Are we partially to blame for manufacturers' inferior products and quality control issues?

When the American auto industry was pumping out inferior products, buyers stayed away in droves and bought foreign cars. American car makers had no choice but to increase quality and reliability. 

 

Buyers of electric trains put up with out-of-box defects, then accept the fact that they can't return the item for a full refund or exchange. I would think stopping payments on credit cards for defective items would make manufacturers and sellers readjust their thinking. Additionally, some states require merchants to accept returns, even though store policy says they will not. 

Of course we are our own worst enemies, but I don't see anything changing that since that has long been the case.

 

That said, the quoted comment is way over the top, written--likely in haste--by someone who didn't take the time to recognize that you cannot generalize one experience, or even more than one, to the entire universe of participants and products that make up this hobby.

 

My guess--more than a guess, really--is that the vast majority of those engaged in the model railroading hobby are very well satisfied with the experience and with the benefits a hobby like this provides.  Most all probably have had a problem or two pop-up from time to time, but they have the self-control and reasoning capacity to recognize this happens on occasion and that you just have to deal with it.  Read online reviews for ANY product in any category and you'll see similar comments posted.

The only thing we have fighting inflation in this country is poor service

 

If it were only that simple.  Unless the retailer/LHS has some sort of agreement with the distributor, he takes the hit on stop payments and the like.  Then the problem advances to the hobby shop/distributor connection.  The manufacturer already has his money.  It seems as though this has become a never-ending battle and the only way I see to solve the problem is for all of us to stop buying trains long enough to get the manufacturers' attention.  And who knows how long that would take.

Granted, this person appears to be a newbie and he's lost to model railroading forever, but it seems like he was very fortunate that his LHS was willing to do some free rework on stuff he bought at Amazon. (If I'm reading his comments right.)

 

Without knowing what he bought or the nature of the problem, it's difficult to comment on whether this was an over reaction or not.

 

Rusty

 

As soon as you can get MOST of the general population to be interested in this hobby,then maybe things would improve. The only reason these manufacturers are even building trains is because they want/like to. There are far more lucrative electronic devices that they could produce because EVERYONE would want one not just a few thousand people. With such a small market base its just as easy if not easier to make repairs/ corrections after the fact than to spend money making sure things are perfect during production. Add to that the constantly evolving electronics, which many components are unique to our O guage locomotives.

 

 

 

BTW, hasn't this topic been beaten to death a gazillion times already

 

this is really a shame that a first experience in a truly rewarding hobby winds up as a sad experience. it seems to be happening more and more even to us we open our new treasures only to put them back into there box and ship back for repair.

 

quality control is a word tossed around meaningless it seems as now most manufacturers figure they can fix it later or the local hobby shop will correct the issue at there level which is a goodwill effort and also in hopes the unhappy customer will be satisfied and return to purchase more from them which is good for the local hobby shop and the maker of said items.

 

we need as a collective group here let all the makers know were tired of the norm and we deserve better than we have seen for awhile now.

 

some say things are good and these are sparse occurrences compared to the good products delivered of like items and am sure there are.

 

but I wonder if we attacked the main issue of poor qc and did some fancy go to the actual makers of our items and purchased them from them defects and all to make a point to our current makers that why pay them when we can go to the source thus eliminating them thus those large corporate dollars just went poof! 

you can bet there attention span would improve ten fold and as to the real makers selling direct to us in reality they have no jurisdiction over seas with the current makers they use too make them.

 

now I'm not saying this is the route but just trying to make a point that if we let them know we could do it and trust me the oh we will stop those imports at the docks? ask yourselves how do all the illegal imports find there ways into the hands of those finding a way to make it happen.

 

I wish we could reach out to those with a less than great experience but we do try with those that know of this fine group always willing to help anyone out with an issue with the latest or the oldest product made throughout the years.

 

some posts relate to older posts of same issue yet we forget to the newbie it's not old but a first time bitter taste in ones mouth hoping somewhere there is a group willing to help them and all future hobbyist's isn't that what were supposed to be about here?

 

$oo 

I have quite buying engines from one mfg as the electronics are so poor that there is no longer joy in buying a 1000.00 plus item that will arrive defective. 

I know that the loss of just one buyer is no big deal to a mfg but if it became more universal to do this, maybe something would happen.

Why don't you do some quality control on your sentence structure, grammar and spelling? My six year old grandson can do better. You're the reason, mon ami, that the manufacturers get away with what they do.

I saw this review too. It was for a Lionel Polar express set which if you look at it on Amazon there are plenty more sad reviews, 

Really, you have nothing to say but to insult somebody because of some spelling errors or grammar mistakes? It's guys like you that sometimes makes this forum hard to read. Next time just keep your opinions to yourself unless you can add to the conversation at hand.

To a certain extent, yes.  I've long felt that participants who engage in online discussion groups with some frequency are indeed somewhat atypical of the hobby community at large (not that this is a bad thing).  I personally know a great many hobbyists who do not engage in any online discussions and who are fully enjoying all the hobby has to offer.  And I personally know very few who are disgruntled with the products they have or with other aspects of the hobby and the hobby industry.  You'll see many of those folks represented on the pages of our magazine.

Online, you can find plenty of poor reviews for just about ANY product made, so it's by no means exclusive to toy trains.  You should ALWAYS take any online product review with a LARGE grain of salt.

I bought a new electric razor, recently, and I was told by the salesperson that - if for some reason you don't want to keep the razor, within the next 15 days; even if you have used it - just return it, along with it's original packaging(doesn't have to be properly repacked, though) and our store will give you a full refund.

 

No restocking fees... nothing, but a full refund.

 

BTW, I tried the razor, but I didn't enjoy/like the experience; and returned it for a full refund. That's a good example of a manufacturer, of an electronic product; and the retailer, standing behind their product.

 

Doing things right, the first time round, should be the way it works. You shouldn't have to make a pseudo celebrity out of your company's clean-up guy(fixer).

 

 

Rick

 

 

 

Sorry, can't do that, pal. If it's any help to you, I would edit the word "makes" to "make" to reflect that "guys" is plural. Regards

My experience is that the expectations are far to high in this hobby. They are only toys. Most toys that I buy for my kids barely do any of the sales hype that is put in commercials and on the boxes. Most of the newer train stuff does a lot more, better and more reliably than the older stuff. Set up 3 or 4 recently cleaned and tuned milk cars and watch them randomly eject milk cans if you want to jog your memories. They fact that they are really limited production runs and not really that expensive, there really is not much time or money to invest in product development. A lot of times it is hit or miss. Instead of pre ordering, wait a few years and buy used stuff that has a track record. Or buy the stuff sitting on shelves at a discount and fix, modify, kit bash, and enjoy your hobby. But quit wining. You all sometimes make me want to stay away from train events.

Ffff...,

 

$500.00 - $600.00 -  $1,200.00... toys or not, that's a significant amount of money to pay for a substandard product. I wonder... would a manufacturer accept less, when it came to their fee; maybe, a prorated fee should be charged - depending on how well built their product was, and how well it worked?

 

 

Rick

I find many of these RTR sets to be way too cheaply made to suite their target audience.  While I get the fact they must meet a certain viable and profitable cost/profit margin and it may well be impossible to make a RTR set these days that is actually good quality and hits a price point people will buy.   What is happening now tho in this got to have it now and I "just want it to work" without putting any effort into it mindset of many working parents these days is that they open up these sets and simply can't/won't spend the time it takes to set them up correctly and monitor their kids in a way to prevent it from getting broken on the first lap around the track.   So of course the reviews on sites like amazon.com reflect that.   These sets are so incredibly cheap.  Take  Lionel Thomas for example.  What does every kid want to do?   They want to push Thomas around the track with their hand.   The gears etc on this thing are not only plastic they are cheap hard plastic that break the moment a child pushes it.   Even parents trying to watch carefully don't have a prayer.  By time a parent would say, "stop don't do that!"   It's already broke.

 

I don't know that there is a solution.   It is just very unfortunate for every one.

 

Allan,

 

 You sum up very well my thoughts on this topic.   My friend's hobby shop, out of curiosity, conducted a poll of his O-Gauge customers, most of whom are regulars.

The poll asked 3 questions:

1. Do you know about online forums such as OGR and CTT?
2. Do you participate?
3. Do you participate in any online media (Facebook, etc.)

 

He received 113 unique responses.    Of those 113, 52 knew about OGR.(46%)

Of those 52, 1 participates.(.02%)

Of the 113 who responded, 78 said they use Facebook and other online social sites.(69%)

 

Granted, this is anecdotal and a small sampling, but it does represent one hobby shop's regular O-Gauge customers.  Regular means they've shopped three or more times at the store for O-Gauge products in the preceding 6 months.

 

My take has always been that as well as OGR Forum is populate in the 10+ years I've been here, we are still a pretty exclusive "club" of an even more niche part of the overall train hobby.  Most everything we write here is a bit like preaching to the choir.

 

Just like Allan, I have a couple friends with great layouts in O, and they have nothing to do with online train forums.

 

As RickO said.

 

 

But I do agree with Allan and others that the large majority of us do not experience bad products or service for most of the time. We all experience the occasional problem, but life is like that. And as we all know, misery loves an audience, and bad news travels at the speed of light. Be happy. It's nearly crimbo. 

You could argue that if we continue to buy inferior quality products of any kind we are in fact to blame for that quality.  If we stopped buying those products manufacturers have two options, improve quality or go out of business.  We have two major train builders; MTH and Lionel and both have produced some excellent products and also some real junk. As time goes on more and more trains are being sourced in China.  It used to be that premium locomotives were made in Korea and my experience with those has been good.  I would not buy a top line engine made in China primarily because they tend to have more sophisticated features and computer chips made there have a relatively high incidence of failure (its not just our trains but my experience with small kitchen appliances "made in China" has been all over the map.  My "made in China" Keurig coffee maker failed after about 50 uses; I accessed the internet to see if there was info re-fixing it myself (I ended up junking it as it made lousy coffee even when it worked).  There were literally hundreds of blogs from people with the same problem and my guess is the same situation exists in our hobby. If you think Im bashing all products "made in China" my experience with Breville products (an Australian company that sources most products in China) has been excellent so its the inconsistent quality thats I feel is the main issue. Both MTH and Lionel need to look for better suppliers and if their costs go up a few cents per unit they can absorb it.  My guess is that they are making pretty fat profits off their top line products. Our premium engines are very sophisticated with pretty amazing sound, smoke/steam and other effects that require chips with the power of a small computer.  The Lionel and Flyer trains we remember from our youth were pretty simple in comparison; pretty much smoke, chugger and whistle that worked with proven reliable electro/mechanical systems and thats the reason so many of them still work as long as they are maintained properly so it makes no sense to compare them.  Lionel and MTH are corporations whose main goal is profits (nothing wrong with that but when we buy any product there is an implied contract that you get reasonable quality/performance for your dollar).  They transfered production from Korea to China for only one reason, to cut costs.  Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.  bertiejoa

Yes.

 

--Greg

To answer your question, the comment did not strike a nerve. It was not a review, it was an editorial based on one experience. The customer is not to blame either.

You cannot base a opinion on a product from one disgruntled customer. 

The information I find here on the forum, (good reviews or bad reviews) on products are generally helpful, especially when more than one person encounters the same specific problem. Quality is an issue but its more related to specific products rather than a broad, almost meaningless generalization that is more akin to an rant. 

We vote with our cash more sometimes than with common sense, but that applies to stuff outside of the tiny microcosm of toy trains as well. There is no single silver bullet answer.

I had a couple items I purchased new from LHS that was defective. I returned them to LHS for replacement or refund. However during the process of determining if a quick fix could be made without returning the items it was suggested I return them to Lionel.

The LHS also suggested that since they were out of stock would I send it to Lionel. The normal process is when a consumer purchases any item that is defective the consumer returns it to the store, not shipping it back to the mfg. My question is why does it appear to be different in model railroading returning a defective item?

No, we're not to blame.

"I find many of these RTR sets to be way too cheaply made to suite their target audience...

 

These sets are so incredibly cheap.  Take  Lionel Thomas for example.  What does every kid want to do?   They want to push Thomas around the track with their hand.   The gears etc on this thing are not only plastic they are cheap hard plastic that break the moment a child pushes it.   Even parents trying to watch carefully don't have a prayer.  By time a parent would say, "stop don't do that!"   It's already broke."

 

As one who buys and operates these sorts of "low-end" starter products, I find these sorts of sentiments inaccurate. I have plastic geared locos that are now almost 40 years old and run just fine. I have only replaced one single plastic gear in all of my locomotives. And that one was a spur gear on a 20 plus year old 4-4-2 Lionel starter steamer. The loco ran fine, but would spin gears when running in reverse. I also had to replace the smoke unit, but that particular loco has seen a lot of running. I have early K-Line locos that are still running to this day with original plastic gears. I have cheap low-end Lionel DC only locomotives that are still running on original plastic gears, and this goes for ones that have been given to kids.

 

I have a nephew who has several plastic geared locos, pushes them and still still run just fine. Yes, today's trains have more plastic in them than years ago, but so does every other product. As one who has been buying starter sets for decades, I find the quality on current production sets to be much better than even 10-15 years ago.

 

Yes, there are exceptions, like the well-documented problems Lionel had with the early CW-80 transformers. But I personally have never had the problems with my trains that I see so many others writing (and complaining) about with supposedly much better quality, more expensive trains.

 

I do agree though, that there are some people who give starter sets to their children, somehow thinking that they are like video games, or popping a DVD into a player. Trains are a wonderful hobby for parents to participate in with their children. Any parent who expects otherwise, is going to be disappointed no matter what price point or quality level the trains are made at.

 

And as Ffffreddd accurately pointed out, not all postwar trains worked as well as our memories make us believe. And I won't mention the postwar Scouts, or the single axle drive locomotives... any MPC plastic geared loco will operate better than those by my experience.

 

 

I agree with you, Brianel.  There are many well-made and excellent performing starter sets and lower-end items available today.

 

And if postwar trains were so trouble-free, how come there were so many service stations around at the time?  Trust me, I know from experience. 

I wonder if Icom, Kenwood, Yeasu, or the other ham radio importers have a bad order ratio the same as our trains?  Or is it higher and lower?  Considering power levels, anteannas, st. al, these items have to be of robust making.  Sure, not all radios are perfect.  But these items are full of electronics, like our trains, in unforgiving conditions.

Lol no.

I'm pretty much happy with the whole buying trains from the bigger manufactures. A glitch here and there but I have plenty to keep me busy if I have to send something back. It's all good. They are well made and really have plenty of features. 

The point of operating 3-Rail O gauge Locomotives is that they are ready to run right out of the box. Hence, the Ready-To-Run catalogs each year.

 

That statement you found sounds like a person who wanted to get into some form of 2-Rail operation, without looking at other options.  

 

Andrew

Re the comparison to ham radios.  Most were made to very high standards; prior to the internet (which has pretty much killed off the traditional hobby) ham radio was the only method of communication in many parts of the world and if equipment failed it could mean the difference between life and death.  I have an approx 10 year old ICOM receiver (made in Japan) thats built like a tank and have had no problems with it.  This brings up the issue of how people who arent train hobbyists view our models whether its a plastic Thomas or a hand made brass masterpiece like those made by KOHS.  Most of the public sees our models as toys and toys in most peoples minds are disposable items made to be played with, abused and eventually thrown away not treasured artifacts from the past.  I wonder if some of the factories who work for MTH and Lionel see them more as toys and and build them accordingly.  Im still amazed at finding 50-60 year old trains (especially Marx) that are in good cosmetic and running condition.  When I was a child we played with our trains in the dirt, on lawns and on the sidewalk and most kept on running.    bertiejoa

How many local hobby shops allow you to test run a sample of the High-End items, before you buy them? Not too many.

 

Most of the High-end model railroad purchases are made sight unseen. You never know what you are going to get. It might not even be what is shown in the catalog or listed on the box. This is becoming closer to gambling on the high-end products each year.

 

Andrew

Low-Cost for what? When an O scale locomotive is priced at $450-$700 retail, it is not low-cost.

 

Andrew

 

This definitely struck a nerve to me. This person is so disappointed with their defected set that they seem to for some reason assume therefore that all train sets are exactly like it, even though thats obviously not the case. Just because you buy a train set that doesn't work properly doesn't mean that all of them are like that. Its like if I buy a car that has constant issues one after the other, and I falsely assume that all cars are like that, even though thats just not true.

This hobby has a very emotional attachment to it. If a stean train I bought to run around the Christmas tree breaks out of the box, I get upset. If I buy a new drill and it breaks, I'm annoyed but not upset.

 

Knowing that, train manufacturers should put a premium on first time fail rates. If a new customer buys a starter set and it fails they aren't coming back. A smart manufacturer would have a process in place to make sure this doesn't happen. We build all this stuff in China because of cheap labor rates. With that being the case, go the extra mile and ensure everything is tested before it gets packed.

 

Since they don't do that we fix most things ourselves. It's just easier than sending it out. Also cheaper if you have to pay for shipping. So yes we are part of the problem.

 

To be in the hobby you learn a lot of repair skills. You can't pay everytime something needs to be done to your 40 year old engine. So when a engine we just bought doesn't work right, you open it up and see what you can do.

 

I would also say that most times nothing is wrong with the products we buy. On the internet you're only going to hear the problems. If these companies were really as bad as everyhting you read on the interenet they wouldn't be in business. 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello ChiTownSteve..........

 

I am pretty much the same way one of the reason is the train will cost a lot more than a drill and more of hassle getting the train fix as for the drill simple exchange with sales slip 

 

the woman who loves the S.F.#5011

Tiffany