during the last few weeks i received several dozens of intermountain grain hoppers. yesterday i finally found the time to give'em a test run. unfortunately all these cars are useless as ([edit] bear grease on ice !) all bolsters are angled upwards toward the end of the car. therefor the pin holding the trucks is angled as well. as a result all cars ride on their inner axles only ! the outer axles (coupler side) are lifted off the ground. these trucks feature microtrains new low-profile wheels. crossing a turnout is absolutely impossible. pushing more than two cars on STRAIGHT and LEVEL track results in a derailment. pulling more than 5 cars thru a 18" radius curve results in a derailment as well. i swapped some of the trucks with mt1035 with high-profile wheels. crossing turnouts is still impossible. at least they no longer derail on straights and curves. i guess these guys at intermountain never heard of quality control. there might be a few misaligned cars out of several thousand manufactured ones. but i have dozens (at least 60)!! i guess i could expect more of a high-price product. this really sucks big time. this urges me to cancel all remaining orders (which cover a few hundred cars) END OF RANT [ September 05, 2005, 07:48 AM: Message edited by: sapacif ]
Dang, Almost sounds like you'd have to use a 28" diameter wheel on the inboard ends with a 33" diameter wheel on the outboard ends to get the trucks level? So the bolster pads are angled? No room to file them straight which might be a good thing to also lower the height of the cars? I don't have any of these cars but it sounds like a problem I've not encountered with any of my IM cars and it also doesn't sound good? But. in my past dealings, IM has always had excellent Customer Sevice and I'd hope they'd want to help resolve the issue? I know that being overseas from the manufacturer always adds a further challenge to getting something remedied though. Sorry to hear, Don
Sandro, I guess the first thing you need to do is call IM or email them and let them know of the problem, let us know if you have any success
I think quality control at IM is excellent. I have just modified some covered hoppers and thought they were kits because they were so well fitted and assembled. Not so! All were IM assembled cars. Also, I have just received four IM tunnel motors. Other than the narrow guage of the wheels, which was easy to fix, they are excellent runners and excellent models. I look forward to acquiring more IM rolling stock.
I would contact IM and let them know, and they will replace/fix the cars. I have several IM hopper cars and they are all excellent models. The only problem I had was with one of the first run Tunnel Motors, and IM replaced it with a new one. Definatly give them a call!
This is my main problem with IM; I believe they release stuff before they should. I am not happy with each loco they put out because there has been something wrong with each that should have been corrected before they left the factory (and into our hot little hands!). The only IM I purchased was a Kodachrome tunnel motor. I took it home and discovered that it sat crooked. I took it apart and found that the leveling pins on each truck (there are 2 per truck), all but 1 was broken off. No wonder it didn't run right. I emailed IM and got a replacement set a week or 2 later. I installed them and put the loco on the track. It made it as far as the first turnout and it derailed. By this time, I was tired of working on the stupid thing. Luckily my LHS took it back and gave me store credit. Lookin at other IM locos, I don't think I will buy anymore unless Kato starts making them for IM!
I have a dozen box cars and six hoppers on the way hope they run fine because I live Jamaica and the back and forthing takes much longer and I just wanna get my railroad going. They sould be arriving this week and I'll definately report here all the details.
Intermountain usually has great quality control. I would send them all back to IM. They are good about replacing defective merchandise. Stay cool and run steam.....
filing down the bolsters doesn't help as the hole for the truck pins would not be affected and therefore will hold the trucks angled. all these cars are pwrs special runs. just send an email to dan. i'll let you know what he intends to do. ngaged, currently life's more than busy/crazy. had no time yet to sort the images and load them to my website. hope to do some progress in the next few weeks
here are some pics of these cars in question. it's clearly visible that the truck pin on one end is angled. overall shot : here's the worse end : here's the better end. still not a 90 degree angle between the truck pin and the bottom of the car as it should be :
The second one doesn't look too bad. Just ream the hole and use some Goo. I do think that sanding the bolster would help as there is some minimal play between the pin and the truck bolster. Also, you might be able to reposition the bolster. In an extreme case, you could just rebuild the bolster entirely. I would certainly try to fix it somehow as I wouldn't want to send it back. All of this is a lot of work, but, to me, it is just part of the fun of making the trains run. BTW, if you remove the bolster, IM will probably send the new parts free.
Even if you fix it yourself, it would be good to let Intermountain know of the problem. It definitely looks like a problem in the manufacturing process. Hopefully its just a problem with one run of cars and not something that has crept into their system. But IM won't know how common the problem is unless buyers tell them about it. IM does have a good reputation of fixing problems with their products.
sapacif... one end of the car is more or less ok but the other end is really worse. fixing this problem would be possible. but i don't want to fix 60+ cars. especially not since i paid big $$$ for what i expected to be a high-quality product. you don't buy a brand new mercedes benz and work on it for hours before you can take a first ride, don't you ?
I just sent an email to IM referencing this thread and the bolster problem. I will advise you of their response.
Hopefully IM will make good on the problem. They took back my three Cotton Belt tunnel motors from the first run (glued, warped shells) and replaced them with the improved models. ~Tim
Sandro, Before you came to the forum with the problem did you try to contact IM first?Their are several replies to your situation that says that IM stands behind their product.I have well over 200 cars from them and haven't had a problem with any of them.It does seem like you might have gotten a bad batch of cars which can happen if the tooling and molding are off just slightly.I had some coal cars that I got from a different manufacturer that had the exact same problem that you are having.I simply called them and asked them what to do.You would be amazed how quickly they apologized and asked me to send them back and they would replace them.I was reimbersed for shipping also. Please before we go off the deep end try to seek your own resolution with a manufacturer.Yes it is nice to see threads about problems and fixes for the problems so we can all help one another out.But just flat out bashing a manufacturer without attempting to contact them first is uncalled for.
guys.... thanks for all your answers. these are special run cars done by intermountain for pwrs. i'm in contact with dan and i'm sure he'll address this problem. just wanted to know if anyone else ever had problems like this. i have 300 im cars with no warping at all. that's why i ordered more of these rather expensive models. then realizing this manufacturing problem i was annoyed.
