EVERY company has occasional problems with a drive model or batch of drive, both mechanical and solid state. The key for the consumer is to read comments about the product, know how to do returns, and know how to upgrade the firmware if that is what fixes the issue. In this day of the internet, you will not need to be in the dark, whether something happens before or after purchase.
My OCZ model has a small percentage of drives with a problem, so far my drive doesn't have a problem.
Also certain percentage of drives are DOA no matter what I suspect usually due to abuse after manufacture.
