I was going to put this in the LC+ forum but felt this was more of a general question, so here goes.
I've had my LionChief Plus B&O Pacific for only 7 weeks and it's stopped working all of a sudden! All the start up signals and sounds are signaling and sounding like normal, but when I move the dial to go forward...nothing. When I move the dial to go in reverse, the engine moves about a half inch and then stops. It doesn't matter if I'm in transformer mode or remote mode, it's the same problem.
So, the conundrum, which I'm sure has been discussed in other threads elsewhere; I bought it from Model Trains Stuff online. I could A: Return it to them and pay shipping NJ to MD. B: Return it to Lionel and pay shipping NJ to NC. C: Bring it to any one of five local authorized Lionel Service Stations that are within 20 minutes of my house (one is 5 minutes from my office) or D: Open it up myself and see if there is something obvious like a screw or some other object that got picked up and is stuck in the gears, and I suppose if I did that it would void the warranty.
Should I feel guilty about returning it to a dealer/service center to fix something that they didn't sell or suck it up, pay the shipping and send it back to where I got it from (or Lionel)? My inclination is to call the service center (a retail store) that's 5 minutes from my office and tell them my tale and see if they'll look at it.
Opinions?