Tom's Hardware > News > Special > Miscellaneous > Western Digital Sends Letter To Dealers To Clarify New Warranty Policy

Western Digital Sends Letter To Dealers To Clarify New Warranty Policy

09:05 - Sunday 29 September 2002 by THG Reporting Team - source: Tom's Hardware

One of our readers who happens to be a dealer sent in a copy of a letter that Western Digital has been sending to dealers to help explain their new warranty policy.

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Subject: Western Digital Warranty Policy Update

Dear Western Digital Valued Distribution Customers:

Effective October 1, 2002 all standard drives will have a one-year limited warranty. Western Digital's new warranty policy affects all products with a 2MB cache ("EB, AB & BB series") invoiced on or after October 1. Warranty status can be obtained on our easy to use Web site, using the hard drive's serial number (http://support.wdc.com/warranty/selection.asp?custtype=DIR)

The warranty change does not affect Western Digital's "Special Edition" products with 8MB cache ("JB series"). The "JB" product will continue to carry a three year limited warranty.

Our new warranty policy allows more flexibility and options for both you and your customers, while still offering up to three years if your customer so chooses. Considering things like CPUs have warranties as low as 90 days, even our one-year warranty is longer than many system components.

In addition, this change enables Western Digital to operate more efficiently by modestly reducing our warranty liability. With this, we can reinvest the resources into enhancing our key deliverables to you, our customers. We look forward to continuing to provide you industry-leading technology, quality, reliability, service and support.

If you have any questions regarding this change, please contact your local Western Digital sales representative.

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Well, we can understand WD's position, but from what we have been hearing, most of the users don't like the policy, but at least WD is keeping the three year warranty on the "JB" models, which looks like a good move on WD's part because it be the choice for a lot of retailers.