Walthers says "Just buy a new Shell"?


NWCanuck

NWCanuck

Tip&Ring
There has to be something wrong here. I have a Proto 2000 F3 A and B unit in NYC livery. I am missing the step which is a small etched plastic piece from the back door on my A unit. I gave Walthers a call to see if I could order a details bag or something to replace the step. According to Walthers the detail pieces only come with a complete shell? I said "are you kidding me?" he said "no".

Please tell me there is an alternative here. I certainly won't be paying $35 for a new shell just to get a 10th of a cent plastic piece. I am really disappointed with Walthers service on this one!:mad:

I checked Details West and they have Super Detailing kits for F units but none of them include the steps? Any help in sourcing an alternative would be appreciated.

View attachment 19490

They step goes in the two little holes under the door.
 
Get use to it as I EMailed walthers about parts for a LL RDC and was told if I want the part I have to buy the complete model. From then on I pretty much stopped purchasing Walthers products.
 
What happen to customer service? Don't the refrence book say we bringing the joy back into modeling?
 
This is why 99% of my fleet is Atlas. Not only are they smooth runners, but the customer service is top notch. I had a missing sun shade on a Alco C420 call Atlas and the replacement was in the mail free of charge same day, no questions asked.

I was really surprised when Walthers said the only way to get this step was a shell replacement! Brutal.
 
I can say that stuff made in China may be part of the problem. As an electronic engineer I had experience with my designs being sent off to China for mfg. It was always a hardship for them to come up with spare parts for our customer support.

They made it so expensive and tedious a process, (a way of saying no in their own way), eventually you would just give up. Molded parts could only come from their molds. Everything they did was tightly scheduled batch-runs - sorry no spare parts - ! "Want to increase the order size?" "Sorry we would have to take the extra time from your sister division's order".

Bear in mind that this was in a plant in China that we owned! I can't imagine what it's like if you just contract things out to that place.

I'm sure glad to be retired.
 
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I EMailed walthers about warped and ill formed parts from the
electric furnace. The guy told me that they know about the parts
and are not fixing the problem. I asked if it was from a old run and he said no
ALL of them have the bad parts...
I'm kinda put off to buying there stuff if the Q/C is so poor
 
Brad....I have an idea what the part is suppose to look like. Can you just make it from brass or styrene??
 
quadk said:
Brad....I have an idea what the part is suppose to look like. Can you just make it from brass or styrene??
Click to expand...

It seems this is what I am going to have to do, I have seen people use etched brass steps on locomotives as a detail part. I guess styrene will be the way to go because it will be easier to adhere to the plastic body. As for the holes in the original I don’t think it will be a big deal because the part is very small as you can see (who will notice)?

View attachment 19491

And here is where it goes:

View attachment 19492
 
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I had simular problems with the infamous Proto split gear syndrome. I emails walthers for replacment gears and they told me I would have to send them the broken gears, along with me original sales reciept,and payment for return shipping for new gears. Oh yes, and Ebay purchases are not eligible for warrenty.
I ended up buying athearn gears to replace them, since they're cheaper and never break in the first place.
Thanks alot walthers
 
CNR Glen said:
I had simular problems with the infamous Proto split gear syndrome. Thanks alot walthers
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I wasn't even going to mention this put I dug this up a few nights ago looking for some Proto 2000 GP7's in Algoma Central schemes. I found some at a local hobby shop and then realized that they were made previous to 2008 and that kind of scares me. Even more so now that I have experienced Walthers Customer Service. I hope my one and only Walthers product has newer worm gears in place.
 
It's not the worm gears, its the axle gears holding the wheels in place. Next time you're at a swap meet try to find a couple old junk athearn F or geep units to salvage the gears out of.
 
Here's My China Spare Parts Story

This is not model railroad related, but scale model related, so it fits here.

I purchased Trumpeter's 1/35 scale Mi-24 Hind Gunship (a helicopter for those of you that don't know). This is a BIG KIT.

During the build process, I stored the 21" diameter, 5-bladed main rotor assembly on top of my display cabinet to keep it from getting broken. It's BIG and it's delicate.

Also on top of the display cabinet is a 3-socket high intensity light that gets very hot. Well, I got one of the blades too close to the light and it melted about 3" off of the tip of the blade.

Stevens International is the SOLE IMPORTER for Trumpeter kits in N. America. I paid $150 for the kit from a local hobby shop (when the kit first came out). Stevens markup is over 100% just getting the kits to the states, then the shops mark them up another 50% to 100%. How do I know this? Because the kit was available in Hong Kong for $35 at the time. You just couldn't get it to the US.

The LHS is out of business by this time, so I ask for a spare part from Stevens. "We don't have spare parts, we'll have to request them from Trumpeter in China" was the response.

I asked where their "boneyard" was. They said they did not have one. A bone yard is a shelf with either one good kit or a damaged box kit, that they can rob spares from to send to customers. Every model company has one. Airfix has a whole ROOM full of kits for this very purpose. Revell/Monogram has one. I request spares from these guys once ever few years and they always come through no matter what.

It took 4 phone calls and about 20 email messages to Stevens to get the part over a NINE MONTH period!!

If I owned Stevens International, I would have a "boneyard" set up. In effect they are THE mfg for Trumpeter in N America -- there's no where else for us to go, but they refuse to do it. So I have stopped buying their products!!

Shitty customer service from the Chinese and that is passed on down through distribution. The Chinese know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about customer service. For all their "wisdom" and "ancient proverbs", they certainly do not have any in this area. No common sense about who fuels their business.
 
On another note I had a damaged part in a HO scale Kibri Kit from Germany. I Emailed them on their home site and in 9 days I had the part from Germany for free. Talk about customer service.
 
ouch, for some reason i really thought walthers is top notch company with top notch products... oh well
 
ouch, for some reason i really thought walthers is top notch company with top notch products... oh well
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Unfortunetly some things an only be gotten by Walthers. I'm planning on buying the cornerstone Allied rail rebuilders kit because it's the only building of it's type available.
 
Axle Gears

NWCanuck said:
Even more so now that I have experienced Walther's Customer Service. I hope my one and only Walther's product has newer worm gears in place.
Click to expand...
I can sympathize here, but one must realize that Walther's had to put a limit on replacing these gears somewhere in the process. Otherwise this would haunt then FOREVER considering the number of these units sold.

The Athearn replacement gears are readily available fro Ebay sellers for very little cost.
 
CoolRuehle said:
...The LHS is out of business by this time, so I ask for a spare part from Stevens. "We don't have spare parts, we'll have to request them from Trumpeter in China" was the response.

I asked where their "boneyard" was. They said they did not have one. A bone yard is a shelf with either one good kit or a damaged box kit, that they can rob spares from to send to customers. Every model company has one. Airfix has a whole ROOM full of kits for this very purpose. Revell/Monogram has one. I request spares from these guys once ever few years and they always come through no matter what.

It took 4 phone calls and about 20 email messages to Stevens to get the part over a NINE MONTH period!!

If I owned Stevens International, I would have a "boneyard" set up. In effect they are THE mfg for Trumpeter in N America -- there's no where else for us to go, but they refuse to do it. So I have stopped buying their products!!

Shitty customer service from the Chinese and that is passed on down through distribution. The Chinese know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about customer service. For all their "wisdom" and "ancient proverbs", they certainly do not have any in this area. No common sense about who fuels their business.
Click to expand...

You might think a few companys would try to maintain some sort of a slavage yard of models from which to get replacement parts, but I think the problem is the importers are demanding close inspection at the manufacturing facility and no rejects shipped. ...thus fewer rejects arriving USA. The manufacturer has NO need of the rejected plastic pieces so they just melt them back into the next batch.

I'm affraid it is a sign of the times.
 
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