Good points johned53. Certainly as applied detail and factory installed gadgetry increases, so does the probability of quality control problems such as assembly error. I have no doubts that IM is a decent company with good people trying to do right. They have good service. The unfortunate thing is that repeated gaffes and qc problems have made me very hesitant to buy IM. They are clearly an "inspect and try before you buy" category in my book. Also very hesitant to buy any on the secondary market as well.
Thanks! everyone. Well, in that case and considering I have not finished a kitbash in over a year I think I'll skip the replacement path and just enjoy mine as is.
Correct as well. I understand your point. While probably more correct to view it as George has mentioned... Turning the body around on the chassis will make the roof orientation wrong with respect to the F "front" of the F7B. So... If you re-orient the shell then the side details line-up correctly... but the roof... (which is more noticable to me) looks wrong when put together with the F7A units. I preferred to run the roof in the same direction on both the A & B units (ergo the sides were wrong). It really depends on which looks least incorrect to the user a sad reality. From far away its more difficult to tell that the 'sides' were wrong because the details were not that far off from the correct location... but with the shell turned around you could really tell that the 'roof' details are in the wrong place when next to the F7A (or the unit was being run backwards). Bottom-line... the darn thing is wrong whichever way you put the shell on the chassis. You know... that if this had happened to Bachmann, Model Power or Lifelike (several years ago), we wouldn't have made such a big deal about it because it was 'expected' from 'them' to make mistakes. We would have snickered and said... "You get what you pay for"... next time buy a Kato F unit. BTW: I think Bachmann might have done the same thing (Silver Series F???) either in N or HO.
snicker... snicker... Don't worry Gary... Kato is bound to release another run of SD45 this century. :laugh: Or...errr... ummm... perhaps Intermountain will do that instead :wink3ed:
