i guess if you live long enough, you get to see everything. after extolling the virtues of KaDee products for many decades, i finally managed to destroy a number 5 coupler. this really honks me off since i have, over the years, equipped 600 cars and about 100 locomotives with their products.
heck, i only run 50 car trains and flat switch everything in a classification yard. one would hope these couplers would hold up better than this.
judging from the age of the car, this particular part had only been in service a mere 25 years or so and now the knuckle is completely broken out of the coupler. considering what prices were back then, i am most likely out at least 25 or 50 cents because of this defective part.
i guess i should complain to the manufacturer but i bet there would be no labor allowance even if they did replace the defective coupler.
perhaps i should look into a sub-miniature magnaflux deivce so i can check all the other equipment for metal fatigue cracks.
grizlump
p.s. next time i go on vacation, i think i’ll leave an atlas engine running around the loop to see if i can wear it out too.
25 years it lasted ! [I]Heck parts on me havent lasted that long. I have been glued , screwed and taped back together several times ! Mayb e I should go to Kadee next time I need a new part [:P]
We should form a mob and march to Kadee headquarters with torches lit and pitchforks raise high too demand an explaination of this brazen contempt of model railroaders everywhere. Of course, it should be on a sunny and mild day, I don’t like doing these things in the rain or snow.
I’ve had a couple of Kadee’s break on me. One was the result of a loco taking a nose dive off the layout and landing right of the tip of the front coupler and the other one was on the front of a runaway that collided head-on with a high speed freight. The impact jammed the coupler knuckle in but it was nothing that couldn’t be fixed by sixed popping it out again. Some of my oldest Kadee couplers were installed back in 1981-82.
Rivet counters rejoice. We are now modeling prototype Mean Time Between Failures. (MTBF.) With MTBF, every component will fail at an inopportune time, far short of how long you think it should last.
I don’t blame you for being upset, I would be too!!! Let’s go “git” them bunch of “tree hugging commies”!! Hanging is too good for them!!! I guess that’ll teach you though, just can’t beat that good ole “Chinese” quality!!! Only 25 years you say, cheap American made crap!!! You can’t trust anybody anymore and this proves it!!
P.S. I hope this doesn’t mean I have to give mine up…
I just checked the Kadee web site, and they have a 50 year warranty on the #5 coupler.
Send back the old one as “proof of purchase” and a check for $49.99 to cover shipping and handling, and they will send you a new one free of charge, no questions asked.
