I bought from the 'bay a brand spanking new b'mann 70 tonner with dcc installed. Well for the past 2 months i tried to run the lil thing and it would never run good. I tried cleaning the wheels, having the engine run for extended period of time hooked up to a power pack , nothing would do, it would still budge or refuse to change direction.
Finally yesterday i was sick and tired of this lil critter and figure i might as well try something drastic. I opened it up and slowly unscrew all the lil screws. , i used my pliers and made 6 quick cuts to separate the pc board from the frame. 5 minute later i had re-hooked up the power wire to the motor and the beast was roaring nicely on a piece of track. 10 more minute and i had the wire soldered and half a hour later the critter was back on its feet, extra weight added and all. it now runs very smoothly and it doesnt hesitate when i change from forward to reverse. On the minus side i lost the directional lighting but in my mind thats a small concession toward having an engine that FINALLY run smoothly. If anyone was looking into getting those but were affriad the dcc would mess up on their dc layout ( like mine) i hope this can help tip the scale