Warranty Bits Not in the FAQ

  • Thread starter Thread starter J.Clarke
  • Start date Start date
J

J.Clarke

Would have thought this bit would have been in there.

On eBay 4 months ago I bought 6 brand new OEM IBM drives manufactured
Sept 2001. Seller offered 30 day warranty. Now one drive has failed
DFT. I went to Hitachi/IBM web site, put in the serial, and was
directed to a page saying I must go through my dealer to get warranty
on this device. Seller refuses to have anything to do with my problem,
since *his* warranty policy was clearly stated before I bid.

Now, can Hitachi/IBM really have no liability on a drive only used 4
months? Surely there should be no less than a year warranty even on
OEM, no? Anyone know how I can get this drive warrantied?
Click to expand...

You basically can't. OEM drives are sold with different warranties
depending on who buys them from the manufacturer. There are "brown box"
OEM drives that are warranted to the end user, but there are also
drives purchased under contract in which the warranty terms were
negotiated as part of the contract--this is normally the case for drives
purchased by high-volume manufacturers such as Dell and Compaq and may
also be the case for drives sold by high volume resellers under a store
brand. Generally, the terms of such a negotiated contract will be that
the drive is warranted to the computer manufacturer or to the reseller
who is expected to warranty the product to the end user.

In any case, if the drives were manufactured in September, 2001, they
are nearly two years old, so even if they were warranted for a year to
the end user that warranty has long since expired.
 
Would have thought this bit would have been in there.

On eBay 4 months ago I bought 6 brand new OEM IBM drives manufactured
Sept 2001. Seller offered 30 day warranty. Now one drive has failed DFT.
I went to Hitachi/IBM web site, put in the serial, and was directed to a
page saying I must go through my dealer to get warranty on this device.
Seller refuses to have anything to do with my problem, since *his*
warranty policy was clearly stated before I bid.

Now, can Hitachi/IBM really have no liability on a drive only used 4
months? Surely there should be no less than a year warranty even on OEM,
no? Anyone know how I can get this drive warrantied?
--
"A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself
under control." Proverbs 29:11 NIV

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata *** http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/partitioningindex.html
 
| Would have thought this bit would have been in there.
|
| On eBay 4 months ago I bought 6 brand new OEM IBM drives manufactured
| Sept 2001. Seller offered 30 day warranty. Now one drive has failed DFT.
| I went to Hitachi/IBM web site, put in the serial, and was directed to a
| page saying I must go through my dealer to get warranty on this device.
| Seller refuses to have anything to do with my problem, since *his*
| warranty policy was clearly stated before I bid.
|
| Now, can Hitachi/IBM really have no liability on a drive only used 4
| months? Surely there should be no less than a year warranty even on OEM,
| no? Anyone know how I can get this drive warrantied?
| --
| "A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself
| under control." Proverbs 29:11 NIV
|
| Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
|
| Felix Miata *** http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/partitioningindex.html

I had a similar experience with a failed WesternDigital drive a couple of
months about. The drive was only 4 months old when it went TU.

WD said no warranty. When I called them they said the drive was made for
sale in Asia and no warranty in the US would be honored.

I thought I was screwed. I called Newegg where I purchased the drive
expecting to get a hassle. Surprise, no hassle at all. Sent in the drive,
they replaced it and paid postage both ways.

Newegg probably knowingly buys these so call 'gray market" drives because
their cheaper and takes on the warranty expense themselves.

Another thing you're confused about. The warranty date starts with the
manufacturing date, not when it's sold. Some vendors give a month or two
grace to cover time in the pipeline. Sometime a year or so ago drive
manufacturers for the most part changed their warranty from three years to
one year. Western Digital I know will offer the 3 year warranty for an
extra few dollars, the standard is one year.

The drive you bought was probably a gray market unit with no US warranty.
The dealer told you up front that he'd warranty it for 30 days. Sorry you
had to learn an expensive lesson. I hope you didn't loose any valuable data
also.

Hope you understand my explanation.
 
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Sometime a year or so ago drive manufacturers for the most part changed
their warranty from three years to one year. Western Digital I know will
offer the 3 year warranty for an extra few dollars, the standard is one
year.
Click to expand...

The warranty on Western Digital 7200rpm IDE drives with 8MB cache (WDxxxxJB)
is still 3 years. The difference in cost between those and the 2MB-cache
(WDxxxxBB) drives is often about what you'd pay to extend the warranty of
the 2MB-cache drive, so you might as well go for the bigger cache if it's
available in the drive size you want.

_/_ Scott Alfter
/ v \ (e-mail address removed)
(IIGS( http://alfter.us Top-posting!
\_^_/ pkill -9 /bin/laden >What is the most annoying thing on Usenet?

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I've had very good service from Newegg too. They are a great company.

By the way, I am fairly certain that the only 3-year warranties offered by
Western Digital are for those drives with the 8MB cache. Other WD HDs have
only one year warranties.

Regards.
 
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Felix Miata said:
Would have thought this bit would have been in there.
Click to expand...
On eBay 4 months ago I bought 6 brand new OEM IBM drives manufactured
Sept 2001. Seller offered 30 day warranty. Now one drive has failed DFT.
I went to Hitachi/IBM web site, put in the serial, and was directed to a
page saying I must go through my dealer to get warranty on this device.
Seller refuses to have anything to do with my problem, since *his*
warranty policy was clearly stated before I bid.
Click to expand...
Now, can Hitachi/IBM really have no liability on a drive only used 4
months? Surely there should be no less than a year warranty even on OEM,
no? Anyone know how I can get this drive warrantied?
Click to expand...

The trick is that legally required warranty only covers end-users.
Dealers can have any kind of agreement between them, including no
warranty at all. So when you buy OEM the only source of warranty
is your vendor, which gave you 30 days. Of course the manufacturer
can have a replacement policy for OEM drives as well, but there
is no legal requirement for this.

Bottom line: You got what you paid for. There is a reason for the
lower price.

Arno
 
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Papa said:
That's why I don't use eBay. When problems occur, you are on your own.
Click to expand...

Actually the vendor stated the offer clearly. Don't buy with 30 day
warranty if you want more. (But yes, vendor integrity on
eBay is mixed.)

Arno
 
The price difference between 64 Mbit and 16 Mbit SDRAM chip is negligible.
16M chips are almost in specialty category, so they even may have some price
premium.
 
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