New Lionel SD45's - Same old problems!

Heads Up --- I have a Lionel Southern SD40 engine that came out in 2017 with the "Kinematic" floating couplers / pilot assembly. After reading this thread about the screws coming loose or missing, I pulled the engine off the layout to check it. I believe it has the same type coupler / pilot assembly as the SD45.

Sure enough, there were loose screws and one missing screw. The coupler / pilot assembly is held to the bottom of the frame with 4 screws; on one end, a screw was missing but the other 3 were tight; on the other end of the engine, all 4 screws were there, but two were loose. Fortunately I found (in my collection of extra screws) a suitable replacement screw and installed it.

I also checked the small plates attached to the main coupler assemble. They are there to keep the coupler wires in place. There are two small plates on each end, held on my 2 screws each. On one end, 2 of the screws were loose; and other the other end, 1 screw was loose. I tighten all of the screws on the engine I could find. It takes a very small Philips head screw driver, almost a jewelers size.

Fortunately, I have not had any problem with this engine, but if more of the screws had worked loose and fallen out, the whole couple assembly could have failed.

Always a good idea to check that  you don't have a screw loose. A common complaint especially in this hobby.

this sounds almost exactly what i found - fortuneatley i was able to replace the coupler, glue the broken shell and it works fine - too bad Lionel did not do a good quality control check - i also find it difficult to believe that the screws would  come loose - the engine is pretty tight in the box - it looked to m that someone in the assembly process did not put the coupler on - the crews for the plates and the coupler attachment are pretty small - so maybe a frustrated worker said "srew it"(no pun intended) and left the parts dangling on the box and shipped it over to the USA - ugh 

Matt-if only it was that simple.

I didn’t say it was simple I said your “your train guy at the helm” philosophy isn’t what solves the problem

Yeah I'm kind of with Matt here. You don't model railroad industry titan to tell factory workers in China to do their job properly.

There's got to be more to it than just telling the Chinese workers to do it right. For all we know, they are doing it right according to their bosses and the factory owner.

That's possible Matt, But they have done this before and got it right then. What gives now?

Maybe somebody doesn’t want to pay what it costs to be done right. I don’t know, I’m not in the mix when the decisions are being made. I can only speculate. There was a lot of stuff that came out of the recently defunct factory in China that was first rate and being made at the same time as the stuff seen to have lots of issues. You can’t tell me that they do great work for one guy but not for another because it’s an off day. There’s a reason

Whatever the management style, it doesn't seem to be working.

How do you know, maybe this is part of their plan or an accepted consequence or maybe our little slice of O gauge exposure right here on this forum isn't an accurate data set for whats really going on.