Quality Control

[Anonymous]

My experience in Nscale is that Atlas and Kato have the best QC. They aren't perfect. I've had some with problems. Usually it is a bur on one of the gears in the trucks or something like that. LifeLike and Bachman seem far more risky. I don't know about the warranty service. I tossed my defective ones in the can when they didn't run correctly. I have had some excellent engines from both manufacturers as well. My Lifelike and Bachman engines were usually far less expensive. Now that Bachman and Lifelike have some more expensive engines out, I am hesistant to buy one. Atlas and Kato have had problems, but infrequently and never, to my knowledge, a whole shipment or run. When it comes to Bachman, I wonder about spending a lot of money on an engine that has a good chance of being a piece of junk. I have an old LifeLike E-8. It is great for the money. Changing the couplers out can be a pain and they do not install as easily as the old Atlas or Kato engines which came with rapido couplers. The Bachman NScale Spectrum F-7s have a really crappy way to switch the couplers. Not being as precise as older Atlas or Kato engines, the conversions on the Bachman and LifeLike do not happen to work as well either. Back to the LifeLike E units. New ones are, I believe, around $100. If their couplers and coupler pockets are still like the ones on the old E Units, then that sucks! I didn't get upset with my old E unit because it was far cheaper than a Kato. Now that they are charging Kato prices and above, I expect Kato quality.

[rrinker]

I thinky ou got the ringer that keeps the rest of us happy. I have 4 of them, and my father in law has about a dozen, of various models, and they all run like champs.
And nobody touches them for level of detail, at least in plastic. Also consider they cost little mroe than a blue box Athearn these days, it's really a no brainer. (Note, I don't buy mine brand new on release day, and thus pay the MSRP on them. All mine were less than $50, all but one of those actually under $40, but all were new in the box, not used)

--Randy

[Anonymous]

Everyone seems to praise life-likes P2K locos, well i dont. I purchased a SD-45
After 15 minutes of running,the gears started to grind,and it stopped running. I
returned to trainworld.The one received also ran for a few moments and quit.
After many attempts to pry off the shell,i called life-like,the technition said that i had the wrong instructions. So, i sent that loco to LL. The one that came back,
the drive shaft was slipping on the unerversal coupling.I paid enough money for me not to play with it. I sent that back,now i am waiting for the fourth try of there inferior products. If this doesnt pan out, it will go into the garbage.

[Anonymous]

Should have mentioned last time - I have a few of the Bachmann HO diesels, all good - their Plus F7 is a great loco, heavy, solid, decent motor. The Dash 8 I have is a fine runner and looks pretty good, though I think the proportions are slightly wrong - looks too short and wide. I also have three of their latest GP40/GP50 locos - again, decent runners, amazing value, though you do need to be careful in avoiding the non-existent paint schemes (like the UP highnose GP50). Having said that they do offer a decent rendition of Alaska RR livery, handy as few others do.

I've seen the cheap Lifelike locos in my LHS - the sets with a high-nose Geep and caboose - and can see your point. I took one brief look, then went for a Bachmann GP50 instead, which has turned out to be a great loco!

[Anonymous]

I remember Lionel moved their operatations to Mexico, but because of poor quality and mistakes, moved back here to Michigan. Now they moved manufacturing to China. I guess there'll be a whole new batch of "Special Runs".

[rrinker]

Bachmann here offers two different lines, as does Life Like. They have their regular line, which, in my previous N scale experience, was like the Bachmann F7 you mentioned. In fact I still have mine. It was for that reason I got out of N scale and back to HO - right before the Atlas/Kato locos came out. If I had some of those I'd probably still be in N scale.
Bachmann makes somewhat bettr quality items under the Spectrum name - although I've seen very hit or miss there. Their HO GP30 has very poor paint, but the E33 electric is very nice. Life-Like still makes their old junk under the Life-Like name, but also has the very excellent Proto2000 lines. If you had any experience with Life Like's junk in the 70's, you would never believe the Proto2000 line comes from the same company.

--Randy

[Anonymous]

I've only had one bad US-outline loco, and that was an N scale Bachmann F7A - it didn't run at all well, was getting very warm and slow, until I did a bit of investigating and found they'd not put one of the pickups in correctly - it was sort of mangled and shoved in. I took it out and straightened it which cured the problem - that's the only one I've had though.

Just don't ask about British Bachmann OO - have an LMS "Jubilee" class loco that took me about 6 months to sort out, as on delivery the wheels were out of gauge and the quartering was out, resulting in very lumpy running. It's now silky-smooth though i won't be buying any more of their steamers - a lot of effort to put in on an expensive loco that should run perfectly from the box. Interestingly their diesels seem fine, though I wi***hey'd fit lights to the rest of them - must have cost a fortune to make a lighting set for the "37" and they could easily fit it to others!

[AntonioFP45]

Quality is good to excellent from manufacturers like Stewart Hobbies, Kato U.S.A, LifeLIke Proto 2000 line, Atlas, and even the Athearn Genesis line.

For steamers, Broadway Limited had some minor mechanical glitches but overall have turned out to be very satisfying locomotives for the owners.

[Anonymous]

Here in the UK there is a lot of discussion on POOR quality control for new models these are mostly Chinese manufactured items, we get such reports as poor running, badly fitted parts, poor paint jobs, parts missing ( A UK retailer recently opened a case of class V2 UK steam locos to find that all 6 did not have ANY VALVE GEAR ON ONE SIDE!! ) I was wondering if the same situation occurs in the US? Do you get many problems like the ones I have described?? Steve