WH-1000XM3 Defective Headband Design

[CakeBot]

I have owned my pair of WH-1000XM3's for just over a year and loved them, they were a great upgrade over my last pair and I could only sing their praises.

That was until an issue popped up that showed a complete flaw with the design of the headband on my unit, I care for my headphones very well and always put them in the case after usage and used them stricly under intended usage.

The issue is that the headband on mine has cracked on the right side where a thin piece of plastic holds this clip in, I think this is unacceptable that this isn't covered and I would have to pay upwards of £80 to get them fixed when they already cost me £300. Before this I would have highly recommended these headphones to people who are looking for a good pair of wireless noise cancelling headphones; however the build quality has completely thrown that out of the window.

The support I have recieved thus far is inadequate and I would like for this issue to be acknowledged as a fault as I have found several examples of this already. I would like for these to be replaced without cost as this is a ridiculous issue on headphones of this cost.

https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/portable-audio/wh-1000xm3-headband-strap-broken-under-normal-use/td-...

[Anonymous]

Hi there,

It might be best to contact Sony support for this one here.

Let us know how it goes.

Best wishes,

M

[Jkent123]

I've had my headphones less than 3 months and my has developed the same issue! Did you get any response from Sony? I'm tempted just to return it to Amazon.

[RottenFoxBreath]

I noticed that their(Sony) support site/operators support tool, immediately allow it as physical damage, and no other reason can be selected.

And their following description basically states:

"Damaged your headphones? We’re sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, the standard guarantee does not cover physical damage (dropping on the floor, cable cut, sitting on headphones, etc.)."

So any damage, or faults, are the users fault, according to Sony.

Yet there is no selection for anything other than a paid for repair, which I find incredulous.

If you look closely at the headphones around that "crack", you can see the injection moulding marks that have been left from the tooling, following up both left and right vertical sides of the panel, onto the left and right sides of the piece that cracks.

That leads me to thing it is very much a weak spot.

This has been noticed by myself, on 2 pairs in my house, both mine and my sons(no cracks), but clearly you can see the marks on the outer shell, thus leading me to correctly assume inside, is the very weak spot due to the shimming/tooling of the lip that holds the panel in place.

This to me is a design flaw, and is of course covered under warranty, and also covered after warranty, but as no-ones headphones are out of warranty, as the EU law is 2 years for electrical equipment, it would be eligible for a free repair.

Moneyclaim online would be an ideal way to proceed, as you are almost guaranteed a win, but it costs you the buyer an initial fee.

My first port of call would be the retailer, but for people like myself, who got the headphones from my phone offer, I have no other way other than approaching Sony.

I'm of the mind to send an email to support indicating the design flaw, and my feelings on this, as owning 2 pairs which will inevitably suffer from this flaw, I find unacceptable, and am going to seek acknowledgement of the issue or a replacement, which does not suffer such.

EDIT: There must be quite a bit of pressure behind that panel for it to "burst" out and crack like that, maybe a cable lay or something pushing against it when on the head?

Shouldn't happen either way though.

[benfrain]

Can you advise of the outcome with Sony? I have the issue. 

[RottenFoxBreath]

I enquired about the flaw, and received this response:

Dear Mr xxxxxx
Thank you for contacting Sony Support.
In reference to your enquiry regarding your Sony WH-1000XM3, we are sorry to learn that you are having some concerns regarding you headphones.
Please note that we do not have an ongoing manufacturing fault with this model.
You can continue using your headphones without worrying as long as you are following the precautions found in the operating instructions below:
https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/res/manuals/4739/71ce01843a623084000dc8b2940272b5/47392793M...

Should you have any further questions, please feel free to reply to this email.
Thank you for your enquiry.
Yours sincerely,
<name removed.

SONY SUPPORT TEAM

But it would appear there is?!

[BogdanM13]

I have encountered the same exact issue described here - https://community.sony.ro/t5/portable-audio/wh-1000xm3-headband-cracked-while-stored-in-carrying-cas...

And a lot of other people do!

I have contacted Sony support in my country by phone, email and website ticket but everyone is telling me it´s damage I caused and I need to pay 90+ EUR for the fix. Sony Support is outsourced through a company called SYKES and they are bragging what a good financial gain they help Sony with in their reports - https://www.sykes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/sonypresentation.pdf

These outsourced call center agents and email representatives DO NOT work for Sony and they refuse to pass the issue to actual SONY people. It´s incredible that these topics have so many people complaining and Sony tries to tell us there´s no problem with the product and to pay for the repairs out of warranty in their overpriced service centers with overpriced parts!