i have picked up two mth engines in the past 6 months. Always been a Lionel guy but I was ready to branch out. I picked a new old stock unshrouded J new in the shipper. This is one of my all time favorite engines. Normally I don't buy much older stuff I try to stick to the more modern offerings. However I love the engine and couldn't beat the price. I did some reading before I ever unboxed it and I read about the battery issues and board failures of the older ps2 engines so I prepared myself for the worst just in case. I took the engine apart cleaned out all the factory grease and replaced with fresh. Also oiled everything before I ever turned a wheel. That's a lot of years to live in a box. I put the engine on our club layout, started it up and it worked great for 2 passes around our roughly 20x40 layout and it just died. Quit responding no function dead in the water. I moved the engine off the main to the yard and just left it sit on a powered yard track while I chatted with the other members. I decided before I left I'd give it another try. Engine started up again. Ran fine again for about 20 feet, sounds cut out, made about half a loop on a main and same thing. Dead. Member suggest changing the old battery out for a bcr. I have since done this with mixed results. The engine is very difficult to start up. When 18vs is applied the whistle blows constantly with no other function or response from the remote until power is removed. I tried throttling the power up slowly instead of just switching on the full 18v and this does seem to work but it's real intermittent. Sometimes the engine will respond sometimes it won't it's very inconsistent. But when the system does start up the engine seems to preform perfectly it's just getting it to start. And as soon as power is removed say via short you have to start all over again. I love this engine like I said and I'd really like to find a fix for it.
Secondly I picked up a used PS3 c&o greenbrier. These had been out for about a year when I acquired this one. Engine was used. Love this one two very attractive loco. This engine right out of the box had some issues. It would start up and run however the operation was very jerky. It will speed up and slow down with no speed step changes. Sometimes it will just stop and the sound system will shut down like power is removed. It will sit for a few seconds and start back up on its own. Only thing I could think of to check was the wonky draw bar. Which is tricky but seems to be properly and firmly connected. I did take the shell off and check for any mechanical issues like I said it just ran very poorly when it did run like it had a driveline issues. I found everything to be in good order best I could tell. I assumed it was electrical but it was worth a look. I Reassembled the locomotive same results. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't but when it does it just acts very unhappy about the fact that it is working if that makes sense. I had it running on our club layout with about 20 cars in tow and it would slow down to crawl and stop. Sound system would shut down and it would sit for about 30 seconds and come right back to life like there was never an issue. I did try it in conventional at my home and it seemed to work fine mechanically other than it wouldn't let me toggle it from any other position than forward . No nuetral and no reverse. But it seems to run better in comvnetional than full DCS. It's over my head I know that.
We have have a local repair guy here but I thought about sending the greenbrier back to mth. I love the engine but I really want it to be right. Obviously both engines need some kind of repair. Whether I use the local guy or mth. I for sure want to get these up and running. Two great engines that I was pleased to add to my roster. I'm not really upset with mth. Stuff happens that's part of it but it's deafinetley been a less than favorable beginning. The J I kind of expected because of the age but the greenbrier I had much higher hopes for.
Thoughts and suggestions welcome.
How is mth customer service?
