Received two brand new Kato GE ES44AC locos today. Install a new Digitrax decoder in the first one, looks and runs great. Opened the second box and the top rail was down under the botton one. After bending it up it looks like it will be OK! Removed the body and the truck wipers were all out of place only one was over the truck contact. After working on them for about 15 minutes they now look like the first loco's wipers. After getting the decoder install, I began to test the two locos, the second one would not go threw a switch without derailing. In checking the trucks out I found the front truck to look warped, the front wheels were off the rails. I call Kato and after telling them I didn't want to send in the loco for repair, I just wanted to purchase another truck, they decided to send me another truck if i would return the defective one. The reason I didn't want to send the loco back was because I returned a SD40 a while back with a bad truck, recieve the loco back with a new truck but with a broken body!
IMHO.... I hear Kato service is pretty fast. Unlike Bachmann that took 6 weeks to decide the steam loco I sent in with the drive wheels spun off the axles really was FUBAR !! I would send Kato the truck ONLY...and hope for the best. .
If it was most other manufacturers I would say poor quality control. Coming from Kato, I would think this was probably bad luck. I felt the same bad luck with the first GS-4 I ordered. It had issues almost from the get-go. I sent it to Kato for repair and it came back with a different set of issues. I sent it to Mark Watson here at his suggestion and it came back in better condition than when I got it (thanks again, Mark!). Usually, there stuff is so trouble-free.
I second the possibility that this loco was severely mishandled due to the additional issue with the wipers. You are wise to only send the truck back to Kato and avoid any further damage in shipping / handling. Take extra care when installing the new truck so that you do not break off the "ears" that hold the truck in place. Same goes when removing a truck. Jerry
Most likely the truck is not snapped together fully. Push the bottom of the truck up and make sure it is tight. Small problem.
Sounds like bad luck, the mech for the GEVOS has been in built with small mods to the frame since the 90's.
That's what I thought at first, until I removed the truck and dissasemble it, the side frame is warped, manufacturing defect. The box was not damaged in any way, the company that I purchased them from use the best shipping methods that I have ever seen.
I recently got a Kato F40PH that did not run oput of the box. I took the shell off only to find that the whole inside was a jumbled mess. The motort wasn't even seated correctly in the frames. I ended up taking the whole engine apart and then rebuilt it. It is working fine now. But no handing that I could think of would have caused the mess I saw under the shell. I chalked mine up to a lack of Quality Control. Fortunately, it didn't have any broken parts and is a fine runner now.
I've only been in this for 40 locomotives worth, but, Kato has by far been the "best out of the box" so far. I do have a new F7 that has a front truck that keeps derailing so it could be a recent QC issue. I dunno.
My take on it is that it is neither bad luck or poor quality control. I view it as an engineering defect. I had a similar problem with a couple of SD70ACE’s that I bought new. I removed them from the box and the trucks had come apart, with the worm tower still stuck in the mechanism. As received, these lokies had the revised packaging. Kato had seen this problem and chalked it up to poor packaging. They apparently attributed it to the weight of the truck being unsupported in the package and added plastic strip to keep the truck secured in the mechanism, safe from jostling. When the box was opened, the trucks were in place until the lokies were removed and the truck lower half fell out. Both of the towers were warped where they engaged the truck. When I contacted Kato, they chalked it up to packaging (until I told them it had the new packaging being described) and wanted me to send them in for repair. As I had just spent about $160 and wanted to run them, I requested they send trucks instead, which they refused. I ended up heating the towers until I could get the tabs reengaged with the lower halves, and superglued them together, which has held so far. Why when Kato has had a good working design for years they would change it to this is beyond me. One step forward, two steps back. Sometimes I wish they would leave well enough alone. Thankfully they didn’t change the truck design on the SD45 re-release. Let us hope they don’t change the U30C/C30 either. These are still some of the smoothest runners out there.
GEVO is the same mech and trucks as the AC44, and -9, same design as the SD70mac and original 70m. The SD70ace is different.
Looking at the Kato parts description, it looks like the SD70M was revised to utilized the same truck design (seperate tower/shaft) as the ACE. Is this the case?
First two runs no, last run yes. Also the SD40-2 mid-production unit were the first to used the design.
