HORRIBLE Bachmann Customer Service

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
21

You certainly did, but then I am known to be as subtle as a train smash, I didn’t get the nickname “Bear” years ago for being cuddly. [(-D]
That aside you have no need to apologise to me, I do not wish to be churlish in reacting to your apology, I just didn’t expect one, but thank you anyway.
Trying to be more measured in my response it’s that I don’t believe, not withstanding your understandable frustrations with your locomotive, your original post is warranted. Had there been a systemic failure in Bachmanns Customer Service, yes, but one iffy phone call , no, as your further satisfactory communications have proved.
The trouble is that while it may not have been your intent, threads like this tend to end up in pointless bashing episodes.
However most importantly I hope your locomotive problems get sorted to your satisfaction.

Cheers, the Bear. [:)]

22

The trucks are a snap fit. This stuff is mass produced in China.

Below is the diagram from the Bachmann website which has forums with company reps.

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/dwg/dwgs/85201.pdf

Rich

23

The Bachmann F7s may not have been Plus but they were new in the box and as I remember they cost $75 each, $150 worth of junk. I returned them to Bachmann four times for repair. They were new enough that they were a no charge repair.

They never made a complete loop (90’) on my layout without one of them crapping out. I even tried fixing them, after taking them apart about 20 times there wasn’t much left after the impact on the concrete floor.

A Bachmann tech called me after the fourth return and said I must have either a problem with my power supply or I need someone to help me fix my track. He was very polite even when I told him that I had 71 locomotives that work perfectly, including a couple of 50 year old Model Die Cast/Roundhouse 0-6-0s that never skip a beat.

Mel

24

“Yawn” - here we go again.

First off, Bachmann customer service people are for the most part not model train experts.

Secondly, while I often defend Bachmann, and will in some ways before I am done here, I have had a few telephone exchanges with some of the “lower level” help where I had some “issues” trying to explain a somewhat complex parts issue. BUT, I understood the fact that these people do not all have every version of every product in the line memorized. Once I got to the Service Manager, my problem was sorted out and they sent me extra parts at no charge.

Bachman’s policy is simple - your not happy, send it back. If we can’t fix it we will give you a new one (or we might just give you a new one because it is the fastest/easiest way to resolve the problem).

They now have an online system for letting them know you are sending something in. And they have always been effective at letting me know that they received my item, and in communicating how they would handle the problem.

Now a word or two about Bachmann quality - or the quality of any of these model trains made in China.

ANYBODY who judges by the brand is foolish. EVERY company makes some winners and some loosers. BACHMANN makes products at various “levels” in the hobby that target different “levels” of modelers. And while Bachmann quality may have had issues in the past, they are now easily on a par with most everything out there.

BUT, not every product in thier line is aimed at the part of the market targeted by GENESIS, BLI, RAPIDO, etc, etc.

I have 31 Bachmann steamers, mostly Spectrum, and 10 diesels, GE44 tonner in question, doodlebugs and GE70 tonners - out of 41 locos I have only had to return 3 - which were replaced with perfect runners.

I only have 7 BLI locos, two had minor problems, two had major problems, BLI offered NO WARRANTY solution of any kind, and had no parts to fix the two with major problems - not

25

How long ago was this Mel?

10 years? 15 years? 20 years?

Did they ever just send you new ones?

Why not?

And one more question - why did you pay $75 each for them? The newest upgraded version can be bought all day long for about $55 and a few years ago they were seldon more than $40 on the street?

My list of Bachmann locos above, has a dollar cost average price of less than $90 each - for mostly Spectrum steam.

Yes, some runs of the shay had serious problems - yet I know other modelers who have

26

Have to agree. Although I am still a diesel fan, their n scale steam now available have made me consider starting a new steam-era layout sometime.

27

Try and imagine the calls that Bachmann reps get each day.from hobby shops to kids,and the problems put in to them,from late, lost or damaged shipments to some guy that thinks that train set GP40 he got for his 11th birthday in 1976 should be replaced for free after it finally died.as suggested earlier,ask politely for a supervisor.and Bachmann quality has made tremendous strides over the last 25 years.remember that these days no matter the brand name, it all comes from Glorious Peoples revolution consolidated enterprise consumer Products factory

28

I’ve never been one that bitches until this post. I just took things the way they fell. I got wound up thinking about what happened back then. I had very good experience with Bachmann G gauge in the early 2000s and I bought a lot of N gauge for my grandson in the early 90s. All the N gauge worked very good.

My first bad experience with HO came around 2006 with the bad Shay and several GS4 4-8-4 locomotives. Over about 8 years I had to replace the drivers on every one of them at least once, the drivers just fell off. I didn’t complain I just fixed them. Then I red a post that said Bachmann would replace the GS4s with new for the repair fee of $20 and I took them up on my next failure.

They tried very hard to fix the bad Shay but their Shay was a bummer and I gave up on getting one that would work after returning it three times and fixed it myself with Crafters Goop Glue, it works great for gluing in motors!

I sent in a GS4 to see if they could repair it. Their Customer Service was great! An extremely nice lady called me to say it was not repairable but for an extra $15 they would replace my 8 year old DC GS4 with a new DCC GS4. At that time repair was $20 plus $15 so for $35 I received a new DCC GS4 (no sound). You can’t ask for better service than that. Incidentally the lady that offered me the DCC GS4 said that there could be a problem because the DCC GS4 had a 20” minimum radius and my old GS4 was 18”. When I received it I compared it to the old GS4 and the foot print was identical, they must have had recall problems and changed the specs to 20”. All of my GS4s w

29

I find it interesting that Bachmann apparently treats each market differently. Bachmann (UK) products, marketed under the brands of Branchline (OO gauge) and Graham Farish (N scale) are premium products and so are Liliput products, Bachmann´s brand for the continental European markets. They don´t have to shun a comparison with the likes of Fleischmann, Roco or Bemo (narrow gauge). In the UK, Bachmann set quality standards, both in detail and engineering, making Hornby, the traditional UK brand, look rather old. I guess the European markets are more attractive to Bachmann, for reasons of economy of scale and margins.

30

Mel,

Respectfully, please understand a few facts:

Bachmann has never made a Spectrum grade F7, and the F7 they make now is an all new drive from 2006.

The GS4 back then was a problem child, that too has been completely re-tooled - drive and shell.

And yes, as I mentioned, several production runs of the shay had problems, many runs of the shay were fine.

I’m not defending those particular products that had problems - they did have problems.

I can’t even begin to understand what the problem with those F7’s was, but I don’t doubt your word.

But listed above is my fleet of Bachmann, generally all very nice locos for the money, even if some people don’t care for some of the design features, I have had very good luck with them, and I know lots of other modelers who have as well.

Again, judging every product today based on two or three products from a decade ago is hardly fair.

Buy or don’t buy what you want, but I assure you most all of Bachmann’s current products are very nice, and many have been for quite a while now.

If we use the “I had one bad experiance” or “they made one bad product” approach, no one would buy any Athearn based on the Mikados with the cracked gears - same would be true of Proto2000. But somehow we don’t hear the same bashing of those two brands?

Sheldon

31

I have found Bachmann’s service department to be wonderful to deal with! I am very mechically inclined, however with Backmann, it is always return for repair; or, replace and don’t attempt to fix anything myself.

32

Same thing with the LION. Someone complains to me that their computer is not working, and so, this being a network, I open their desktop on my console to look at the problem. They keep on telling me stuff while I am trying to look at the issue for myself. They are trying to tell me that so and so is the problem, but I am off into the innards of the operating system to see what is causing the problem that they think they have.

Anyway, I got some of those Bachman 45 tonners for my layout, yellow ones of the same sort that NYCT uses in its tunnels. LION opens it up, removes the circuit board, adds a wire for MU’ing the consist, adds some weight : NOW it is my locomotive!

What LION does want and cannot get is parts for the Walthers/Proto 1000 subway cars. Anybody gost some spare power trucks for them?

Anybody got any trucks that look like they might work on this equipment?

To bad they don’t have a parts department anymore.

ROAR

33

Well just to play Devil’s Advocate, its sometimes not so simple to just “put it in a box and ship it” back to them. I hate that policy because it is full of holes. Example: I have a Bmann 0-6-0t Saddletanker that I bought used, this is a model that has been out of production for several years. Its got a bad gearbox, but I didn’t send in the warranty card, someone else did so the warranty is technically under the previous owners name, now they DO currently make a 0-6-0t sidetanker loco that I really dislike the looks of, but the guts are identical. Bachmanns modus operandi is usually just replace, not break it open and bother to fix it. But if I send in my saddletanker, I’m far more likely to get back a hideous sidetanker I didn’t want. That’s actually assuming Bmann would honor its warranty given I may be the second or third owner. Otherwise if they actually fixed the dam thing it my end up costing more than I paid for it in labor alone. Also did I mention its LARGE SCALE, iows it’s BIG, and expensive to ship across the country to Philly. If I could simply buy the stupid parts I could fix it myself.

34

I’ve had several contacts with Bachmann service - both for HO and for G locomotive issues - and have always been treated politely and fairly. I have primarily made that initial contact on-line, but have also made contact by phone on occasion. Their policy has consistently been one of having the customer return the problem product, and posting criticism of someone citing that policy seems out of proportion to the issue.

Bill

35

I have a number of Bachmann Spectrum steamers and for the most part they are excellent running locomotives.

I did have a problem with a couple of them, I contacted Bachmann and the units were exchanged. The replacement units, in all but one instance were excellent running locomotives. The one replacement locomotive that I received that did not run was replaced by Bachmann, this time the replacment was fine.

36

I’ve had mostly good luck with Bachmann. Out of all I’ve had, only 2 have failed. One of them was one of the pancake drive F9 diesels, which I had to stop using because the motor started on fire for a couple seconds, and the other was my 4-8-4 Niagara. The Niagara was replaced once, but it still had the old plus drive with nylon axles and eventually failed again. I once bought a Spectrum 8-40CW off eBay, and found some of the handrails were missing. I asked them if I could buy replacements, and they sent an entire set free!

I wonder what went wrong with those F7 diesels? I have an FT-A that uses the Plus drive, and it’s an excellent and reliable runner. In fact, most of my Bachmann products need way less maintenance than my Athearn Blue Box diesels, which seem to need some type of repair everytime I pull them out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeHhmPf_cek

EDIT: Just remembered, my Spectrum Shay also failed due to split gears. Bought the steel replacements from NWSL, and all is well.[:)]

37

It is the way business is done. They are not going to put a $25.00 an hour technician on the phone with callers. They have $10.00 an hour clerks for that, and these will not have the information that you want. They heve a script in front of the and it says “Send it in and we will take a look at it.”

I had a problem with my Canon camera, long out of warnty. They were nice enough on the telephone, “Oh I am sorry that it is out of waranty. Send it in with $200.00 and we will fix it for you and gaurantee our work, or perhaps you would rather have a voucher for a new Canon product (about $50.00 off the retail).”

You could not ask the operator any questions, all they had in front of them was the script and your three choices: 1) Send it in with $200.; 2) Accept a voucher; or 3) toss it out, or find a third party who will fix it.

LION found a third party who wanted $160. to fix it and had an eight month backlog. I sent it to Canon, and got it back, working, in about a week.

ROAR

38

Deleted by softail86mark

I didn’t add to the OPs intent.

My fault.

Carry on.

MC

39

I agree with MetroRedLine.