Intermountain Frame Rot !!

Oops. Have you ever been writing something and you know it doesn't seem right but you write it anyway? I knew "...19th century" wasn't correct, in my post above, but I typed it anyway. I meant 20th century, of course.



Doug

 

As much as it sucks, no manufacturer of ANY kind warranties or provides support for a product indefinitely. In the case of the auto industry it has created an extensive aftermarket chain of manufacturers to provide parts for vehicles no longer supported by the manufacturers. We don't have that in model railroading, although we do have manufacturers for detail parts and such. I don't think ANY of the model manufacturers are exactly "rolling in dough".......they make enough to stay in business. Based on their extreme "preorder" policy, I would guess that IM is worse off than most. If my options were to have IM replace ALL the bad frames that are still out there, and end up going out of business, or simply suck it up, take the hit, and remain in business, I think I would prefer the latter. That doesn't help us, but in the long run, we can't afford to keep losing manufacturers. The only manufacturers who HAVEN'T had a zamac issue are the new ones, like Rapido and Scaletrains, who haven't been in business long enough for the problem to appear.

 

I hope you mean relatively modern manufacturers because Lone Star never had any issues with their Zamac castings. Neither did Sekisui/Kato in the early Con-Cor days with the PAs, or Minitrix. I have never seen bad Zamac castings from these makers. Actually, ironically, I don't think Bachmann has ever had a problem, either.

Doug

 

Well said, all of it, even though I didn't quote it all. I was really surprised when Intermountain offered to send a frame to me after telling them I bought the loco used off of eBay and wasn't even the original owner. Way more than I'd expect. Stuff happens and I think they reacted as best they could under the situation...not like they could go to the government for a bailout.

Sumner

 

Although someone has to pay for all those recalled defective airbags ! Now...if it is the manufacturer of the airbags...so be it. A defective part is a defective part no matter how far down the road it is found. JMO
.

 

It is incumbent on all manufacturers to stand by their products, to blatantly ignore the problem is reprehensible. When I asked IM about the frame issues, I was told that they had no replacement frames in stock, but when they did I could buy them is there were any leftover from the production run. Pay for frames for a defective product? When I said I can send you the frames and you could refund the money for them, the guy just hung up on me. I used to buy the locomotives, will never buy again from IM. I also liked a lot of the cars they were releasing, but I will not ever buy anymore.
As for the comment about Scale Trains, they may be sharp enough in their contract to have a metallurgist test each batch before the pour into the molds. It is all in the contract, and IM negotiated their way into a pathetic contract. And they are not honest enough to own up to the problems.

 

FWIW, when I had a tunnel motor with this issue a few years back, IM sent me a replacement frame free of charge at the time.

 

What do you think would have happened if you told them 84? 120? or more....

I was told I would have to pay for the replacement frames. Not a chance on that!

That is the fool once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. If I had the means I would drive them out of business, but they seem to be doing that themselves without my help.

 

I'm just saying there was a point in time where they were offering replacement frames. My guess is this was probably when the problem first started to crop up, was only affecting a frame here and there and they had extra frames on-hand.

 

If a customer buys a product in good faith, the customer should NEVER be out any money, whatsoever, for a remedy regarding a defective product. I have used that indisputable argument several times with eBay sellers when they expected me to pay for return shipping, and have gotten full refunds.

Doug

 

those whom produce bad products must be closed down........ thats just theft with the knowledge that they knew they had the problem........

 

Are you saying there is never a time limitation? Could you go back to those eBay sellers 5, 10 or 15 years from now? Did they manufacture their product or misrepresent it? There is a difference.

I'm not aware of any manufacture that gives that. I had a 'Life-Time' subscription to National Geographic that ran out about 30 years ago . 'Life-Time doesn't mean all that much now or in the past. Bachmann doesn't have the gears or parts to still fix some of their locos. I doubt Atlas, Kato or others still have all the parts needed to fix every engine they ever made and if they did wouldn't fix them for free. One could say that anything that breaks over time has a manufacturing defect.

I'm with Dave...

.... wasn't a good situation but stuff like this happens. Hurt some of us a little, I'm out $90 and others were out a lot more. Easy to be out way more than that with a car that has a problem 2 months past warranty .

Sumner

 

So you are saying it is acceptable for all manufacturers to design products to only last the length of the warranty.......

So if the warranty is over on your car and the anti-lock brakes fail and it gets totaled, that is no harm or foul?

So that manufacturer lived up to the warranty? But not beyond? And it was a known issue that was ignored?

 

So George, are you ready for the next batch?

I have 320 boxed up and ready to go! Or I can rent a UHaul and bring them all to you, but I am not sure you have the room for them all......

 

On cars, the standard is, or was, 36 months or 36,000 miles. After paying out a lot of money for repairs right after the warranty expired and while I was still paying for the car, I quit buying cars. Now I drive a Kia. Did I buy the car? No, I bought the warranty, ten years or 100,000 miles. The car came with it. I am now on my fourth Kia, a little Niro hybrid getting over 50 MPG in the summer with the A/C on. In winter I get about 46 MPG (need the gas engine for heat). I like my Kia. I like it more when I pass gas stations.

 

You have to differentiate between parts that are expected to normally wear and those which are an integral part of the product and are expected to last indefinitely. Parts like gears, motors, wheels, and the like, fit into the former category but the frame does not. It would be expected to last "forever" and the manufacturer should be responsible for it, regardless of age.

That the frame would some day crumble and fall apart, a critical part of the assembly, is inexcusable and should be the manufacturer's responsibility to replace.

Doug

 

I also feel this is another negative to dealing with overseas manufacturers, particularly in countries which are in direct enmity with us. Short term, it may seem wonderful to save money but long term and the never-ending hassles?

I bet what happened is Intermountain probably tried to get the Chinese factory to make replacement frames and the Chinese either refused or were going to charge a totally unreasonable price.

Of course, I could be wrong and Intermountain just decided on their own to be done with it.

Doug

 

You also have to remember that the majority of these locos were produced about the time that a large number of the chinese manufacturers went out of business and everyone was scrambling to find replacements. I think there are only 2 currently operating (I could be wrong on that). The factory that produced the bad frames may not even exist any more, leaving IM high and dry .

On Dougs point about "normal wear" parts vs "last forever" parts, that's a double edged sword, because logically a manufacturer is going to keep a lot fewer " last forever" parts on hand. So if there IS a problem they are less able to respond.

 

I screwed up somewhere and can't insert a quote, but I sort of glossed over an earlier reply mentioning having 7 Atlas SD35's with frame rot. That's pretty significant, given those are a much more recent release (I think) and from a manufacturer not otherwise known to have this issue.