A Rant

[pgandw]

....but if replacement parts are not going to be available for me to BUY to repair my locomotives then why should I buy anything new from them? I don't think it is unreasonable to want the parts, and I'm willing to buy them....
Some manufactures in this business realize that we often buy this rolling stock to last our lifetime, thus they offered the warranty....

The spare parts issue is an issue across Chinese production. And it was with Korean and Japanese brass before that. It is a consequence of limited, batch production which unfortunately is the only practical way to produce the wide variety of RTR locomotives we buy. If the importer and/or manufacturer order sufficient extra of key parts for the production batch, and the quality of the assembled product is good enough, we never hear about a parts problem. Guess wrong on either count, and there is a parts shortage. Most of the more reputable firms, upon finding out about a quality issue like cracked or slipping gears, will order a batch of replacement parts. This assumes they can get the parts, with the problem fixed, made and delivered within a reasonable timeframe. Life-Like did this for their cracked gears, and some of the brass importers have done this to fix drive train problems.

Unfortunately, fixing quality issues after production is a lose-lose situation - even for Bachmann. Look how long (in years) it took Bachmann to fix its gear issues across its Shays and Climaxes. During that time the lifetime warranty was essentially useless - all you could get was a replacement geared locomotive - a Shay if you had a Climax - with the same gear issue as the original.

Although Athearn/Roundhouse seems to have a better handle on spare parts than most of their competitors, that generality didn't help owners of the Athearn Mikados and Pacifics with their split gear issues. When the spares ran out, they ran out. Go see NWSL.

Given Walthers reputation in other areas, I doubt Walthers deliberately mishandled the situation. My guess (and I admit it's speculation on my part) is that they saw that the rate of issuing replacement gears was going to deplete their stock of spares rather quickly. So Walthers tried to clamp down to make sure the replacement gears were only going to those who truly needed/deserved them. Probably a bad call on their part to handle it this way. Perhaps Walthers has ordered yet another set of replacement gears. Or perhaps they didn't, figuring it was a Life-Like problem.

In my years in car dealerships I saw many items replaced free when the car was out of warranty just to promote goodwill, and many times this was not asked for nor expected by the customer. sure I saw unreasonable customers, but that was an exception.

As the owner of 10 new cars in my lifetime, sometimes I have been treated as you suggest. Other times I have been treated rather shabbily (the original equipment Ford Explorer/Firestone tires comes to mind as an example of shabby treatment). The trend in reviews on handling warranty issues does impact my car buying decisions (Toyota is now off my list for that reason, where they used to be very high), just as your experiences have affected who you will buy locomotives from.

I wish I could guarantee that your next locomotive purchase will be free of gear problems. But given how pervasive problems with plastic gears are, I'm surprised the buying public doesn't insist on spending an extra $20-$30 per locomotive for quality metal gears.

my thoughts, your choices
Fred W