Where do I sign up for the I hate MRC club

[Capt. Grimek]

I've been glad to hear that Athearn has been providing good customer service regarding parts issues and they have been good getting back to me with emails. So...I'm heartened to know that I can expect good repair service from them should I need it for mechanical issues down the road.******* I just wish they'd make good on correcting or fixing a very well known issue regarding the decoders in their top of the line locos, with replacements other than the MRCs that were/are the problem to begin with.******* If wishes were horses, etc. etc.******* With the minimal amount of time steam (anyway) locomotive models stay in production these days who knows if parts will even be available later (with any manufacturer). I was just about to pull the trigger on an AC 4/5 Blueline Cab Forward but BLI has already sold out, has no idea if they'll manufacture more and of course parts may be limited or non-existent in the future...******* Locomotive repair shops in LHSs are almost non-existent nowadays and even decoder installations are few and far between in my neck of the woods. MRC decoders are well known by the local shops to be an "accident waiting to happen". It will take a Herculean effort on MRC's part to conquer this bad decoder rep. Or...just waiting long enough for everyone to forget. With threads like this one, that's not likely to happen just yet.

[Allegheny2-6-6-6]

 I guess in an ideal world they should upgrade your MRC decoder to a Tsunami even at a nominal cost lets say only if you send it back for a ligament problem. Lets face it even MRC may get lucky and have something work once in awhile, so I can see Athearn not exchanging decoders willy nilly. All I can say is I have to wait and see. They said if the problem with my locomotive is the defective wheel sets as I was told then they will replace the entire truck mechanism free of charge but if they say oh no your trucks weren't defective then what choice do I have? So there does come a time when you have to trust them to be forth right and truthful. So far I have no reason not to trust and believe Athearn they have been pretty stand up in the past on other very small issues like missing parts etc. so I'll have to wait and see but I do agree it's not fair that we keep taking on the chin (being nice and politically correct) when it comes to poor quality products that we shell out good money for.

[Capt. Grimek]

The problem goes beyond even MRC's faulty/undependable decoder history. The companies that installed MRCs in their products and didn't make a change or offer an upgrade path also are letting us down. This is why I thought our thread about asking Athearn to provide a slightly discounted upgrade path to the newer/better Tsunamis was a reasonable idea-which fell chiefly on deaf ears. Considering the number of reports and complaints they'd received for years and still kept producing the MRC decoder supplied locomotives until the contract ran out. (we all presume?). I feel that Athearn/Genesis wasn't doing any of their still under warrantee customers any favors.******* I will not buy any product that contains an MRC decoder in it ever again. I WANT to continue with Genesis steam locos but have a "bad taste in my mouth" considering the lack of customer support and decoder replacement path for the MRC versions. I love that they are now using Tsunami but feel ripped off about past purchases and the utter lack of response and responsibility to their customer base about how crappy the MRCs were and their lack to fix the problem rather than offer MRC replacement decoders, only. Tsunami's contract with Athearn does not allow them to supply Tsunami decoders separately, according to their tech folks' email.******* I felt that repairs/replacements/warrantee issues should have allowed the installation of a different brand decoder if the MRC failed.******* I'm in the same club as you all. I don't understand how MRC can be so out of step with everyone else in the industry regarding DCC. I was a huge MRC supporter in the DC world and it's hard to give up customer loyalty for me, but...I have...permanently.

[Allegheny2-6-6-6]

 David I appreciate the offer, I wish I still had my Bridgeport so I could do stuff like that but that went when I sold the business. A little over kill for the job but hey.!

MRC may be trying to get their act together in some respects but thanks to some knuckle dragging tech they get a completely bad rep.  It's all part of the big picture when some little peon treats the customer like crap the word travels like wildfire. You couldn't give me an MRC decoder now for free. I was told many years ago that when ever one customer takes the time to write in and complain about a product there are a hundred just as dissatisfied who wouldn't take the time to write a letter. So maybe MRC ought to do the math.

[jwils1]

davidmbedard

 Welcome to the club. 

You may consider the Tsunami AT-1000 EMD 567 for this unit.   You can use the stock MRC speaker, but with some milling you can get a high bass in there with a baffle. 

David B

David,

Would you just mill the metal below the original speaker location?  I have a Revolution A in an F3 unit using a new speaker but with the MRC enclosure and it sounds very good.  Does the high bass make a big difference?  I have another F3 in which I'm thinking about changing the Digitrax 165/Soundbug to something better.

[simon1966]

I am very sorry to hear that.  I know that you have been quite a proponent of MRC's control systems in the past, so I am sure this was not a good experience for you.  I simply don't understand what the company is doing.  In some respects they are getting their act together and then this kind of thing happens.  It is a great shame because we all benefit when there are strong competitors competing for the market.  It keeps the other companies on their toes.

[Allegheny2-6-6-6]

davidmbedard

 Welcome to the club. 

You may consider the Tsunami AT-1000 EMD 567 for this unit.   You can use the stock MRC speaker, but with some milling you can get a high bass in there with a baffle. 

David B

 

 

Thanks David I will take that under advisement, the person I spoke to at Athearn was very professional and did not trash MRC but he made it clear that they had received too many complaints hence their reasoning for upgrading to Tsunami decoders. He did tell me that the response so far was nothing but favorable so that has to tell you something too bad MRC isn't listening.

[cacole]

 Welcome to the club!

As I mentioned here recently in another topic, I sent an MRC Sounder back to them because it was totally dead on arrival, and when I got it back it looked like a trained chimpanzee had tried to replace some of the surface mount components.  It wasn't repaired, it was just turned into a worthless fire hazard.

[Allegheny2-6-6-6]

 I really hesitated about posting this but I'm so disgusted with MRC that I have had it. I sent an Athearn Genesis F-unit equipped with one of their drop in decoders that had problems since day one. So the tech whom I spoke with told me to send it back and he would check it out. Unknown to me my wife through she was doing me a favor and packaged up the loco and took it to the post office for me before I had a chance to remove the body shell. Well now I know why they ask you to send them stuff without the shell. Because they man handled the thing to the point where both air horns were torn off and the wire side grating on one side was peeled back. Now if your that much of an animal that you can't handle the thing without destroying an other wise prestine engine then you have no business working with things as delicate as electronics.I have spoke with their head technician several times and he seems very capable and competent so I find it hard to believe he would do something like this so I figure it may have been one of the trained chimps MRC employs.

They send me a cop of an article from Tony's saying the problem with the trucks used on early Genesis models and how to repair it. I made a phone call to Athearn and they said if the trucks were at fault they would be more then happy to replace them. I asked the person from Athearn who much the replacement parts would cost after telling him what had happened to the body shell, he told me to send the shell along with the rest of the locomotive without the decoder and they would repair it free of charge. Now that's customer service maybe MRC ought to take a few lessons. I know it's not like they destroyed a high dollar collectable brass engine but it's just a matter of principle that they screw up your property and don't even have the deceny to put the parts they tore off back in the box.

I took someone's advice here and removed all my MRC decoders and intend to SMASH then with a hand sledge, you couldn't give me their junk now for free.