RMA replacement hasn't shipped in 2 weeks
I recently purchased a Quest 3 and noticed a faint pattern on the screen during. This ended up being what's called "Mura", which is a manufacturing defect in the panels themselves. This should usually be pretty minimal in most units, but I even noticed it during normal passthrough mode and navigating Horizon OS. Assuming that my unit had poorly binned panels, I decided to open an RMA and ship it off in hopes of receiving one with less mura.
The RMA was opened on December 22. I dropped it off at a Fedex site that same day. It arrived at the Reconext facility on the 26th. Despite the arrival confirmed by Fedex, it would stay on "Awaiting Arrival" ever since. After hearing anectdotes from other customers, I was under the impression that the replacement would be shipped within 3 days. I understand that the holidays probably affected this, so I sent an email on the 29th to ask if this was expected. I received a response further elaborating that the turnaround period was between 3-5 days after arrival. I still don't know if that facility operated during the winter break, so I (and apparently the agent) were under the impression that this was in fact expected.
I waited until Janurary 5th before I sent another email inquiring on the status of the return. I received an email the same day informing me that they were "actively investigating" the situation. I was getting a bit desperate at this point, so I sent another email on the 8th asking if there were any further updates. They responded in pretty much the same way they did prior.
So It's currently been 2 weeks since it arrived, and 18 days since I opened the RMA. I don't want to seem impatient, but I had originally purchased this as an early christmas gift and barely had the chance to use it. I would be very grateful for any concrete information regarding the RMA, or atleast any confirmation that this is normal and expected.
I do hope that it would all be worth the trouble, as the mura issues seem to be neglected by the community. I talked to a friend in the industry and it definitely is a thing with LCD panels as well - with varying degrees of it due to binning. It may not be as noticable as other (OLED-based) HMDs, but I definitely noticed it.
Yesterday, Janurary 17th, I received an email from the Meta store address (notably different from the support address). It informed me that the RMA had finally been approved, though it mentioned a different RMA number from the original one I made. After checking the RMA under my account, I saw that it had been updated to "RMA Request Canceled". Support later clarified that this was intentional, and that the new RMA reference number would be the replacement. They also clarified that the original delay was due to holiday demand, which I had tried to inquire about but wasn't confirmed until now. Additionally, the support rep provided $50 in store credit. I'm hoping now that the unit is in fact shipped within 3-5 business days - hopefully being mura-free.
For anybody else reading this in the future, my case took 3 weeks past arrival to receive the confirmation update. Accounting for the shipping time, it'll most likely become a month-long wait. I can't blame the support agents I talked to, it was clear that none of us had much information on what the returns department was doing. I appreciate the credits they provided in good will, and can only hope that it finally arrives this month.
