New Lionel SD45's - Same old problems!

I am very sorry to hear this.     Last year I purchased two UP SD40's from a GREAT Hobby Shop.      When they arrived my couplers were in pieces.    The Hobby store replaced both of them.      Prior to shipping they verified everything was correct, and I BELIEVE them.     When they arrived, one coupler was broken on one and the other had the horn broken.       Long story......  I have two NEW, Great running SD40's.     It just took awhile to get it all sorted out.            

I have a Chessie SW7 switcher that apparently just arrived at LHS.  Based on the last several locomotives I have purchased, I am not real confident or excited about this purchase.  I hope I'm wrong!!

I have all but given up on Lionel purchases. Too many problems with quality. I probably have close to 30 Lionel engines. They are great engines but many have had to be sent back for repair. I also have about 40 MHT engines. Probably less than 5 have had to be sent for repair. I know things happen in shipping but I think that the quality control at Lionel is very poor. I really like the MTH models for looks as well as operation. Just got 2 SD40-2 engines and they are awesome as to slow speed running. These engines are very smooth at speeds as low as 2 mph. Until Lionel can build and ship engines that don’t have to be sent back for repairs I think I’m giving my money to MTH. 

After reading all the problems people have been having with their Lionel engines I went ahead and opened my UP 1943. It seems to be all in one piece and after a few test laps the sounds and smoke are good to go. I was planning on waiting till the UP 1943 caboose came in but I had to check it out to be sure there were no obvious problems. I received a new SW7 switcher the other day and it was good as well. The only thing I had to do was give it some oil.

Sheesh

I wouldn't want that Lionel junk if it was for free. Too much aggravation.

NS1975 posted:

After reading all the problems people have been having with their Lionel engines I went ahead and opened my UP 1943. It seems to be all in one piece and after a few test laps the sounds and smoke are good to go. I was planning on waiting till the UP 1943 caboose came in but I had to check it out to be sure there were no obvious problems. I received a new SW7 switcher the other day and it was good as well. The only thing I had to do was give it some oil.

My new UP 1943 had a bad "touch up" done on the roof grey area plus a broken detail on a truck side frame.  Sending back to Charles Ro for replacement. 

I have over 30  Lionel engines and not one had problems when received.  I have purchased plenty of autos that had recalls on them though. 

Seven locos (1 Legacy, 6 LionChief +) the last few years, no problems.  Sorry about your issues. As a general comment,  it's best not to widely generalize based upon items with obvious shipping damage or the occasional lemon. Just worries people unnecessarily. It would be best if we report our experiences, good or bad,  without any hyperbole or unjustified generalizations is my suggestion.

I know I have been and will be characterized as a Lionel "fanboy" or "homer" but my intentions simply are to not allow a few people with agendas, aggressive biases,  or particularly bad experiences to discourage newbies or those with less experience in the hobby.  Not good for anyone,  or the hobby.  I know some folks cannot bear to have differing opinions than their own expressed, but as we used to say in the 50s, "tough nuggies."

Reports of experiences are important, but perspective is important too.

I am curious as to what Lionel is doing about Quality control?? Hello, Lionel Dave???

I agree with not making generalizations and prefer specifics.  We just got back from UPS store where we returned nine item to the dealers out of ten purchased.

Out of two LionChief plus engines,  one was DOA, the other okay. 50% acceptable. Replacing with MTH.

Eight PE cars. 5 blue, all had one or more parts in the box. Three gold, one paint marred, one had no loose parts and I didn't look further, one we were too fed up  to open. That is 100% on the blue and 50% on the gold with one undecided. 

Oh yeah... Merry Christmas from Lionel including to our grandchildren.

If we remove the one undecided, at the very best, seven out of nine were unacceptable. This was not shipping damage. That is an acceptability rate of .222222, or a failure rate of .77777778.

We used to be Lionel supporters and own 60+ Lionel engines and hundreds of other items. As I told the UPS guy when we were talking, here are the specifics of our purchases. He won’t be buying Lionel. Neither will we until major changes are made. We hate having to make this decision but we have not left Lionel, they have alienated us.

Landsteiner posted:

Seven locos (1 Legacy, 6 LionChief +) the last few years, no problems.  Sorry about your issues. As a general comment,  it's best not to widely generalize based upon items with obvious shipping damage or the occasional lemon. Just worries people unnecessarily. It would be best if we report our experiences, good or bad,  without any hyperbole or unjustified generalizations is my suggestion.

I know I have been and will be characterized as a Lionel "fanboy" or "homer" but my intentions simply are to not allow a few people with agendas, aggressive biases,  or particularly bad experiences to discourage newbies or those with less experience in the hobby.  Not good for anyone,  or the hobby.  I know some folks cannot bear to have differing opinions than their own expressed, but as we used to say in the 50s, "tough nuggies."

Reports of experiences are important, but perspective is important too.

Honestly Landsteiner, why then are there few if any posts on new Mth products?  Either folks aren't buying them, or they are all working fine out of the box because, as they say, folks only post about bad stuff.

This is not a brand war, but MTH is Lionels only rival in this hobby offering comparable items.

Outside of 3 cabooses and a dump car I own no other MTH items. All of my locos are scale Lionel TMCC and Legacy items.

Having said that, all of my TMCC locos were new old stock well out of warranty when I purchased them and none have had any issues.  The smoke units on these reign supreme in the fan motor department as they are nearly completely silent.

The majority of my Legacy steamers have had some issue be it paint ,build quality smoke unit and my worst offender had a defective gearbox that went back to Lionel for replacement ( this was the first run k4 not the mogul) It has run great ever since but now has peeling paint on one of the drivers from poor factory prep.

I prefer Lionels Legacy system and sounds. I just wish I could get it with MTH quality.

ZWPOWER13 posted:

I am curious as to what Lionel is doing about Quality control?? Hello, Lionel Dave???

 FWIW ( probably nuthin') Howard Hitchcock stated in an interview with Notch 6 last fall that the was "a QA team in place in china".

I like Dave Olson, I think he makes a good effort. I've exchanged emails in the past regarding new products and he's always answered when he didn't have to. I feel bad for him because folks probably  come at him when theres a problem because the "real person" responsible is unknown.

QC probably isn't Daves call, I can only imagine what Lionels service dept looks like with boxes of RA items stacked up.

This  certainly doesn't do Dean any good. How can the service dept possibly do a good job when they're pressured by overload?

Sending an item to Lionel for warranty would be an absolute last resort as far as I'm concerned. If its something minor like a smoke fan, I'm doin it myself. Its only one loco and I can take all the time I want being as careful as I want because I paid for it......and theres not 50-100 more waiting  to be fixed.

RickO posted:

Landsteiner posted:

Seven locos (1 Legacy, 6 LionChief +) the last few years, no problems.  Sorry about your issues. As a general comment,  it's best not to widely generalize based upon items with obvious shipping damage or the occasional lemon. Just worries people unnecessarily. It would be best if we report our experiences, good or bad,  without any hyperbole or unjustified generalizations is my suggestion.

I know I have been and will be characterized as a Lionel "fanboy" or "homer" but my intentions simply are to not allow a few people with agendas, aggressive biases,  or particularly bad experiences to discourage newbies or those with less experience in the hobby.  Not good for anyone,  or the hobby.  I know some folks cannot bear to have differing opinions than their own expressed, but as we used to say in the 50s, "tough nuggies."

Reports of experiences are important, but perspective is important too.

Honestly Landsteiner, why then are there few if any posts on new Mth products?  Either folks aren't buying them, or they are all working fine out of the box because, as they say, folks only post about bad stuff.

This is not a brand war, but MTH is Lionels only rival in this hobby offering comparable items.

Outside of 3 cabooses and a dump car I own no other MTH items. All of my locos are scale Lionel TMCC and Legacy items.

Having said that, all of my TMCC locos were new old stock well out of warranty when I purchased them and none have had any issues.  The smoke units on these reign supreme in the fan motor department as they are nearly completely silent.

The majority of my Legacy steamers have had some issue be it paint ,build quality smoke unit and my works offender had a defective gearbox that went back to Lionel for replacement ( this was the first run k4 not the mogul) It has run great ever since but now has peeling paint on one of the drivers from poor factory prep.

I prefer Lionels Legacy system and sounds. I just wish I could get it with MTH quality.

 

Agreed. I also like the Legacy operating system and the crew talk. Just not the quality of the engines

There’s another thread by a forum sponsor none the less discussing the mold parting lines left on the steam engines. And yet others with poor paint and blatant blemishes left on the product. Seems like the factory doesn’t care or somebody was only willing to pay so much for the run that the factory had to cut costs somewhere. I don’t get bad items because my dealer graciously inspects and tests my items before shipping but in his words, he shipped 99 passenger cars back from the last run of UP and Freedom Train cars and a full 16% of his shipment had issues but 9% got returned. 

I recall hearing about lionel rockisland northern.I just about got one but I did not.I guss every company has their share of lemons.The thing is is the price of the trains.People exspect the best for their money.What I saying is there is 2 sides to this.

My neighbor bought a new PE RTR set for his kids last November to put under the tree for Christmas. It was mostly DOA as the included remote didn't work and it would only function with the LC App for 5 minutes at a time.  It had to be sent back to Lionel for repair and he was told that he'll get back some time in February. He is pretty much ready to ward off toys trains completely as a gift after this experience. I loaned him a train set for his kids to play with (my wife says I have plenty to spare). The loaner set was hit with his kids and hopefully will change his mind about toy trains.

Very seldom do I buy something unseen, I did however, order a new scanner without seeing it. Hope fully it is OK.  Not as expensive as a new toy  locomotive though. I do feel for those who order and have problems, shouldn't happen.

Sad, so sad.

I am pretty much done with Lionel after my last purchase. I am still waiting on a call tag for my Polar Express cars.  I don't understand why MTH can produce good product but Lionel can't. They can't continue to go on like this. I heard from a reliable source why MR. R left but won't post it here. Calling Lionel and complaining is almost a waste of time.

Lionel relies on its Name.

MTH doesn't have that luxury.

Very simple –

MTH still has the core group which have controlled the product from the beginning. They worked out many of the issues along the way and have a proven product. Lionel on the other hand has had a noticeable turnover in staff. Younger, inexperienced people experimenting with product and attempting to carry on a business that had a good house hold name. Kind of like a team re-building with new rookies.

SPSF posted:

Lionel relies on its Name.

MTH doesn't have that luxury.

If you are over 50.

Todays youngsters never heard of Lionel unless their Dad or Grandpa are into trains which is a super, super small percentage of todays adults. 

My two cents:

I have purchased nine new engines in the past five years, none in the last two, for my two layouts.  Six are MTH, three are LCP.

Two of the MTH's had to be swapped out because they wouldn't run.  One of the LCP's had the same issue, so, my stats show an equal amount of issues between MTH and Lionel.  None of the nine had/have problems with couplers, paint, or otherwise.  I will say, I initially had problems with those MTH tethers on my two ABA sets, but loosening the screws and lengthening the tethers solved them.

Of my more than 200 cars, Lionel, MTH, and Menard's, very few have had problems.  Almost all of those were easily fixed.

Hey Bill W., what do you do with 60+ engines?  My nine, plus two more conventionals, and two trolleys, occupy all my available mainlines.  Wish I had more space, but, I don't.  I do have an old Lionel GP7 sitting on a spur, but the E unit no longer works.  It's there for looks.

Jerry

Jerry we have collected Lionel for a lot of years while we had a 41' Viking sportfish. Not enough time to fish offshore and have a train layout so they were displayed, "Awaiting the day."

In late 2017 we decided to sell the boat and immediately started an addition to the garage which officially became the train room last June. The room is 40 X 22 with some extra on one side for a sofa, etc. We now have benchwork up for most of the first level, have most of the track down, wired it enough to run trains at Christmas, and started on DCS wiring Saturday.

We have a bunch of Lionel stuff on the shelves that has never been run. Given our recent experiences, we are concerned and I think rightly so.

I can pull almost any of our postwar engines down, put them on the track, and off they go. Parts don't fall off of them nor are loose parts sitting on/in the shelves/boxes. We at least expect that from new Lionel products.

We had a boat for years. Boats are breaking as you work on them but they usually don't break as fast as you can repair them so sometimes you can catch up. I don't expect that with expensive new trains.

That said, we hope very much that Lionel can get things in order. We don't have all this Lionel stuff because we want the company to fail. But their recent QC issues coupled with BTO which requires a wait of at least a year, are beyond what we can afford in both money and time. We do not want to buy train kits. If we wanted to work on new trains, we would buy Menards where, for the price, we  expect to do some fine tuning.

The look on my grandson's face at Christmas when the steamer wouldn't run and both the remote and bluetooth were unsatisfactory told us, "Enough." The passenger cars were simply confirmation.

Our goal is to have fun, to learn, and to share the hobby with family and friends. That is what it should be about. For over 50 years, Lionel was a part of that. Enough said.

When you spend years making a product to a certain level of fit, finish, & functionality at a certain price point that builds an expectation in your customer base to expect a certain level of quality. When you raise the price you have to maintain or increase that level of expected quality. You can’t decide to charge 30 to 40% mire for an item you’ve previously made but not to the same standards of quality and expect your customers to keep coming back

The last 6 Lionel locomotives I've purchased all came with problems... two of which could not be repaired and were sold at a loss with a word of caution to the buyers.  Two others I had to repair on my own, with another currently awaiting repairs.  The final straw -- you'd think I'd learn my lesson -- came when I purchased a simple 4-4-2 Lionel Lines to use for "training" purposes:  not only was the tender incorrect, but it was also missing a set of trucks!   Needless to say, I purchase mostly pre-war now with the knowledge I may have to do some work (which I fully accept).  If I do happen to purchase something new, Williams and MTH are the product lines I consider first... with Lionel rarely getting a glance.

The problem isnt with Lionel per say.  Its the troubles on the other side of the big pond!  Its sad.  I have six lionel engines purchased over the past 2 years.   Only one had been sent back at this time. And I am the one that screwed it up.   I hope thats all but im sure one will need something sooner or later.  But I have nothing the was made later than summer 2018.  Things have went downhill in a hurry after that and the squeeze our current trade policy have put on them.  

Everybody is having trouble with stuff from over there.  Yes Lionel needs to do something.  But everything stated wrong here is crappy workmanship.  Nearly every complaint Ive seen is from that. Things would be much better if the trains were made by folks that liked trains and the folks that they build them for.  Unlike the current situation we have.  Having people that do not like us make everything for us. 

Jim

In the end, yes, the problem IS with Lionel or whoever the importer is.  If they’re getting crappy workmanship, then THEY need to do something about it.  The way I see it, if your name is on the box, it’s your responsibility.

I am batting 1000. 3 new locomotives... all have small issues like this, I usually fix them...  my new UP E6's . 1 hour of running and the sensor wheel was grounded down by the Hall Effect  sensor. There was nothing left of the sensor wheel. 3 hours later I was able to root cause, bend the sensors and replace the wheel. Very frustrating...  If you are seeing the same issue on your new A-A legacy E6's  I can walk you through the fix.

I just cannot send items back and risk the delivery man drop kicking up to the porch for a 5 dollar part...

base11 posted:

I have a Chessie SW7 switcher that apparently just arrived at LHS.  Based on the last several locomotives I have purchased, I am not real confident or excited about this purchase.  I hope I'm wrong!!

Got the UP SW7. No problems and it's a beautiful engine. Hope your Chessie arrived safe and sound. 

I have been "back" in the O Gauge hobby since 1987. Since that time Lionel has only had one experienced "train guy" at the helm of product development and that was Richard Maddox who came to Lionel after retiring from Atlas. He stayed about two years. Other than Dick Maddox, Lionel has not had a "train guy" leading the firm. Thus, the only real passion the Lionel leadership had had for more than 30 years is dedication to the "bottom line." For a brief time they were the beneficiary of the quality production from Samhongsa in South Korea thanks to the association between Richard Kughn and Mike Wolf. When that ended in 1993 Lionel began the transition to Chinese manufacturing. The results have been mixed at best, some good and some not so good. With no one on site monitoring production they are at the mercy of which ever factory they can find to make their products. Does anyone really think that either of the "holding companies" that have owned Lionel in recent years care about the accuracy of rivet detail on a steam engine tender? Quality control of a product line is like quality control at a restaurant. Would you go back to an eatery if the food was good "sometimes"?

turbgine posted:

I have been "back" in the O Gauge hobby since 1987. Since that time Lionel has only had one experienced "train guy" at the helm of product development and that was Richard Maddox who came to Lionel after retiring from Atlas. He stayed about two years. Other than Dick Maddox, Lionel has not had a "train guy" leading the firm. Thus, the only real passion the Lionel leadership had had for more than 30 years is dedication to the "bottom line." For a brief time they were the beneficiary of the quality production from Samhongsa in South Korea thanks to the association between Richard Kughn and Mike Wolf. When that ended in 1993 Lionel began the transition to Chinese manufacturing. The results have been mixed at best, some good and some not so good. With no one on site monitoring production they are at the mercy of which ever factory they can find to make their products. Does anyone really think that either of the "holding companies" that have owned Lionel in recent years care about the accuracy of rivet detail on a steam engine tender? Quality control of a product line is like quality control at a restaurant. Would you go back to an eatery if the food was good "sometimes"?

"Since that time Lionel has only had one experienced "train guy" at the helm of product development and that was Richard Maddox who came to Lionel after retiring from Atlas. He stayed about two years."  Was that the period when they transitioned manufacturing to China? 

It doesn’t take an experienced train guy to run a profitable company that makes a quality product and satisfies it customers.

Not necessarily true. If the head honcho doesn't know the market  or the product  they have a very hard time knowing what is working and who knows what to do. Ask me how I know. Plus all the top dogs aren't necessarily the brightest.  Personal experience.

"If you ordered any of the SD45's, my advice is to call your dealer and ask him to inspect the engine before shipping out. If he say's its okay, have him pack some tissue paper around the couplers to prevent vibration. "

This is probably the best advice.  The coupler screw is probably backing off on its own due to shipping vibration. This will save you the time of soldering those small pesky wires back on.

Jim, the current issues with the product are not issues with knowing the market, they are issuyes with mmaking the product and maintinag a previous set of quality standards.

Thats not a train guy related problem its a business management issue

I bought 3 Lionel locos in 2018 and had to return two of the three because of problems.  No more Lionel for me. Overpriced junk. 

i had an SD that had the same problem - loose parts and broken front coupler - i found a replacement and fixed it - but was amazed at seeing it broken in the box - cab was also cracked - ugh!  then i went to buy a "spare" front coupler but the lionel parts list says it is not no longer available.  Lionel quality is declining - have never had a problem with MTH Products - also Lionel advertises new products and seems like they never deliver for "years".  I had a six pack of hoppers that i have been waiting for over a year - now find that Lionel is not going to make them!