On my old phone I had an issue with the proximity sensor and front facing camera. This led me to holding my phone backwards to take photos and being unable to hang up phone calls.
I think I put up with this for a year and a half.
I did end up figuring out the issue with the proximity sensor but opening up my phone to reconnect the camera module was too much effort for me.
My old iPhone took a swim but it mostly came back. The face sensor and NFC stopped working immediately but after a few months the NFC started working again. Eventually however parts of the touchscreen started failing in vertical strips. At first it was still usable but at some point too much of the screen became unresponsive I had a get a Bluetooth remote to use the phone.
I was stubborn about getting a new phone as I knew the iPhone 15 would get USB C and wanted to wait hot that.