Info./Opinions on MTH Engines

What version of MTH locomotives do you have?  Are they the original Protosounds, PS2, PS3 or a combination of all of the above?  I have found that most issues with MTH locomotives tend to be with the batteries.  The 5v system was a little issue prone in PS2.  Protosound engines need a charged battery to function as some have issues with failing due to a weak battery.  PS3 for me has been more or less reliable, however each locomotive seems to have its own personality which has caused issues on large layouts with multiple TIUs in "lashup" mode. 

Overall, my experience with MTH has been good.  Outside of frying a Protosounds Premier GG1 and an E33 my MTH locomotives have been fairly reliable.  Having a DCS system helps a lot with diagnostics and is worth the investment.

I got brand new tran . It found 30 years later. dropped. hit floor a few stories down. I put 440v to track? Kicked into pool. Now, no run. hellp. I fixd.

I put indollar.

Anyone else?

I'm not bashin' tho. 

You would thing that Mtc would fix this! Day smell.

I have 20+ MTH PS3 engines (lost count) ordered from 2012 on, and no problems for the most part. I have only one engine with a problem, it has one ditch light that doesn't work. It's about 4-5 years old or so and the ditch light problem arose when it was around 2 years old or so. All I have are diesels, I have no steamers so I can't speak to those. I have one PS2 diesel engine in a starter set that hasn't been out of the box in about 3 years or so, but was working fine when I put it away. Overall I am very pleased with MTH products.

I have 3 MTH PS3 steamers.  Love em.  No issues

I have only had one problem with a MTH steam loco and the board fried because it was pinched at the factory,all of the others Proto2&3 run fine.

Mikey

I bought 3 new MTH locos  in the last 6 months. The first 2 work fine but the third - a F7 had erratic running issues so sent it back to Trainworld for a full refund. A month later bought another  MTH F7 from Trainworld for only  $350. But it would stop on switches if going slow so called MTH(didn't want to send it back to Trainworld because thye had been so accommodating about the first one). MTH said it sounded like a faulty ground, told me how to try to fix it which I declined to do so they gave me an RA number. The lady said the turn around time is 10 weeks which I consider excessive. Why don't they hire some moonlighting technicians to help with the backlog. Miss my F7.    

I've purchased 6 premier diesels in the past 2 years... they all have run fine out of the box

IMO, the quality of MTH engines - steam engines in particular - has declined significantly over the last few years. I was a BIG MTH buyer for years and only bought MTH. 

I will not purchase another PS3 steam engine. Why?

1) The wireless drawbar is no good. A chronic source of problems for many. 

2) Software issue where the engine will violently "lock up" when stopped via the direction button or throttling down in conventional mode. This also happens with the diesels, only when the smoke is on however. It is a constant issue with steam. MTH executives admitted they were well aware of the issue but were not willing to invest the time and $$$ to resolve as "nobody runs conventional anymore. Everybody uses DCS".....REALLY!?!?!

3) Board issues. I've had several board related issues that couldn't be solved with my only remaining PS3 steamer. Same issues were present in others and I've seen the same symptoms (rapid fire static sounds) posted about here as well. 

The overall heft of new PS3 steamers just seems to be lacking. When steam engines were produced again after a few year absence, they really "cheapened" the Imperial engines by leaving off several advertised details - I assume to speed production. They didn't "cheapen" the prices however...

The diesels are OK...not great but OK. I still buy them but not without extensive test running and inspection.

IMO - if you are looking for something in particular, that has been made before, find a PS1 or PS2 version .

Overall, Lionel is getting my money for steam. Good quality products is what they are making. I've bought over 20 locomotives in the past year. Several have been PS3 diesels. Most of them have had some issue out of the box or after a few hours of running. 

Thanks. I thought I was the only one. I also think that MTH in the past few years have cut corners with their quality. Too bad cause I believe that they were top shelf at one time.

I don't have any personal experience to share, but I would caution against drawing general conclusions from a small number of disastrous experiences.  Sometimes stuff happens to a small number of people.  Just stochastic things.  If you look at the problems experienced by appliance purchasers from major companies like LG, Sony, Samsung, etc. the failure rate in use is about 5-10%.  Some of it is, of course, user error, but mostly it's just entropy and the impossibility of preventing all sorts of damage in transit after manufacturing and installing.  Same issues apply to toy trains, but perhaps worse, because they are likely more fragile.  That said, don't doubt there are runs of lemons in all manufacturing.  That said, the MTH products I own (no recent engines) have all been fine (quite a few recent rolling stock, for example).

I have both MTH and Lionel equipment and have found no big difference between them.  I have only two locomotives that were immediate failures; an MTH about 6 years ago which was fixed in a reasonable time (2-3 weeks) and a Lionel early this year which was corrected in less than two weeks. I have both Legacy and DCS so I buy locomotives based on what I like more than who made it.  If both offer the same locomotive (like an E8), I will check the details and try to listen to the sounds and read comments in the Forum before I buy.

I should also note - my one and only PS3 steamer, an early PS3 engine (0-6-0) has been a regular visitor to my tech's workbench for issues, mostly related to the wireless drawbar.

We've replaced boards (boiler board), wireless drawbar sockets, plugs, the drawbar itself several times, and many other components. It was still quirky.

It is back at my tech now. I am having him gut it and make it a conventional engine. I'm sick of dealing with it and just want it to run!

I have 10 MTH engines, both Diesel and steam, both Premier and RailKing, all purchased NEW in the last five years or less, all PS3. More than half came with problems I was able to fix myself like bad gauging of the wheels, bad DSC/DCC switch, wire routing problems, and tender pull bar constantly disengaging (fixed with tiny tie wrap around connectors). Once fixed by me all run fine now and none have failed, yet. I don't use all the features so I have no knowledge of whether they all work or not (Smoke in my small house builds to intolerable levels if I run smoke). But the engines run fine, whistles work, all the running controls work, all the lighting seems to work.

So I suggest the expectation for MTH engines must be lowered, you must be willing to work on them, and that is just the way it is. Lionel stuff seems to be the same based on what I read here. I certainly wished they had better quality control, but they are Chinese products. Apple gets excellent quality control from Chinese computers/phones but I suspect apple has resident USA people who keep them on their game. Maybe MTH should do that???

LDBennett

LDBennett posted:

 Apple gets excellent quality control from Chinese computers/phones but I suspect Apple has resident USA people who keep them on their game.

Apple also charges around $700-800 for a dinky little phone, while MTH or Lionel charges less for an entire locomotive! Apple also makes orders of magnitude more of a single model than either MTH or Lionel, so the overhead of additional quality control is spread out over a much larger base of products.  It's hardly surprising that Apple can ship with less out of the box defects than the model train manufacturers.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

LDBennett posted:

 Apple gets excellent quality control from Chinese computers/phones but I suspect Apple has resident USA people who keep them on their game.

Apple also charges around $700-800 for a dinky little phone, while MTH or Lionel charges less for an entire locomotive! Apple also makes orders of magnitude more of a single model than either MTH or Lionel, so the overhead of additional quality control is spread out over a much larger base of products.  It's hardly surprising that Apple can ship with less out of the box defects than the model train manufacturers.

To simply add to your statement, Apple makes more iPhones than all the O product produced in it's entirety across all the manufacturers in a given year.  Quality control is much easier with the economy of scale. 

taki53 posted:

Thanks. I thought I was the only one. I also think that MTH in the past few years have cut corners with their quality. Too bad cause I believe that they were top shelf at one time.

so who do you like?

Regardless, of who's engine you buy, you may what to check to see if they are a service center as well as a dealer.

I have had some problems with my MTH engines, most of the time found out during the warranty time. Like my MTH Big Boy ended needing a new tach board, luckily it was in the warranty time frame. The two I asked about on here recently ended up just needing a factory reset. Those work fine so far. If my mth engines would all completely fail I would only have two running engines of my six or seven. Most of the time the problems I have had were minor, didn't really require sending it in to get repaired.

I have had very good luck with MTH engines. Most of my engines are PS2. I have a PS3 steamer that needs a reset everytime I put it on the track, and a GP that only runs with my Z4000 ( I have tried other transformers and resets, along with advice on this forum). I can live with these 2 issues. I have over 40 engines and I would not hesitate to buy MTH.  Others have different experiences. Buy what you like and find a good service center. 

Bob

Quality is what the manufacture puts into the product. He can choose little and save manufacturing cost (increase profit or shoot for a lower price) or do the job right and perhaps add something to the price. He chooses where he wants to be.

If volume is needed for good quality control then how do you explain custom guns made one at a time. I agree the pricing might be effected for better quality control but these trains are already expensive and a few buck more to get superior quality control is not going to break most of us. Apple does it (increased pricing for better products) and in my experience their hardware out lasts almost everyone else's. As an aside I have been buying Apple products since the early 1980's and every one was good for nearly a decade or more until planned obsolescence over took them.

MTH plans exactly how much quality control they want in their products and it is below "perfect". I suspect Lionel is the same.

95% of my MTH locomotives are flawless and reliable.  But when a lemon shows up, it can be bad, and MTH in my experiences previously failed miserably at customer service, and left me feeling I was just screwed out of good money. (Turbotrains)  

https://ogrforum.com/...e-of-two-turbotrains

I give MTH credit where due, as I have on this forum many times for nice products.

 https://ogrforum.com/...c/new-via-rail-f40ph

However, the lemons occur and MTH in my experience ignores the customers problems and tries to avoid the customer.  MTH service- TOTAL FAILING GRADE!  Even a polite letter to Mike Wolf went unanswered by anyone.  Quite a way to do business with a customer who has spent tens of thousands of dollars on their products.  

Additionally, they ignore suggestions for products and questions ( example Auto Train thread and messages to MTH)

https://ogrforum.com/...hy-no-more-cars-made

 For the reasons of their miserable customer interaction and support, I have spent my last dollar on MTH and I do no longer care how good of an item it is or a prototype I may want, it will not receive a penny of my hard earned money.  I have given them many opportunities to get back with me and correct a bad situation.  Frankly I think they just dont care.  

Game over.  I'M done.

Oh boy, the drama is really starting to heat up now...as it always seems to do in these types of threads.  Sure makes for entertaining reading though! 

I think a select few of you simply have really (I mean SERIOUSLY) bad luck.  What other possible explanation can there be for the staggering # of issues you've had with new products?  Almost statistically impossible IMO.  In fact, if the reported percentage of QC issues by the select few of you held true across that importer's entire product line, there's no way in he#* said importer would still be in business.  Oh, and for the record, I'm not saying you don't have as many product issues as you claim here on the Forum.  But WOW...if it weren't for BAD luck you'd have no luck at all!!

To the O.P., if you've hung out here long enough you'll know that ALL of the importers have had/do have their fair share of product QC issues...and there are plenty of posts/threads to prove it if you search for them.  Or actually, maybe not, as most of them wind up in the Forum trash can...and rightfully so!

I own a lot of locomotives.  I mean a LOT.  They are from Lionel, MTH, AtlasO and K-Line.  I don't own any 3rd Rail products yet, but I will some day, hopefully soon.   And a very high percentage of these products have been free of out-of-the box QC issues...but yes, there have been a few.  Of those few issues, I really can't say there have been any more (or less) with one particular brand...they've kind of been spread fairly evenly across the board.  The good news for me is that every one has not only been repairable, but also covered by warranty.

I will continue to purchase products from all of the remaining importers knowing full well that there will continue to be occasional QC issues from all of them.  I will not ban any of them from my "consideration" list if they offer something that I want.  I'd like to see all of the remaining players in this niche market continue to thrive (or at least survive!) as competition is a good thing for all of us involved in O-gauge!

On a side note...Engineer-Joe, I found your post from yesterday to be very humorous!  I see it hasn't quite hit D500 yet...or maybe it has and he doesn't see the same humor in it that I do!

Joe A.

I am very intent on stating that most of my MTH has been great.  I still operate 3 very early P-1 locomotives that have LOTS of run time on them.  I equally brag about their good products.  However, when $1500+ is spent on products that are known to be problematic and they truly avoid customer satisfaction, and even the effort to respond as ALL other business' would in this situation, its bad customer service.  And the Turbotrain was not "bad luck."  The Turbotrain is repeatedly showing up on here with the same issues.  And buyers be darned, MTH takes no ownership of the repeated problems.  Bad luck? No.

Bad design? Yes.  Bad response by MTH? Most definate.

it's a dry heat..... I mean humor! Pretty bad when most don't get it.

I really hate to see a post with the soul intent to gain others, to join in the hate. That's what I get from the op. Just not much else that I can gain.

I mean, what else can I say? Maybe the intent was to get some cheerleaders after all?

Does MTH hide from mistakes? I believe so. That's my opinion. I can get them when I need help on parts though.

Do I bash? When I'm mad. ( seems more often lately) 

I have many, many of their products. I enjoy most. Maybe I have been extra lucky to get good models.

I have also bought Ebay used and abused ones for projects. I have fixed them and now enjoy them as well. That says a lot to me. Their gearing has never failed me yet. I finally got one where I could hear the gears messing up. It ended up to be a loose motor on a G scale GG1. After tightening a few screws that engine has run great.

I can honestly say that they all run fine. They are a great value. Try paying double or more and have the same issues, or getting plastic gears that fail easily.

I think we are in a bad time again right now. All the problems of changing factories and maybe losing experienced builders? is showing up.

I am still mad about the blue Amtrak paint used on my Phase IV. I still support MTH products. I would just suggest caution to buyers. I'm working on re-decorating it.

Don't abuse the tethers. Keep things lubed. Protect the layout with fast fuses. Add smoke oil when used. Etc. 

Shall I list the problems with other brands now? I'm getting P.O.

Engineer-Joe posted:

 

 

Shall I list the problems with other brands now? I'm getting P.O.

 

Sure why not. It wouldn't be OGR if everyone didn't get their turn. 

No hate here.  Just desire to review experiences so others wont get burned.  And also give good reviews on great items like the VIA F40PH locomotives and others.  Hopefully MTH will eventually hear the complaints and correct their problem areas.  If things are swept under the rug no one benefits.  I have no interest in promoting or bashing a particular brand.  But they deserve to hear either good or bad feedback.  I do not think they are listening though.  Problems happen, but its how they correct them that counts most.  

MartyE, I'm still happy!!   I also like Engineer-Joe's posts, I must be dry heated (lived in Tucson for a while) as well?  

Joe,

I guess I haven't really seen this as a bashing thread regardless of the intent of the OP.  Of course I get a lot of trash thrown my way for the projects I help develop so maybe I'm just used to it.

VistaDomeScott posted:

Joe A.

I am very intent on stating that most of my MTH has been great.  I still operate 3 very early P-1 locomotives that have LOTS of run time on them.  I equally brag about their good products.  However, when $1500+ is spent on products that are known to be problematic and they truly avoid customer satisfaction, and even the effort to respond as ALL other business' would in this situation, its bad customer service.  And the Turbotrain was not "bad luck."  The Turbotrain is repeatedly showing up on here with the same issues.  And buyers be darned, MTH takes no ownership of the repeated problems.  Bad luck? No.

Bad design? Yes.  Bad response by MTH? Most definate.

Hey Scott, seeing how my post above was immediately following yours, I can see why you thought my "bad luck" comments were directed at you; however, I can assure you they were not...neither expressed nor implied!  That was for the folks who seem to report problems with nearly EVERY product they buy from a given manufacturer/importer.

Again, I must reiterate that I'm not stating your (or anyone else's) product issues aren't real...even those reported by the people who I consider to have bad luck.  And I'm really sorry to hear that MTH is not addressing your specific issues...that stinks and I don't blame you one bit for being pis%*#!

However, the O.P. (or anyone else reading this thread) should also know there are people like me out there who haven't had nearly as many issues with MTH's products (despite purchasing a very LARGE # of them!) as some others have reported here...and when I/we have, they've usually been taken care of either by our dealer or by MTH under warranty, most of the time in a satisfactory manner.  And he should also know that for some of us, our experiences with MTH have really been no better or worse than with any other brand.

That's why I'm not ready to give up on (or ban) any of them...not yet anyway!

Now, if you have a change of heart and decide to buy MTH products again and then proceed to have problems with nearly every one of them, I may have to lump you into the "Bad Luck" crowd...LOL!

Joe A

  Thanks for the reply.  

I am sure that just like my 95% or more good MTH, the future buys would likely be largely good as well.  Hopefully MTH learned from the Turbotrain and the way they didnt properly address the matter.  And hopefully they can listen and change.

 My boycott of them is out of principle. If I see evidence of them changing their ways of operation and breaking down the fortress walls to accomodate customers better, I may return.  

Scott

GG1 4877 posted:

Of course I get a lot of trash thrown my way for the projects I help develop so maybe I'm just used to it.

Hey Jonathan, I for one truly appreciate what guys like you do for our hobby.  I can only imagine (or wait, I probably can't!) the "trash" that you are referring to based on some of the posts I read here...even for projects like the ones you work on for 3rd Rail where you work so hard in the planning stages to get things right.  You must have a lot of patience, a love for what you do...and some pretty thick skin!!

My advice in this electronic age we live in is to know a good technician. Whether it be trains, cars or appliances, they'll all have a problem sometime in their life. I do like my MTH and Lionel trains and they both have needed to see my local technician. He is good and local and I do appreciate having his service. 

Time to unsubscribe, the arguments are getting circular.

No trashing here. I have few dozen MTH engines of all types, steam, diesel, PS1-3. Only two engines arrived broken both previously owned. One I fixed, ate the cost as it was rare, and the other was repaired by the seller at his expense then returned to me. Of the 8 that I bought new, all work and have never failed.

Pete

tak153, can you tell us a bit about your layout and what you are running for transformers.  Do your engines have product numbers.  

I think I have bought quite a few.

To show that I have a roster of great MTH examples, here are a sample few of my MTH locomotives that are excellent products:Credit given where due.  

Got my Premier MTH F7 back from their service dept after 4 weeks - far less than the 10 week estimate they gave me when I requested an RA. They fixed it, everything works fine and therefore will continue to buy MTH. Contrary to what some have said MTH diesels run better in conventional mode(with an Z1000) than Legacy locos who don't even smoke in conventional mode.