I stopped buying Life-ish-Like crap when I quit playing with trains and started enjoying the always relaxing, never problematic finer art of of model railroading.
loathar
Get a life. You expect a company to stock locomotive parts from 25 years ago?
Ain’t gonna happen. Take a chill pill and buy yourself a new loco.
What was the question[?]
Jerry,LL is still making tho locomotives they did in the 90s.The GP9 is what in its 5th or 6th production run? So maintaining a parts inventory shouldn’t be that much of a problem since the the P2K line of locomotives share the same drives.IMHO LL should already know some of their crown jewels suffered crack gear problems…Which of course they replace the gears at no charge.
Of corse ill honer the goods.[V]Theres no way I’d ever throw away a $80 loco.
I’ve sent one Proto 2000 GP9 back because of a problem and it was fixed and returned to me with NO problems. I sent in my card, kept my receipt and the original box it came in. Sounds to me like somebody didn’t do this but hey, its always the manufacturers fault when ever there is a problem right. Rules are rules and if you don’t follow them then you are out of luck.
I bought a Proto 2000 SD-7 that would’nt move when I got it home and put it on the mainline. My buddy at the hobby shop took it back, and I spent a little more and got me an Atlas SD-35. No more Proto’s for me.
The first P2K was the BL2 in 1989.
So I have some questions:
Exactly what loco (brand, model and road) do you have ?
Is it a P2K, P1K or is it generic Life-like ??
Were you the original owner ???
Did you (like 'Mouse) alter the loco in any way (voiding the warrenty) ???
And you paid how much for it that long ago ???
And you don’t think you got your monies worth ???
Now a comparison:
The Atlas warrenty, even on their Master series is 90 DAYS !!
The Kato warrenty is only 60 DAYS !!!
Perhaps LL should go to this - after all, we are talking toys, not tools !!!
Sounds like some want to kill the hen who lays golden eggs to me …
I have only had one problem with one of my 13 P2K/P1Ks - and LL sent me a whole new drive to “fix” it - so no compaints about LL from me !!!
If one of my locos developed a problem after 20 years, I would just fix it myself or replace it and consider I got my monies worth !!!
Really ???
Well, first of all, any maker can have a “lemon” - even Atlas and Kato !
Depending on your luck (or lack of it), you might find you reject ALL makers in time with that policy !!
But secondly, if you are going to have a realistic model RR, you WILL probably need to buy P2K/P1K models, as some of them are only made by LL !! Unless, of course, you model a REALLY short short-line like the Gainesville-Midland, which had only ONE SD40 - but that’s not very exciting, and anyhoo you would need P2K models for the other roads that used the track !!!
ok I guess I was a little harsh its true that ll did send me a new drive for my gp30 Item # 23120 prr2240 and they sead that I got two drive wheel sets, but it was the gp18 08148 no 8148 high nose that was sent back. more or less it was the way they dumped my parts in the box and the additude I got in email and in the nast note they sent me made me feel like if I was not geting a new loco that I was bothering them that made me start the post hoping to let off some steam (like a 4-4-0) but then I read the kato web site wow nice trains bad people guess ll is still the best
B -
FYI, The P2K N&W GP18 #923 was released in 1993, so your '80’s date is a bit wrong.
PARTS ???
Did they disassemble your loco, or did you sent them PARTS ???
If the latter, I can see why they distainfully sent them back !!!
It would be REFRESHING for people with a gripe to present ALL the facts up-front in these kind of threads.
We always seem to get “the rest of the story” only after many posts …
Most companies require some type of notification for warranty work…either a phone call or letter for authorization. If it’s a lifetime warranty they should honor it…if they don’t, make it difficult for them.
underworld
If he took the loco apart or made any other alterations (to include DCC), that might void the warrenty, Underworld.
(Note that I don’t mean shell removal, which is the way the old P2Ks came.)
tell youR pal he broke it
wow drop one R in the word your and every one gets there curlers in a tizzy
[:(!]
The “4-8-8-4” in the photo in AggroJones’ sig is actually a 4-6-6-4 Challenger, and the pair of animated gifs are 2-8-8-4 Yellowstones…[#wstupid]
Jeff
Good thing I only have one LL P2000 SD60M - plus, having bought it in Europe, it is covered by Brawa´s (the importer) warranty. From what I´ve heard, they´ll refund your money at once because they don´t have any P2000 stocks, but at least you´re not left out in the rain.
Having read the above, another P2000 is out of the question - my SD60 will be an Athearn. Had nothing but good experiences with their spare and repair dept.
I’d say they should still have parts for a loco that old - thanks to a few third-party stockists you can still get hold of parts for Hornby locos that old over here (have fixed a few “spares or repairs” locos with parts bought in this way). In fact, it’s often possible to upgrade older models by fitting parts intended for more recent ones, so you have the paint scheme you want and it runs like new. Can’t comment on the warrenty though, as I’ve not had to deal with LifeLike - my three P1K locos run very well.
Thank goodness I only have steam in the LL brand. They are all outstanding IMHO. I have had great parts service. Borderline fantastic.
I have never returned a loco to a manufacturer in over 30 years, and I have never had them not send me the parts I needed IF they had them. I still have extra Rivarossi stuff they sent me. Bachmann offered to replace an H16-44 if I sent it in (they did not have parts), but I fixed it a different way. Key once sent me a replacement driver set (brass) in a week… that one amazed me.
Virginian -
As I’m sure you know, LL has the BEST track record for supporting their locos (steam AND diesel) of ANY maker. This remark is based on both MY experiances with my 13 P2K/P1Ks AND those experances of many other MRRers that I know of that have even MORE of their products!
Every case that I have seen so far where LL has refused service has been because the owner voided the warranty by doing something to the loco. And for all we know, that might be the case here. Even if it is not, a single case where LL fails does not overcome the dozens of support cases that I know of where LL has given good service.
I would like some more FACTS before I decide WHO is at fault here.
Well,FWIW I am weeding out my P2k locomotives and sticking with Atlas and Athearn…Infact I re powered all 3 of my P2K SW1200s and both SW800s with Athearn drives…No more P2Ks for me my friends.