Community archive

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Maxtor Not Honoring Warranty

0 helpful
10 replies

by a1comp

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.
I have used Maxtor hard drive for many years and have always found them to be fairly good drive. In the last year or so, I have had problems geting exchange drive that were under warranty. Even if the drive is marked "Warrnty good until ??", Maxtor will not honor the warranty past the one year period. Is this just me or is this happening to everone? I have taken Maxtor off our approved list and told all our tech's and associates to stop using Maxtor. Let me hear from you about your experiance with Maxtor.

10 replies

by thechas

I have not had the need to exchange hard drives under warranty. For any other hardware or software that I have had problems with, it is EXTREMELY unusual for warranty service to be extended past the stated warranty period from the date of purchase.

I suspect that you are confusing apples and oranges in relation to the dates on the drive.

Think of the warranty good until sticker as a shelf life.
If you buy a drive, and the warranty good until date is less than the 1 year warranty period,you know that the drive has been sitting in a warehouse or may even be a returned drive.

Maxtor has NO obligation to offer warranty exchanges past the stated length of the warranty.

Let's also face reality.
Sales and profits are down for all computer manufactures. Maxtor has most likely tightened up their policies to control costs.

If they are honoring the warranty for the stated length of time from the purchase date, I don't see where you have a valid complaint.

Chas

by a1comp

TheChas - The drive is plainly marked at the factory that the warranty is good untill 3/2004. This mark was not put on by a dealer, it is part of the information put on at the factory.

I have been in the service business since 1987 and we get 6or so bad drive in the shop each week. Western Digital and most of the other drive can be RMAed via the net without any trouble. Maxtor is the only one we have trouble with.

by thechas

Yes, I understand that the warranty good until sticker is placed on the drive by Maxtor.

It simply means that the warranty is good for one year, or until the stated date. Whichever comes first.
The good until date, is the date that ANY warranty on the drive expires.

A drive with a warranty good until date of 3/2004 will only have a 3 month warranty if it is sold in December of 2003. And, no factory warranty if sold after 3/2004. (Unless the user has a receipt form a licensed Maxtor dealer.)

Maxtor is looking to control costs from users who abuse the warranty policy.
This date also sets a time limit on support for people who purchase surplus and old hardware.

While Maxtor may be the first to crack down, I suspect this will become more common unless profit margins on PC parts improves soon.

I agree with Guru Of DOS, you need to take a close look at Maxtor's warranty policies as posted on their web site.

http://tinyurl.com/cldm

http://tinyurl.com/cled

http://tinyurl.com/clee

I especially like the disclaimer on the last link for OEM drives.

Yes, it looks like Maxtor has the tightest warranty policies for hard drives at this time.

Unless I am reading your original post incorrectly, your issue is that Maxtor will not replace a drive after the stated 1 year warranty period has elapsed.
Why should they??

Chas

by hal 9000

Maxator until they bought Quantum offered a 3 year warranty and once they had Quantum in their stable it droped to a 1 year warranty and I suspect that this is what's happenng here the company is applying their new warranty to the older drives.

I don't know for sure but it is an educated guess as like you I'm not in the position of returning any hardware under warranty particuarly HDD as my clients are somewhat sentisive about the data on their hard drives so any that fial while in the warranty period are taken out and smashed to prevent DATA RECOVERY but from all the advertising that used to be around when we had a multitude of drive makers as they all offered 3 year warranties and since this manfacturing base has fallen dramitacly most are now only offering a 1 year warranty.

by thechas

Colin, I am basing my comments on the original post.

This line in particular:

"Maxtor will not honor the warranty past the one year period."

coupled with statements on Maxtors site on their warranty policy, leads me to believe that their isa misunderstanding of Maxtor's warranty policy.

Maxtor does not know when the drive will be sold when they build it.
A warranty good until sticker applied at the factory looks like a good method to back up their life cycle limitations for support.

As an interesting aside, appliance manufactures in the US need to provide full support for their products for a minimum of 7 years after the last manufacturing run.

I think it would be great (but costly) if the IT industry had the same requirements.
Microsoft would need to support Windows 95 for 2 more years!

Chas

by guruofdos

Maxtor have changed their warranty policy and have posted information to this end on their web site. The years warranty runs from the date of manufacture, not date of purchase. They used to offer a two or even a three year warranty but as the lifespan of a typical computer is only 18 months before it is handed on or sold off, drives were starting to appear on the second-hand market. It is VERY simple to 'fry' a hard disk and many people, myself included have bought a second hand machine and opened it up to find a 35 month old Maxtor drive with a few bad sectors. Sending the drive back under warranty would often result in a remanufactured drive being sent out by Maxtor. Although this would only have the balance of the warranty on it - perhaps a couple of months - it would be up to original spec and often good for another three years! In many cases, an older drive was no longer available so Maxtor would send out their smallest equivalent which would often be twice the capacity of the faulty drive.

Western Digital had a similar policy of two year warranties and their WD Caviar 22000 series (2.1Gb) was renowned for failing after about 10 months and was discontinued. Lots of people sent these back and got a 4.3GB replacement.

Iused to go round all my local computer stores and search waste bins for failed drives and often get a replacement from Maxtor or WD under warranty because the shop would sell a new drive to a customer and couldn't be bothered to get a warranty replacement!

Methinks these manufacturers got wise to this!

by a1comp

Sounds like us computer repair people need to start offering a 90 day warranty on new drives we install. If the warranty is from time of mfg., most drives would be at least a month or two old by the time we get then in stock (they have to be shipped from China). I normally buy 12 drive at a time to get the best price, so, it could be another month before the drive get in the end users machine.

In regards to my origional post, the drive I was referring to had a 3 year warranty. Maxtor would not honor the warranty because the drive was more than 1 year old. I did not know that you could change the warranty period after the fact. I guess you learn something new everday

Thanks for the imput.

by hal 9000

It is only because Maxator has changed it's warranty policy recently and I tried a warranty claim on one of my customers drives which I knew was over 12 months old but was originally covered by a 3 year warranty and It came up as covered. I didn't proceed with the request as the drive actually worked and I did ignore all the stuff on the page other than where you entered the data about the drive.

Short of starting some sough of court action there isn't really all that much that you can do and with the price of the drives it isn't worth the effort.

But you could point out to your customers that there may be vital data on the faulty HDD that could be recovered and allow some one else access to their bank accounts {if they do online banking or pay by credit card} so it is probably a better idea to destroy the faulty drive and just pay for a replacment. Of course thsi will all fall to peices if the computer in question is only used for games but otherwise I'd push the idea that there might be some vital data that the customer doesn't want to get out of their control. Even something as simple as an address book could cause some problems.

by hal 9000

Hard Drive and enter the serial number and part number into the web site I think you will find that it comes up as covered by the previous 3 year warranty which I think that Maxator no longer is offering.

I don't know for sure as I've never returned a hard drive ever no matter how new it was when it failed but from my understanding Maxator and Quantum used to offer a 3 year warranty from the date of manafacture not the time of sale but when the hard drive manafcatures combined they began tooffer a 12 month warranty and from the original posting that was my take on the position but as I'm only too willing to admit I don't actually know because I've never returned a faulty hard drive but this has always been for security reasons {we could not take the chance that there wasn't something important on the drive}. The things are so cheep that from our prespective it isn't worth the risk however from a conversation with our main supplier Maxator did offer a 3 year warranty up to the point where they took over Quantum and then the warranty was dropped to 12 months.

So I'm thinking that the drive in question is a Maxator that was built prior to the combination of these 2 companies and the change in warranty policy.

I don't knowfor sure but I'm willing to bet this is the case as I'v just grabbed a Maxator drive from a customers computer and entered the details into the system only to be told that the warranty expires in Jan 2004. Which is well past the 12 month current warranty period.

by a1comp

Seems to be a misunderstanding about my origional post. The Maxtor drive in question was sold with a 3 year warranty. I know that Maxtor did change there warranty period to one year on drive sold after a certain date. However, the drive in question was sold with a three year warranty that they will not honor.

This discussion is closed to new replies.