should I be charged for warranty repair by LHS?

Authorized dealers should NOT charge for warranty repairs.  Are they a Lionel dealer?  If they start charging for warranty repairs, they won't be long!

Does it make a difference if I bought the engine from a different Lionel dealer than the one that just recently repaired it?

Not that I'm aware of.  This is certainly a question for Lionel folks, and they're well represented here.

I believe some feel its "bad etiquette" to have a loco serviced were you didn't purchase it( I guess it really shouldn't be but it is) I've only known of one shop that would warranty anything no questions asked, unfortunately the owner has passed on and the store closed. Having said that, as John said there should be no charge for warranty repairs and considering that an entire smoke unit can be purchased for about $30 and its not likely the entire unit was defective, the shop probably made a couple of bucks on the repair. Sending it to Ohio is the only way to guarantee its fixed right, even though you may pay one way shipping you would have likely had it back within a week or two to boot. I've been done with authorized shops for some time,I send everything to Ohio.

I just read the warranty page from Lionel's web site for a Mikado.  In laymen's terms, you have to have done the following:  bought the engine from an authorized Lionel dealer, taken it for repair to an authorized dealer (or the service center in OH), provided your original reciept, and not done any modifications to the train - the latter will automatically void any warranty.  Having said that, if you do not have your original proof of purchase from an authorized lionel retailer (e.g. you bought it from someone that is NOT a lionel dealer), then you will pay for the parts, not the labor as long as it was within 1 year of purchase, and not more than 3 yrs from date of manufacture.

 

So, does the service center think you bought it from a non authorized retailer?

 

Did you ask them what the $65 was for since you thought it would be a warrantied repair?

 

And, just to make sure, you bought the train in Oct 2011 - as the engine is under a 1 yr original warranty only, per the warranty I read.

 

Hope that helps.

 

I read this kind of crap all day long (legal documents)!  If you have questions, please ask. 

 

 

Maybe I'm just an ol' phart..If you want your choo-choo, pay the money and be done with it (and the LHS) Send a copy of the bill to Lionel and ask them for an explaination. I do agree with John, however, your choo-choo is being held for randsome.

I will find out more tomorrow. They left a voicemail that it was ready, that they replaced a "bad board " and the price was $65.00. They were closed by the time I received the message else I would have called them. I have the original receipt and have never attempted any repairs to engine that would void the warranty. This engine had been back to Lionel once already but this time I opted for the LHS to save on shipping charges. Thanks for the replies I will let you know the outcome.

You should NOT be charged if you have met all the criteria of the Lionel warranty.  If you were and you did fall under the Lionel warranty report this shop to Lionel.  They are doing them a dis-service.

Let's wait and see what GEF finds out tomorrow.  We are all speculating.  He initially asked whether it sounded correct to be charged for warranty work, we all said 'no', so he'll find out tomorrow what the 'deal' is.

 

Of course I would also like to know why a less than 1 year old unit has to go back to Lionel 2x for repairs?  That is another thread, I suppose.

 

We shall stay tuned.  GEF, please update us on your Lionel Warranty matter once you have something further you wish to share.

 

Thanks.

I saw the OP states he has the original paperwork/receipt, but was it all presented at the time? Further, why not take it to the authorized repair center where you bought it? That seems to be the easiest solution. Unless the place you bought it is far away because they had the cheapest price.  

Really? Can the shop be blamed for making a couple of bucks? If it is a warranty repair, I imagine Lionel pays a set amount for certain classifications of repair. While this should be a warranty repair, if all of the criteria were not met, perhaps it does not qualify as a warranty repair, in which case they charged for what they were asked to do. No one would stay in business very long doing repairs for parts cost and no component for labor.

If the repair shop is authorized by Lionel then they will get reimbursed for parts and given a set amount for labor. Auto repair shops refer to that as "flat rate". There should be no charge to the customer assuming they have they have met the warranty requirements. If you are charged you should take it up with Lionel Service in Ohio. Any repair shop should be able to help you out regardless of where the item was purchased. In fact some shops only do service and do not sell trains though they may be associated with a particular dealer.

 

Pete

Or they are now closed and out of business.  Or any number of other reasons.

quote:

Further, why not take it to the authorized repair center where you bought it?

 

Are all Lionel dealers authorized repair centers?

That is why I said if it meets all the criteria there shouldn't be a charge. Let's see what the particulars are. It should not matter where you bought it. If the store in question is part of the network they should repair it. That's why they are there.

No!

 

But there's insufficient information in the original post to make a determination whether the charge was fair or not.

For those wondering why, perhaps the original poster did not send his engne to where he'd purchaased it for one of these reasons:

• Not all authorized dealers are authorized to do repairs
• The store might have gone out of business or changed ownership
• If it had been purchased locally, perhaps the buyer has since moved from that locale and did not want to risk shipping it back there for repair

 

As to not returning to Lionel, the original poster had previously sent it to Lionel and did not want to pay postage a second time. If this was to repair the same thing he'd sent the engine back for before, I feel Lionel should cover the second time around postage since they obviously had not thoroughly fixed that problem the first time. In fact, it seems unreasonable that anyone sending any product back for a warranty covered repair should be charged any postage whatsoever. Warranty repair means there's an admission of a problem by the manufacturer with their product so why should you have to pay them twice for that product - the first time being to purchase it and the second time for postage getting it to them to get it working correctly when it should have worked correctly all along? 

I wonder what would happen if all dealers of all products would be required to take back their customers defective under warranty products and then have to pay to return them to the manufacturer for repair? Would they be willing to pay the postage to send it to the manufacturer? How many times would they be willing to do that before they'd say enough is enough, sever ties with that manufacturer and stop selling their product? Maybe companies would then be forced to raise their quality control what it should be. An interesting thought to ponder.

You're right, gunrunnerjohn. I've amended my post.

It's kind of a shame that you get it repaired by Lionel and then soon after a board goes bad.  How does that happen? 

Last week I got 2 Lionel engines repaired at America's Best Train & Hobby in Itasca, Il.

Quick story-  I had bought the Wabash triple lashup set from them and the sound on both powered units was bad.  These were in the Heritage catalog from 1999, which come with a Lifetime Warranty to the original seller with the original receipt, etc.  I bought it from them, I have the receipt, it's under warranty right?  At the same time, I brought in one engine from the B & M triple lashup set from 1998, also a Heritage series product with the same warranty conditions.  This I bought from a private party, someone whose list was on this forum.  I put all 3 in the same box and explained as I just did above.  ABT&H fixed all 3 engines and they all sound great now.  Lionel asked for the original receipt, and then honored the warranty on the Wabash engines.  ABT&H seemed very surprised by this, and I wasn't charged.  It cost me $51.93 for the B&M engine, which I gladly paid.  Tony, the owner, was a tad grouchy that day, and told me, yeah Lionel honored the warranty, but they only give us $20, and it's not worth the paperwork to get it back from them.  Or something to that effect, he was kind of mumbling, grumbling at the time- 'Joe put in an hour analyzing, 2 hours on the repair....  I said, Thanks! I'm glad I made it to customer appreciation day! and me and one of his guys giggled as Tony mumbled something else.  I got the impression it wasn't worth it to him, but everyone gets grouchy sometimes.  And he's still got the last piece to my puzzle.  I'm trying to get him to give me a better price on the Florida East Coast triple lashup set.  We will stay buddies for awhile I imagine.  Anyway, really it's about relationships.  I want to be fair and be treated fairly in return.  I don't mind paying a couple of bucks to my LHS if it seems like the right thing to do.  But, I don't hesitate to remind them that I am a loyal customer and deserve some of the same consideration and service in return.  Honor the warranty if warranted and work the rest out with Lionel.  I can listen to a little grumbling.

We aren't privy to how the repair facilities are compensated by Lionel and other manufacturers.  From what I have been told, my information matches up with William's.  The LHS is underpaid for doing warranty work.

Actually many of us are privy to that information. Regardless of the compensation, when doing warranty work on a valid piece the customer is not charged. The parts do not cost the service center and making money off the flat rate is entirely dependent of the skill of the person doing the work. Some take hours or days trying to diagnose a problem, others do it in minutes. The Lionel Service center is staffed by the latter which enables them to return items usually within a few days.

 

Pete

This morning I headed to the LHS to pick up my engine. Sixty five dollars later I have the engine back home but still haven't tested it out yet. After discussing with the repairman the associated charges on warranty work, turns out he was never informed by the salesman that initally processed the repair. Although the receipt was in the box, he stated that the repair tag said to give an estimate of repairs. He also added that the reciept was not ledgible, which is not the case at all. I have the reciept saved on my iphone and was able to show it to him. 

 

We then discussed the actual problem of the engine. He wanted to know if I ever opened up the engine to repair it. Which I replied no. He said the board that was" bad" had a wire that was not wired correctly. That last one to open the engine was Lionel. However, I never recieved a description of the work performed by Lionel so I don't know if they even replaced a board. We then talked about some weathering that I done to the engine and tender, but he added it was unlikely this was the cause of the short.

 

Anway the repairman was very understanding about the situation. I did not know that the hobby shop does not front the money for the replacements parts. In fact, the repairman himself had to shell out $65.00 for the parts. He was going to allow the the charge to go through as warranty work but I decided to pay the money because I did not want to see him eat the the cost of the repair. Since I paid it, he offered to" take care of me" in future with any other issues that arise with this engine. So it ended on a good note.

 

Now the question arises as to whether or not to run this engine or not. The repairman seems to think it will short out again. I still say the cause is the 2nd pickup roller which from time to time will shift ever so slightly and actually get hung up and cause a short. This seems to be happening when running on my scaletrax portion of the layout.

 

Well off to go test it out. Wish me luck and thanks everyone for you help.

 

George

 

 

George:

 

As requested:  Good luck!

 

Seems to me that there was some good will by you with the repair person. 

 

The shops I know that do repairs in MD (you and I live in MD) do not have an employee on board to do repairs - they have a person(s) who is an authorized/trained repair person that picks up the stuff, takes it home, does repair, and then that repair person has to deal with the bureacracies of warranty work and getting paid.  You did a huge service to pay for the repair and buy some good will.  Kudos.

 

I think you have pointed out something - communication.  I might suggest that on the next visit that anyone has to make for any warranty work by any manufacturer that you type up the facts and put a hard copy in the box - that way Person A who took box does not miscommunicate to Person B who hands it to Person C (doing the repairs).  That way the original instructions and facts remain consistent.  And I would also recommend using a copy of the reciept and write on the copy that the original can be provided.  That way this valuable piece of paper does not get lost.

 

Run the heck out the train to get it to malfunction.  I hope it does not, but if it does, it seems to me that you have a good source to go to at Klein's and given that you spoke with him, he will remember you next time you need work completed.

 

Glad it worked out.

 

 

Probably the biggest thing to come out of all this.The value of establishing a relationship with a valued resource can't be over stated. You probably could spend a lot of time and effort to work around this and try not to spend that $65.00, but if you establish a relationship with that shop and continue to go there, you are going to get that $65.00 back many many times over. 

I would run it ragged.  Good luck with the engine.  

It is kind of an odd scenario. A wire was not connected correctly?  He thinks it may short out again?  You think a bad back roller on a certain length of track?

You have a good attitude about this situation GEF, but it sounds like a load of B.S. from this shop. The board for your smoke unit is $10.50 and their not even sure its fixed?http://www.lionel.com/CustomerService/ReplacementParts/index.cfm?doAction=productPartFilter&number=620-8312-200&productID=0a28c14f-22d4-49db-a07d-67e7752119e8 Take care of you how? at least $55 in free repairs? Thats not gonna happen, you paid $65 for "free warranty work".Had this been my experience they would never see my buisness again. This is precisely why I send everything to Ohio,if they "botched it" let them make it right, if you approach the matter correctly they may even pick up the shipping.  If the LHS is poorly compensated for warranty work I get it, then don't be an "authorized service center", why should the customer be the one to pick up the slack?

The point is it was a warranty repair. There should be no charge assuming the shop was an authorized Lionel service facility. Either they are not an authorized repair shop (read Allen's response) or they messed up if they are. Contact Lionel Service in Ohio to get this straightened out.

You can verify if the shop is authorized to do service here:

 

http://www.lionel.com/CustomerService/

 

Pete

Pete:

 

I'm going on the assumption they either aren't authorized, or the submission of the repair didn't meet the criteria for warranty repair.

 

A good example for why every repair should go right back to Ohio - regardless of complexity or cost. Send it back to the manufacturer and wait your turn. There's really no reason to have service centers, particularly if they are going to charge more than the actual cost of the parts. 

 

It seems to me that the basic issue here is communication.  Not the GEF's communications, but the communications by the folks at the shop that took in the repair and their communications with the person that did the repair.  GEF did what he wanted to do - yes he could argue the point when he found out the additional facts, but he chose to go the route he did and that is his right.  Yes he did ask for input from us on whether it sounded correct that Lionel would chanarge for warranty work, but once he got the rest of the facts from the repair person as to what the charges were,  it changed the dynamics of the matter.  So GEF chose to pay for the repair and 'buy' some help down the road.  Well, that is my take.  GEF has his reasons and I am not trying to impose upon him what I think he was trying to do - just a guess on my part.  But let's stick with that assumption for this posting.  He was willing to pay for the option to have the repair person available 'to help him out' the next time he needs something on this unit or another one.  And if that future need is NOT under warranty, who is going to probably try to go the extra mile for GEF - the person that did this repair work.  That person will remember GEF. 

 

There are good points to sending to OH: they have standards that are consistent; they do a QC before sending back; presumably, they stand behind the repair; they have the 'knowledge' and see the repetitive nature of defects, so they can apply those to establish a permanent fix.  One woudl hope that gets back to the trained folks out in the field, but not always.  The local repair guy is going to be the one you go to in a pinch after it is out of warranty (and maybe even while under warranty), he will be the one that helps you with a used engine you 'gotta have' when the engine says ' I ain't working for YOU'.  That repair person might be willing to take the time to figure out the issue, and not necessairly charge you for all of the time spent on the project. 

 

So, what I will do if ever presented with this problem is (a) if under warranty, WRITE a note to repair person detailing facts and problem(s) and enclose it in box with engine/car; (b) include a Xerox copy fo the reciept - and make notations that original reciept is available; (c) circle purchase date to show it is under warranty;  (d) provide phone numbers and times of days it is best to call those numbers, e,g, repair person may be working on it at 9 pm and want to call you. 

 

Yes, you should not have to do all of that, but this is warranty work in 2012.  If you do a little leg work ahead of time, it will make things go much smoother.  And the reason it makes things go smoother is that it's not just one person doing the work at Lionel - it is a netwrok of dealers, Lionel service folks in OH (approving repairs, providing training/guidance on repairs, etc.), independent service persons working for your local store, and the customers. 

 

BTW, I am not trying to defend Lionel.  I actually am not a Lionel operator.  I have 3 engines from Lionel, but they are 18, 20 and 80 years old, and enjoy them.  I mostly use another brand (rhymes with "bike's brain mouse"), and I suspect I will have my frustrations too.  We all have or will have.  But so far so good.

 

Thanks to GEF for sharing his expereinces.

 

I am going to play with my trains now. 

 

Thanks.

 

 

This can happen.  Too much of the story sounds fishy though.  Problem is that Lionel has not held the Repair tech school in over 2 years.  So many shops that are authorized dealers are not authorized repair centers even though the tech may have previous training, or is knowledgeable in the repair.  The consequence is that Lionel won't provide the parts for free nor compensate the store for labor, unless the tech IS an Authorized Tech.  I have a feeling that there are less and less Authorized Lionel techs since this policy was initiated.

 

I would ask the store owner and the tech if they are authorized.  If so, then Lionel should refund them the money for an authorized warranty repair, and provide you the same.  If they are not authorized Tech, then the miscommunication caused the tech to buy the part as a billable, vice telling the store owner or you that it would need to go back to Lionel.  Not all stores are up front about this.

 

I never do a repair unless I have communicated with the owner what the issue is and what the cost will be.  Since I don't have a Lionel license, anything warranty has to go back to Lionel.  Even a simple conventional reverse unit, unless I do it for nothing to support a loyal customer.  G

This is why I buy only lionel engines! The best service and straight honest talk in the business! A very very long time ago the people I dealt with over the phone at lionel service were, well, just plain rude. Did not care. Techs never available and treated me like I was dumb. Seemed they just could not wait to go home for the day.Bla! Bla! Bla! ................ Then one day lionel found this lugnut mike regan ( working on his own and struggling to make ends meet,pay his staff, all the while eating roman and drinking generic name sodas.) Ha! Ha! And customer service has never been the same. IMHO the best in the customer service period!! Great friendly operators who greet me on the phone,good techs who treat me like I know somthing, plus all of the great web support. ( love the exploded parts diagrams and youtube tutorials!)make my repairs easer and less of a hassle. Lets not forget the fast turnaround! Plus now they actually run my engine on a real world layout to make sure it works not just fixe it and put it in the box and say it's ok! Thanks again mike and crew for all you do!!!! This is why I buy lionel!!!! Oh did I mention buy the way that legacy is awsome too!!!

Lionelzwl2012 said it all already, Lionel certainly has the best customer service of any model train maker that I know of!  It's the best customer service that I can think of for any manufacturer.  Hats off to Mike and the crew, great job!

Mike Reagan responded to GEF's original post with a request for direct communication with him.  To this point, specifics regarding GEF's experience with this issue are somewhat lacking (as noted in my earlier post and in Mike's).

 

I'm locking the thread at this point, with the request that GEF do as Mike requested.  He (GEF) can certainly return here and present a follow-up once the matter is resolved.