Lionel service dept changes

the move is known, haven't heard about the charge for nothing found wrong. 

ns1001,

I have to agree with this. There are those who send their toys back for a minor vibration that they could remedy themselves. How about the ones that send their toys back just to have it inspected before the warranty expires. Just think of the hours each Tech must spend looking for something that was not there in the first place.

$60 though?

I called to ask out of curiosity what the Lionel Fee's were for out of warranty repairs and was told a flat fee of $60 plus the cost of parts,Although this was about 6 months ago.

A fellow Club Member recently had a Loco repaired out of Warranty as was told $60 an hour I think he said,They ended up fixing his Loco free of charge though.

Like any service center the operating expenses have to be covered. With the large amount of warranty work being done the non warranty work has to cover the expenses of the service dept.

Well, the move has been long coming and well announced and I suppose the delay is necessary.

And the fee for $60 - they have to unwrap the loco sent to them, put it on the bench, try to find the problem, etc. (diagnosis, whether there is a problem to find or not requires time and talent) and then pack it up to ship back.  Yeah, $60 seems about right.  

In other words...

• Read your manual.
• Know the correct operation of the product.
• Call CS if an issue arises and work with them to solve a possible issue before sending the locomotive in.
• Use this forum and it's vast knowledge in case you are over looking something simple.
• As a last resort get a RA for repair.

I see nothing wrong with this policy if fully functional products are having time spent on them for a non issue.  The only thing is those pesky intermittent problems that might not show up but since Lionel is pretty good at testing those cases should be rare.

Marty provided some excellent step-by-step advice!    

I also think that is an EXCELLENT idea, and surprised that the charge for "no trouble found" is ONLY $60. My opinion is the charge should be at least $100!

From my experience, Lionel CS does everything they can to solve a problem before you have to send it in either by talking to the CS rep or transferring you to a tech.

NS1001,

     Please see my post on Lionel Repair Great Service. I email Lionel, explained the problem, they responded and asked if I did a reset, how much smoke fluid did I put in etc. Had my RA within the hour.

     I also called on prior issues with other engines and they always ask if you performed a reset. One time the rep even waited for me to go to my basement and do the reset while she was on the phone. The engine had no sounds and she asked me to blow the horn, ring the bell etc. She was very friendly and had a great sense of humor.

     I can understand the delay due to the move but as I said in my thread on great service they never let me down.

JohnB

After 40 years of operating a service business, I would question whether $60, or for that matter $60 per hr. is enough.  IMO, Recent Affordable Heath Care Act would ramp up a lot of cost, even in the Carolina's, right to work states. IMO  The hidden factor is related to the ability of the people who set behind the workbench.  Change of location, usually means new employees.  Even if supervision moves to the new location, you still got to deal with a learning curve, IMO, for at least a year or two after set-up. 

So, I should be charging $60/hr or more to service trains?

FWIW, I agree that a NTF charge is warranted, they have to spend the time to diagnose it.  I would hope they do everything reasonable to find the issue.

Probably, especially if you have a large overhead with multiple employees, especially employees with benefits.

I suppose it depends on whether they run well after you service them!!!

Guys,get real! The guy that works on my riding mower charges $68/hr. Our toy trains are far more complex that my mower. Sixty bucks is more than fair.

Brad

Too bad Lionel didn't follow this advice during whatever brainchild discussions occurred for moving the service department, which was doing just fine in Ohio.   They had a well-oiled machine that worked smoothly, and now they've hit the reset button.  Hopefully, it's worth it... beyond being some new executive's pet project, which is often the case with these types of decisions.

At the very least, this was announced some time ago to allow those most affected to plan for the transition.  That's about the only good thing that can be said about it.

David 

Guess you better make sure something is REALLY wrong before you send it back.

Of course, doesn't opening up certain loco's void their warranty?  That Vision Line stuff is overly complex.

Fred

Sounds pretty good, Marty.  The new Lionel executive team would be proud that you've successfully been assimilated into the borg collective!!!  See what drinking that Koolaid will do to ya!  

David

Not always easy to swallow but I can see where a service charge is necessary.

I'll reserve judgment until the move is complete.   It's going to be a PITA for parts for a few months, I can see that now.

I'm more concerned to get parts for repairs at this point.  I don't send that much stuff back to Lionel, though it does happen.  However, I have a bunch of stuff for repair, and it's looking like several need boards that will probably not be available until July-August.

I think you can still order parts as long as its made before Monday.

Pete

I only waited two months for the PS/3 boiler board for a repair, finally showed up yesterday.   So, maybe it'll be like ordering MTH parts.

I'm not really sure I understand David's (Rocky Mountaineer) comments or concern.

A short time back you stated that "Lionel does not know what the other hand is doing", this was generally in reference to off-shore production that they cannot control. The inference was that Lionel can't control the factory because it was a remote location.

Now you state "Too bad Lionel didn't follow this advice during whatever brainchild discussions occurred for moving the service department, which was doing just fine in Ohio".

Here you seem to infer that it’s now ok to have the service center remotely located from the main HQ decision making and day to day operations.

I'm just curious if I understand you correctly, for discussion sake, because it seem like Lionel can't do anything correctly in your eyes.

Do correct me if I have misunderstood your comments.

Charlie

I see train doctor has parts in stock when Lionel is out.

I have opened up some engines and could not fix it.  sent it back under warranty and there was no issue.  how can they really tell if you open it up?

Just having a little fun with ya, Marty.  Your response was just a little too "corporate party line" to resist.  

Normally, I'd agree with you on the "all under one roof concept", but I have no track record as to why the service/parts department landed in Ohio to begin with.  All I do know however was Lionel had established quite a crack team of service professionals -- industry-leading in fact.  So why mess with success?  I've met enough wiz-kid execs who crank out spreadsheets up the ying-yang, and lots of stuff looks great on paper, but they can't see the forest for the trees (to borrow your analogy).

The realist in me says this move was largely unnecessary -- especially in an era where geographical challenges are largely mitigated by technology assists.   Not to mention how disruptive it is to families involved.  (I wonder how much that was factored into a spreadsheet.)  

But all of that is water under the bridge.  The decision to move is a done-deal.  I just feel for the families that needed to relocate, if it wasn't really something on their radar screen.  I packed in my corporate ladder-climbing shoes years ago (thankfully), but I still feel for those who are compelled to do it when it's not completely of their own doing.  

So we'll just watch closely... And hope for the best... Not only for continued good customer service, but also for a straight-forward transition on all fronts for those families involved in the relocation process.

David

I've had a few issues over the years and was able to work them out through e-mails and phone calls. Sound like now, more than ever, that is the way to go.

I have had issues in the past with the Lionel service dept. Example: Had to send a GG1 back for the same problem - the second time I was reluctantly allowed to talk to a tech and after making clear that the loco was run on O31 track the motor surge was found - with the new policy that would cost me $60. I have found that Legacy diesels  don't smoke well in conventional mode unless pulling a heavy train at high speeds. TMCC diesels smoked better in conventional. My TMCC SD40-2 smokes well - the Legacy version does not. For scale Lionel locos the focus seems to be running in Legacy mode - conventional seems to be an after thought.

Marty's points are right on. I want to share a point about importance of using this forum with the vast knowledge of members.

I could have returned at least six Fastrack remote control switches to Lionel that I believed were faulty. I could get them to program and work with my remote.

I had the great fortune of Gunrunner getting involved, John hooked up the switches and they worked perfect at his location. Gunrunner instructed me to run a ground wire in the problem areas of my layout. The switches worked perfect adding the ground wire. Now if I just returned them to Lionel they would tell me they work fine, I would receive them back and hookup to my layout and they would still not work. Thank you Forum - Gunrunner John. I really appreciate the knowledge and help that is shared on this forum.

This new rule is perplexing to my LHS. He does not have a repair department. So if a customer returns a locomotive and he does not have the ability to diagnose the issue, he is locked into:

a) rolling the dice and returning it given the customers complaint  paying for shipping

b) refund the customer his money and dealing with Lionel on his own.

or c) Tell the customer he is on his own and for them to deal with Lionel.

Either way this could be a losing situation for the end customer with a little added frustration.

It may not affect us technical people who are use to repairing and operating the product... but image if you where a single mom buying a train for your son... you might think twice next time.

In the FWIW category:  On Mar APRIL 24 I dropped off the following two locomotives, both new (under warranty), and both with failed smoke units, with Phil Hull at the Lionel booth at York. 

This morning I received an email that both were repaired and shipped out today, May 2nd.  Assuming the engines did not get back to the service crew in Canfield until April 28 that is pretty good turn around time.  I'm glad I made it into the service queue before the move begins.   

wasn't that where Train America Studios was?

http://www.manta.com/c/mtr5vjd/train-america-studios