How come Western Digital will not honor the 5 yr warranty?

My warranty claim was rejected. They said the drive was OEM
That is not listed on the product description and in fact the sales
documentation says 5 yrs…
New Egg Part number N82E16822136798

For example:
WD RE4Enterprise SATA Hard DrivesOutside of the boardroom, it’s all the power you need. Massive 2 TB capacityHigh performance technology24x7 reliability Ideal for servers, video surveillance, and other demanding write-intensive applications, WD RE4 7200 RPM Enterprise SATA hard drives offer up to 2 TB capacity, 64 MB cache, 4th generation vibration tolerance and 5-year limited warranty

You may have to contact your reseller about this. OEM drives do not normally include retail warranty, because OEM drives are not meant to be sold to end-users:

Additional information is available in the following link:

http://support.wdc.com/KnowledgeBase/answer.aspx?ID=1352

There are also some particular cases in which retail drives are sold after production has ceased and are no longer supported. On such cases the retailer takes responsibility, and the Newegg sales page for that hard drive (Based on part number) includes the following notice under Specifications> Features:

[quote=Newegg]Important Warranty Information
This product is end-of-sale and no longer warranted by the manufacturer. Instead, Newegg warranties this product for one year from date of purchase. If you require warranty service after thirty days, please contact Newegg Customer Service, not the manufacturer.[/quote]

The “Warranty & Returns” tab also lists 1-year-warranty as opposed to 5 years for the same reason.

If your reseller can confirm you were sold a retail unit instead of a OEM unit and sold to you before the notice on Newegg’s website then WD Support may be able to manually update your unit’s warranty from the date of purchase as long as they are provided with the purchase receipt.

http://support.wdc.com/contact.aspx?lang=en

Yes there is no mention of OEM anywhere, but there is mention of 5yr
warranty.
Back in 2013 I processed a warranty claim and was explicitly informed my
warranty extended to 2018.
Western Digital is unfairly, retroactively, changing the purchase
agreement and failing to honor the warranty.

Thanks,
-Will

While I understand where you’re coming from, bear in mind Newegg’s website (And any 3rd party website) layout and information deployment is not the manufacturer’s responsibility; that is why they recommend contacting them (Newegg) as opposed to the manufacturer.

This statement is confusing. If you processed an RMA in 2013 then the current hard drive is a different one. Warranty status does not change, and if the unit was indeed replaced in 2013 the remaining warranty would be that of the original purchased hard drive. The warranty was not going to be renewed for 5 additional years starting in 2013.

Are you certain you do not have 2 hard drives? One retail and one OEM?

Also, Newegg’s notice with regards to your unit’s warranty (Irrespective of OEM status) would indicate an expired warranty by 2014 if it is the same unit. I believe it’s important to verify if Newegg’s notice was posted on their website before you purchased your hard drive, or if it was added later on.

Your purchase agreement was made with a 3rd party reseller, not Western Digital. This is why there is an official WD Store, which guarantees your product’s warranty:

http://store.wdc.com

As I mentioned before, if Newegg provided you with an OEM unit without you being informed then they should address your particular case. Information supplied by 3rd parties is beyond what any company is able to control. Both retail and OEM versions of a product can be sold by the same retailer. However, warranty exceptions apply individually irrespective of being “the same product”.