Thought Autel drones where serious work drones. Boy, was I wrong. The nightmare continues.

fortnumsound · Mar 8, 2024

This whole mess started in Nov. Maybe some of you remember me posting about the nightmare issue I had with my first Autel Evo II 640T purchase. To recap I got the 640T for work. I fly drones for a living. At least Im trying to but Autel is stopping me from doing that. The first drone I got had major issue with the smart controller. It locked me out of the controller. Even though I was typing in the correct pin it would not recognize it and let me past the login screen, Autel tried charging me $500 to fix it. Even though it was brand new and I had not even taken one single flight with the drone. Luckily after filing a report with the BBB they waived the fee and sent me a new cpo controller. Or what I thought was a new one. When I got the controller it was a used one. With a broken gimbal dial and scratches. When confronted they backpedaled and said "that's just a loner until we fix yours". They were hoping I didn't notice. I have emails of all of this by the way. While waiting for my controller I was able to convince amazon to let me return the drone fort a full refund. So I sent the broken controller with the drone and got a refund and told Autel to keep my controller. At this point I should have just went with my gut and got a mavic 3T but there are things I love about the 640T that DJI cant compete with the a few of those are the the bigger controller screen, the carbon fiber arms, the better mapping app, the AEBS etc. I figured it would just a fluke thing and I decided to give Autel another try because I saw the potential in the unit. This time I ordered from "Autel Pilots" (the store). They are an official; Autel dealer. I made sure I checked first. They had the entire RTK bundle with the speaker, spotlight, beacon and 3 batteries for $8000. Now I have read some bad reviews about this store but aside from all this drone issues their customer service has been the exact opposite of what was said in the bad reviews. They always get right back to me and have been as helpful as they can be. And while this is great its still not addressing the drone issues itself. So I get the second drone. After 3 days and 1 flight the gimbal starts making this squealing noise and wont stop. Im thinking "You have got to be f***ing me". So, again., they tell me to send it back. Which seems to be Autels immediate answer to any issue,, "send it in". This is during the Chinese new Yr in Feb so it took FOREVER to get this third drone.. Now I have the 3rd one. Guess what? Im having issues with this one too. First the controller would not stay on. it woulds fire up, the fan would come on and then it would shut off. I finally got it to stay on. Now I keep getting a constant notification "downward facing sensor not calibrated, contact autel". So I contact them and guess what they say? Yup you guessed it. "Send it in". Now Im going to be without a drone again for weeks or months. At this point Im ready to just get a refund and get a DJI Mavic 3T. BTW, I did software and firmware updates for both the drone and controller with no luck.

Limewood · Mar 9, 2024

Burn me once, shame on Autel. Burn me 3 times, shame on me.

Ezone23 · Mar 9, 2024

fortnumsound said:
This whole mess started in Nov. Maybe some of you remember me posting about the nightmare issue I had with my first Autel Evo II 640T purchase. To recap I got the 640T for work. I fly drones for a living. At least Im trying to but Autel is stopping me from doing that. The first drone I got had major issue with the smart controller. It locked me out of the controller. Even though I was typing in the correct pin it would not recognize it and let me past the login screen, Autel tried charging me $500 to fix it. Even though it was brand new and I had not even taken one single flight with the drone. Luckily after filing a report with the BBB they waived the fee and sent me a new cpo controller. Or what I thought was a new one. When I got the controller it was a used one. With a broken gimbal dial and scratches. When confronted they backpedaled and said "that's just a loner until we fix yours". They were hoping I didn't notice. I have emails of all of this by the way. While waiting for my controller I was able to convince amazon to let me return the drone fort a full refund. So I sent the broken controller with the drone and got a refund and told Autel to keep my controller. At this point I should have just went with my gut and got a mavic 3T but there are things I love about the 640T that DJI cant compete with the a few of those are the the bigger controller screen, the carbon fiber arms, the better mapping app, the AEBS etc. I figured it would just a fluke thing and I decided to give Autel another try because I saw the potential in the unit. This time I ordered from "Autel Pilots" (the store). They are an official; Autel dealer. I made sure I checked first. They had the entire RTK bundle with the speaker, spotlight, beacon and 3 batteries for $8000. Now I have read some bad reviews about this store but aside from all this drone issues their customer service has been the exact opposite of what was said in the bad reviews. They always get right back to me and have been as helpful as they can be. And while this is great its still not addressing the drone issues itself. So I get the second drone. After 3 days and 1 flight the gimbal starts making this squealing noise and wont stop. Im thinking "You have got to be f***ing me". So, again., they tell me to send it back. Which seems to be Autels immediate answer to any issue,, "send it in". This is during the Chinese new Yr in Feb so it took FOREVER to get this third drone.. Now I have the 3rd one. Guess what? Im having issues with this one too. First the controller would not stay on. it woulds fire up, the fan would come on and then it would shut off. I finally got it to stay on. Now I keep getting a constant notification "downward facing sensor not calibrated, contact autel". So I contact them and guess what they say? Yup you guessed it. "Send it in". Now Im going to be without a drone again for weeks or months. At this point Im ready to just get a refund and get a DJI Mavic 3T. BTW, I did software and firmware updates for both the drone and controller with no luck.

I share your frustrating Autel experience! I hope we can save others from getting ripped off with phoney customer service and incomplete functioning products they sell, leaving us to wait for updates that continue to frusterate many.I will caution anyone to not take the chance that Autel would be legitamely trying resolve or improve its reputation by addressing all our issues!

fortnumsound · Mar 9, 2024

Limewood said:
Burn me once, shame on Autel. Burn me 3 times, shame on me.

Unfortunately I agree

Limewood · Mar 12, 2024

fortnumsound said:
Unfortunately I agree

I purchased an Enterprise V3 last spring. The battery in the smart controller would not charge. Autel told me to send the entire drone back because they had no replacements. No replacement parts for an enterprise level drone?? Nobody in their right mind would deal with a company like that. I’ll fly my v1 til it falls into the ocean, but I’ll not purchase another Autel product.

jjradioactive · Mar 27, 2024

Autelpilot.com sent me a used EVO II Enterprise V3 RTK drone instead of a new one. They sent me a shipping label to ship it back. It took a week to get there and another week to send a replacement. The replacement got here and its another open box where they switched out the wheeled case with one from a standard drone so the enterprise drone with the longer arms is jammed in there and the switched out the propellers from the longer enterprise ones for the shorter standard ones. WTF is autel doing letting these people represent them? Now I've got to send another one back and hope they refund it... I may have to go to a different drone brand.

Ezone23 · Mar 27, 2024

jjradioactive said:
Autelpilot.com sent me a used EVO II Enterprise V3 RTK drone instead of a new one. They sent me a shipping label to ship it back. It took a week to get there and another week to send a replacement. The replacement got here and its another open box where they switched out the wheeled case with one from a standard drone so the enterprise drone with the longer arms is jammed in there and the switched out the propellers from the longer enterprise ones for the shorter standard ones. WTF is autel doing letting these people represent them? Now I've got to send another one back and hope they refund it... I may have to go to a different drone brand.

Yes it is very aggravating and frustrating dealing with them.
My experience left me with me regret in trusting them.
They didn't stand behind their product... specifically in my case a Max 4 T.