he said, you just restore with stock firmware and you are done. No troubles. Crap, half the time, if you just disable winterboard and hide the icons of jailbreak apps, you are good to go.

Now hopefully someone can answer the question, which is can he take a phone bought in the USA to a store in Europe for service?

 

[alphaod]

The iPhone warranty is not international… even if you have AppleCare. It's actually the only Apple product that Apple cannot fix under warranty if it's used in another country it was purchased in. However you can pay the standard repair rate of $199 (or whatever you local "replacement" fee) is for them to fix it (yes they will actually fix it, not replace it).

 

[jciapara]

update

Hi All,

Thanks for your help and your opinions, as it turns out it wasn't a Hardware problem, I kept searching for other solutions and I tried them all, Restore Firmware (no luck), Reset Network Settings helped a little but what did the trick was emptying the GPS cache through SSH. Now the GPS points to the correct location. I find this a little weird since a lot of people don't jailbreak and they wouldn't be able to empty the cache through this method.

I did see a great improvement with the Reset Network Settings, maybe if I would have tried again to do that, that would've fixed it, I don't know, but now it works, so I don't have to exchange my iPhone and I can continue using it.

Thanks again.

Julio

 

[Applejuiced]

Glad it worked out.

 

[courtney.bella]

Hi All,

Thanks for your help and your opinions, as it turns out it wasn't a Hardware problem, I kept searching for other solutions and I tried them all, Restore Firmware (no luck), Reset Network Settings helped a little but what did the trick was emptying the GPS cache through SSH. Now the GPS points to the correct location. I find this a little weird since a lot of people don't jailbreak and they wouldn't be able to empty the cache through this method.

I did see a great improvement with the Reset Network Settings, maybe if I would have tried again to do that, that would've fixed it, I don't know, but now it works, so I don't have to exchange my iPhone and I can continue using it.

Thanks again.

Julio

Just to let you know, though, that if you do wind up having a problem with your iPhone, it will need to be serviced in the United States, in the state it was bought. The iPhone warranty is not worldwide. It would need to go to the US for exchange or even to be looked at. Just an FYI.