While I see the appeal of buying stuff you like, with the imminent demise of MTH, is buying new wise? No ability to make warranty claims. No parts sources. No service. Just seems like a bad bet, especially at full price. I guess you could express the same concerns about buying used, but at least you are not buying used at full price.
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This is my fear. I much prefer the cheaper prices of mth engines. I really like the imperial sd70/es44 models, but I’m new and don’t want to sink much (if any) money into a sinking ship. I have a hunch that someone will buy the tooling or company, so I’ll saint til then.
I just read about TIUs being hard to find, and that may just be the beginning. There will always be a market for Shelf Queens for collectors, but operators will begin to diminish in volume due to lack of support and spare parts for the electronics. On a popular auction site it's easy to find smaller MTH steamers for sale with their boards removed. Before too long there might be a growing market for retrofit replacements for DCS products.
Dale
@jjm posted:While I see the appeal of buying stuff you like, with the imminent demise of MTH, is buying new wise? No ability to make warranty claims. No parts sources. No service. Just seems like a bad bet, especially at full price. I guess you could express the same concerns about buying used, but at least you are not buying used at full price.
Who is claiming all this. Mth doesn't need a large building in Columbia to do warranty claims or repairs. Didn't Mike start out in his parents garage or something like that. I am pretty sure I heard a couple of fellows are going to keep the parts end going. A lot of speculation here on what is or isn't going to happen. As far as used, no warranty and some of the asking prices that I have seen here on the forum are insane. Cost of new or higher. Maybe call MTH and ask them their plans about warranty and service. You could post that instead of speculation. I would think that Mike had considered all of this before he announced this latest run of new products.
Forest, that's a fairly hostile response! And then you engaged in your own speculation, admitting you have no idea what MTH's plans are but sure they will cover all the bases. Interesting speculation on your part, right?
But your speculation aside, MTH has been asked repeatedly (look up some other posts here and elsewhere) and has refused to say what the future might hold. That is fact, not speculation. Therefore, the future is not known because MTH refuses to say.
As for diminished service, there is an MTH tech who posts on these forums who has stated that many of his co-workers are already gone. I have dealt with Midge in parts for years. She is great, but as others have posted and I have experienced, she is pretty much a one person show at this point. It has been two months since she replied to my parts request, and that comes after a long history of very prompt replies.
Still willing to speculate?
So is the reason to still buy new all based on the hope that all will be well, even in the presence of MTH's refusal to say anything?
2 new diesels, both missing detail parts. They sent parts for one, waiting on the other. I had to fix some Quality issues as well.
@Forest posted:Who is claiming all this. Mth doesn't need a large building in Columbia to do warranty claims or repairs. Didn't Mike start out in his parents garage or something like that. I am pretty sure I heard a couple of fellows are going to keep the parts end going. A lot of speculation here on what is or isn't going to happen. As far as used, no warranty and some of the asking prices that I have seen here on the forum are insane. Cost of new or higher. Maybe call MTH and ask them their plans about warranty and service. You could post that instead of speculation. I would think that Mike had considered all of this before he announced this latest run of new products.
One could say there's equal speculation about what is going to happen. 
Personally, I think calling MTH and asking about their plans is a fool's errand. If they were ready to reveal their plans, I'd certainly expect that they would have done so!
Starting a company in your garage is one thing, but supporting potentially thousands of customers with warranty and service requirements is not a garage operation!
@jjm posted:As for diminished service, there is an MTH tech who posts on these forums who has stated that many of his co-workers are already gone. I have dealt with Midge in parts for years. She is great, but as others have posted and I have experienced, she is pretty much a one person show at this point. It has been two months since she replied to my parts request, and that comes after a long history of very prompt replies.
I believe Midge is also gone now. Most of the techs are gone as well. Who are you gonna' call? Ghost Busters?
Midge is still there, working . I called her today and placed a parts order.
Ron Cerise
@RonCerise posted:Midge is still there, working . I called her today and placed a parts order.
Must have gotten bad information. 
Of course, on the dealer side we don't deal with Midge, probably why our parts orders get scrambled. 
SIRT, you bring up another concern. Who is even paying attention to quality control at this point?
Some people don't read the news:
"Upon our closing in May 2021, our ASC network will provide warranty coverage through April 2022"
The ASC "network", of which I am a part, can't provide support without parts.
Then how does MTH intend fulfill warranty repairs through the ASC network? How will you be compensated for performing warranty work? I would think this would almost be criminal if a company is to sell a product right up to the closing date, offer a warranty through the tech network (and promise that these techs will honor the warranty), and then provide absolutely no way for those techs to fulfill that warranty.
@H1000 posted:Some people don't read the news:
"Upon our closing in May 2021, our ASC network will provide warranty coverage through April 2022"
Yeah, I had seen that. But that's just a year and they are not going to be overseen by the manufacturer. After that, then what?
And John is echoing the same concern that others have voiced - without parts, the service means nothing.
So I come back to the question. What would be the reason to pay top dollar for a soon-to-be-orphaned product?
@jjm posted:Yeah, I had seen that. But that's just a year and they are not going to be overseen by the manufacturer. After that, then what?
And John is echoing the same concern that others have voiced - without parts, the service means nothing.
So I come back to the question. What would be the reason to pay top dollar for a soon-to-be-orphaned product?
So MTH will sell you an engine on May 31, 2021 and close the door for good on June 1. And if you received that engine on June 5th with a blown board, John has no way to honor the one year warranty because MTH won't/can't provide parts to the ASC tech?
I might add that the assertion I have seen elsewhere that many old Lionels still run great and still have parts available is way off the mark. The pre-electronic Lionels are much easier to reapair and fairly cheap for some parts to be replicated. Not such a great comparison. And with Lionel still around, you can still find some (not all) electronic components for older equipment.
@H1000 posted:So MTH will sell you an engine on May 31, 2021 and close the door for good on June 1. And if you received that engine on June 5th with a blown board, John has no way to honor the one year warranty because MTH won't/can't provide parts to the ASC tech?
That seems to be a substantial risk to me. Would that stop you from buying a new MTH engine?
New MTH worth buying?
No.
- Crank
@jjm posted:That seems to be a substantial risk to me. Would that stop you from buying a new MTH engine?
A reputable company that been in this business for many years would most likely face some legal action if that was that is going to be the practice. It's a form of bait & switch.
No it doesn't stop from buying any new MTH. I run pretty much everything on the Railking end of things, and they share many parts between many models. The DCS group is going to live on and I suspect that they will continue to sell upgrade kits and other DCS components.
I guess I am more optimistic than some here. I have no reluctance to buy new MTH product. Have two locomotives on preorder at the present time. Of the dozens of MTH locomotives I have purchased over the years, I have only had problems with three or four of them (all of which were corrected). That being said, I'm confident some enterprising individual or individuals will be around in the future to either fix problematic engines, or perhaps even replace the guts with some existing or new components that will keep things running.
@H1000 posted:So MTH will sell you an engine on May 31, 2021 and close the door for good on June 1. And if you received that engine on June 5th with a blown board, John has no way to honor the one year warranty because MTH won't/can't provide parts to the ASC tech?
The problem is, warranty repairs are done with no labor reimbursement for ASC's. The idea is that the shop you're affiliated with sold the product, so they have the liability to provide the labor for the warranty and MTH supplies the parts. There are a handful of "national repair centers" that are, or were, reimbursed by MTH for labor. If the shop I'm affiliated with doesn't sell the product, I'm not doing free repairs, that seems to be a losing proposition! See below for the MTH definition of the services centers.
@Allan Miller posted:I guess I am more optimistic than some here. I have no reluctance to buy new MTH product. Have two locomotives on preorder at the present time. Of the dozens of MTH locomotives I have purchased over the years, I have only had problems with three or four of them (all of which were corrected). That being said, I'm confident some enterprising individual or individuals will be around in the future to either fix problematic engines, or perhaps even replace the guts with some existing or new components that will keep things running.
I want to be optimistic Allan, I really do. I like my MTH products, and I sure don't want my thirty odd engines or tons of passenger cars and freight cars to be come orphans! I'm just a bit concerned that we're approaching the clubhouse turn and other than a brief "news clip" months ago, there is no word on exactly how thing proceed from here. In this case, silence isn't golden.
@Allan Miller posted:I guess I am more optimistic than some here. I have no reluctance to buy new MTH product. Have two locomotives on preorder at the present time. Of the dozens of MTH locomotives I have purchased over the years, I have only had problems with three or four of them (all of which were corrected). That being said, I'm confident some enterprising individual or individuals will be around in the future to either fix problematic engines, or perhaps even replace the guts with some existing or new components that will keep things running.
Me too. I have (had?) about 100 of their engines. Only a few issues too. The used ones that had been abused were my worse issue cases. I'll keep buying until I can't anymore.
I've bought engines from others and they were straightened out usually with a simple fix like a new battery, light bulb, wire rerouting, etc. Two were just scrambled.
Batteries and smoke wicks are what has kept me busy. Most recent has been G scale traction tires running outside mainly by age, heat, or defects. I wish I could get rid of them.
I have been running MTH engines for well over a decade now and the DCS software bugs have always been my biggest issue.
I admit that I don't understand a lot of this concern. There is a very large installed base, and I suspect that parts will be available, at least for the remainder of my actuarial life. (An ad for a BCR I bought to replace the battery in one of my MTH locomotives stated that "over 70,000 have been sold". That might possibly mean that thousands of MTH locomotives have been sold...certainly sufficient as a source of parts in this hobby!) The electronics allows MTH engines to run either DCC, DCS, or conventional. The models are excellent mechanically, with good motors and metal gearing, so even with boards removed they are certainly worth having, and I am sure that they could be made operable with all of the electronics removed. Am I buying these for "investment"? No. I am buying them to operate and enjoy. I do understand the issue of complicated repair requiring a trained MTH tech and possible sourcing issues with the parts he needs though. I have two engines on order now, and have absolutely no hesitancy in receiving them. MTH has "backward standardized" to a significant extent, as opposed to other train importers who make control system changes every few years, and the need to upgrade peripheral equipment at relatively frequent intervals.
John that still doesn't answer how your shop will honor warranties if you have no access to oem parts to do so.
Unfortunately in this hobby the silence has to be because the dealer's that any manufacturer works with will gossip "secret" news faster than a bunch of teenage girls. Look at the catalog leaks that always get deleted by the moderators.
Concerns are valid. I was looking closely at a new diesel I had been running and noticed a tire was off and stuck between the wheel and truck casting. No big deal - the tire came off - happens occasionally. Put the engine in the cradle & found that the tire had been installed on a wheel that was not grooved to have a tire. Problem is that the wheel should have been grooved and the wrong wheel was installed at the factory.
A more serious issue involved my lifting the removable cover off a different, fresh out of the box diesel and finding a loose wire nut sandwiched in the cover. For this engine I removed the shell prior to running and found the ground wires located under the board without a wire nut. The nut on the red bundle was loose.
As a final point, I am finding recurrent issues with new PS3 diesels going into "squawk" mode. Some reset, another will require that I reload the chain file again. This is more frustrating than the items listed above so hopefully the boards are not defective.
I am a huge fan of MTH and have over 100 engines (they're like rabbits) with a few more on order, so cross my fingers & hope they arrive issue free.
I've been adding many new MTH engines to my collection lately. Much prefer DCS to Legacy and they will run great for many years to come. Never have had an MTH engine break down in 15 years.
I bought 2 MTH locomotives and I have a 3rd on order. I would have bought more if I had the funds. Why? Because Lionel won’t be producing engines with scale wheels anytime soon. Probably, not ever. Nothing against Lionel but they do not produce what I am interested in. So in the future I will just enjoy what I have, which is plenty enough for me, and there is always the secondary market where something I like or need may pop up.
I am not concerned about the electronics because I could always install DCC. The fact that I no longer will be able to buy engines with scale wheels bothers me. Add to that locomotives with scale wheels are a lot more rarer that the regular hi rail version.
@H1000 posted:A reputable company that been in this business for many years would most likely face some legal action if that was that is going to be the practice. It's a form of bait & switch.
No it doesn't stop from buying any new MTH. I run pretty much everything on the Railking end of things, and they share many parts between many models. The DCS group is going to live on and I suspect that they will continue to sell upgrade kits and other DCS components.
No one to take legal action against. The entity will be gone.
@jjm posted:No one to take legal action against. The entity will be gone.
So Mike Wolf is leaving the country? Couldn't he be held responsible for allowing his own (former) company for not honoring a warranty that is explicitly spelled out on a news release with his face on it?
Maybe Lionel will buy MTH out and the final chapter will be written.
@yamaha226 posted:Maybe Lionel will buy MTH out and the final chapter will be written.
You've just opened a Thread killing can of worms!
It's been discussed, everyone has opinion but nobody has a clue...
I said Maybe.
@yamaha226 posted:Maybe Lionel will buy MTH out and the final chapter will be written.
That would be ironic. Several yrs back when Mike was getting started, one of the magazines did an article w/ Mike. One of the questions he was asked, what's your goal ? Mike said he'd like to get the name "Lionel", but that's not gonna happen.
Been here since the Lawsuit as have many other members.
@jjm posted:SIRT, you bring up another concern. Who is even paying attention to quality control at this point?
Quality has always been an issue with both companies. Usually it’s just some cosmetics. Lately it’s been more major details like missing parts - fuel pipe and brake cylinders. Midge is working on getting them to me but the supplier will have them when doing the next batch of EL RS3’s I guess? I believe the brand will carry on. Only thing I need is an SCL F3 A.
As I wind down the hobby on engine collection, for me, buying Lionel is out of the question. I always found their power units overpriced like Atlas plus I don’t have their system. I don’t like the way they are made and put together either, kind of shotty.
We shall see in due time what happens.
Depends on your perception of the risk, your risk tolerance, and whether you believe in the possibility of resurrection, this being close to Easter. If there is no announcement of what has been promised by Easter, I'm guessing MTH as a coherent entity is done. Tooling may occasionally be used by others, but no catalogs, no regular issuing of updates, etc.
My guess is GRJ's formulation above is likely to be closest to what is actually going to happen. Some larger and well off dealers (are there any?) may continue free warranty repairs for a while, but that sounds like a heavy lift. Assume that anything you buy now could have no warranty once the company is formally dissolved.
Class action lawsuits only work if there are a lot of members of the class and the defendant has significant resources that can be attached. Ain't happening here is my guess. Individual lawsuits will be too expensive considering the legal costs.
“Depends on your perception of the risk, your risk tolerance, and whether you believe in the possibility of resurrection, this being close to Easter. “
Nah, not for me. The risk calculation is a lot more worldly and not based on any belief in mth going all Lazarus on us. I have over 30 mth engines right now, and besides my ps-2 5 volt subway trains, which were run into the ground and overheated with excessive car loads, I have never had any material problems in over 25 years of purchases. I even have 2 diesels that are over 20 years old with 5 volt ps-2 boards that are still workhorses on my pike (cheap generic replacement speaker changes were made in both). Based on that, I was more than happy to add a few more engines in the past year. If I get anywhere near the running time and lifespan of my existing mth collection, it will be more than worth it to me. My success with mth engines has been significantly better than any other manufacturer I’ve ever bought. That’s my risk calculation and it’s a no brainer if mth makes an engine that I want. I'm not going to wait and get the product used and all the risks that that entails (buying someones abused product, not being able to get it afterwards, etc). Nope, if they make it new, and it is something I want. i will buy it.
@H1000 posted:So Mike Wolf is leaving the country? Couldn't he be held responsible for allowing his own (former) company for not honoring a warranty that is explicitly spelled out on a news release with his face on it?
As others point out, legal action is expensive and time consuming. And the result would not be performance on warranties or service. The end result would be a judgment or settlement amounting to peanuts.
My "new" B&O RPO passenger car leaves much to be desired. It actually has broken detail parts and the oilly finger prints all over the chassis will take a lot of clean-up work. There is also the inner parts that have dislodged. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to try tracking down someone at MTH to rectify these issues, so any issues I find ultimately falls on me.
@Strap Hanger posted:“Depends on your perception of the risk, your risk tolerance, and whether you believe in the possibility of resurrection, this being close to Easter. “
Nah, not for me. The risk calculation is a lot more worldly and not based on any belief in mth going all Lazarus on us. I have over 30 mth engines right now, and besides my ps-2 5 volt subway trains, which were run into the ground and overheated with excessive car loads, I have never had any material problems in over 25 years of purchases. I even have 2 diesels that are over 20 years old with 5 volt ps-2 boards that are still workhorses on my pike. Based on that, I was more than happy to add a few more engines in the past year. If I get anywhere near the running time and lifespan of my existing mth collection, it will be more than worth it to me. My success with mth engines has been significantly better than any other manufacturer I’ve ever bought. That’s my risk calculation and it’s a no brainer if mth makes an engine that I want.
I have a number of older MTH engines too - including PS-1s! All bought new and all still running fine. But that was history, not the present. Hasn't the risk equation changed? Who is overseeing quality today? Who even cares at MTH? The historical performance anecdotes good and bad are fine, but the risk is in the overall performance from today forward. And that risk is deepened with very thin evidence that MTH-backed warranty and service work will be available. Whatever might come forth will not be backed by MTH. It will all be a patchwork of providers who will do what they can (and certainly charge for it) until the parts run out. K-Line might be an interesting comparison, but its later electronics were all Lionel. The original stuff is just mechanical, and typically easy to fix. That "less expensive than others" new MTH purchase today could be a whole lot more expensive going forward. Without assurances, how do you know?
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