I was told by a dealer/vendor at a train show last Saturday that his stock of these locos he is selling for $50.00 because they won't run out of the box! He says the motor is tight up in the bodyshell so snug it binds up and the loco will not run. Does anyone here know about this problem? I certainly wouldn't purchase one of these if they're already junk in the box!!!! Berkmeister
I never owned a IM loco, but I had an Atlas that I had stored for a couple of years without using and when I finally put it on the track it didn’t run either. I took it all apart and lubed it and now it runs great.
Intermountain is a very large manufacturer. Did you check with Intermountain if they pulled all of these engines off the warehouse floor because of design defect? Did you call up any on line vendors (try our advertisers) and ask if they have had any problems with non working engines of this model from Intermountain? Before condemning a manufacturer, I would look a little bit more carefully at possible motives of the guy at the trainshow. BTW- Why is he selling engines that don't run? And for less than half of the going price? Something ain't right, here. It doesn't pass the "plausible" test. I think Sleeper is referring to an engine that got all gunked up after being packed away for a few years.
Is it the CN SD40-2W you are referring to? If so I got a chance to see them at Intermountain before they even hit the stores and they ran GREAT!! I hooked a few up in a consist and watched them go! I even put a video on YouTube. I will see if I can find it if you are interested.
I was guessing that since the vender did not send them back to Intermountain that they were probably in storage for a while. Fotheringill has a point, why doesn’t he send them back. I also suspect something wrong here. Could they be counterfeit?
a friend of mine has 12 of these sd40-2w. none of it ran out of the box !! the problem was the motor beeing assembled way to tight. some of the motors couldn't be turned at all !!! not even after taking them out of the drives. this is poor quality and even worse quality control ! having to replace all motors of 12 brand new locos should never ever happen ! if you want to experience poor customer service for a poor product then go and waste $50
never had nor seen any issues with intermountain. however it does seem that multiple people have the same issue. Send the tightened motors back to intermountain, they should replace them.
Since every loco is tested out at IMRC before being sent to dealers this single report does not make sense. Further, why a dealer would sell them for less than cost when he/she could return them for full credit is also a mystery.
Wow, this news is disturbing. I was looking for an Intermountain F7 A&B and I think I’m going to hold off for awhile until this mystery is solved.
Berkmeister.. I purchased a new IM loco from a vendor at a train show recently and had a similar issue. Mine ran but was very noisy and it was caused by the motor rubbing the body shell. I contacted IM and sent the loco in for repair. They corrected the issue and I now have a very good runner. You might want to contact IM for some info before making the purchase. ?Maybe there is more to the story as several already suggested.
I'd bet this person got ahold of some damaged goods and was just looking to make a few bucks on them by making up this story to expain why they didn't work... :tb-err: :tb-err: :tb-err: :tb-err:
If Sandro has a friend that has the problem with 12 of them, it doesn't sound like an isolated problem.
I have two. They have run perfectly out of the box and continue to do so several months later. I have some issues with the glued in details, etc., but operationally, they are great. Oh yeah, one of the two I bought online came in with a misaligned cab, glued in place. IMRC sent me a replacement engine. Both of them ran (run) fine. Richard.
I tried several and all ran well. I wonder if a certain batch got water or heat damaged by some retailer an was sold as salvage. The motors are Atlas, so if they are failing, its more an Atlas issue than IM.
A little off topic, but I have a couple IM 45-2's, and I believe they suffer from either "stored-too-long-itis" or ''first batch-osis" or a combination of the two. I'd like to get my golden spike layed soon and track cleaned even more to see if they just need breaking in, and if that doesn't solve it then I'll contact IM for info on sending them in for repairs/replacement. I've always heard about IM's fantastic customer service.
i assume it is a bad batch of motors in the sd40-2w. if you disassemble the drive you can modify the motor. the plastic end of the motor is held in place by two metal tabs. GENTLY bend them upwards a bit. these tabs are bent down way too much. as said, some of the motos could not be turned by hand. after releasing the tabs a bit the motors now run fine. this probably is not really the way to fix this issue but it did the trick on my friends engines. i helped him analyzing and fixing the issued. someone really goofed while building the motors. the armature should have a little axial play. about 0.1-0.3mm is just fine. but the motors in these intermountain units were just a very tight fit. the rest of the loco is what we're used from intermountain : - almost everything is glued together. - far noisier than kato or even atlas - rather rough riders - drives tend to fall out of the shells if lifted up
I have two tunnels and i am afraid I am on Sandro's side here. As far as returns sending stuff back and forth across the border costs me $20 each way. So I pulled the decoders and sat them on my diesel track never to run again because they look nice but will not run that well.
I have to wonder if the motors are actually supplied by Atlas to I/M or if they just buy the same motor from the Chinese supplier? I have one SD40-2W and it seems to run fine on my test track back and forth. I have several of the SD40T-2 and SD45T-2's, some of them run great the others not so great. I'll have to check out the motors and see if these have the issue Sandro describes. Rich
One or two of my SD45-2's and SD40T-2's were not the great runners out of the box that you would expect of them being Atlas clones but not to that extent, like some others my main issue with IM is the spotty QC of the finish and sometimes rough application of details.
