I recently purchased a Tichy water column for my layout. As I was putting it together, I found that I presumably was missing one of the three 0.010" OD phosphor-bronze wires that fit the sides and back of the vertical column. I contacted Tichy this afternoon via e-mail to confirm this. Don e-mailed back and said,
“Yea, you need another. Give us your postal address.”
Wow! Now there’s service! I had a similar situation with a Sylvan resin kit a while back and they were the same way! You can guarantee that I’ll be doin’ business with these two establishments in the future.
[:)] Isn’t it great when a company treats you with respect. ! Detail Associates was another great company that cares too. And believe it or not Walthers has always done great by me. Happy building
I agree with you that it’s nice (and rare) to find customer service like that, but it’s even better when all the parts are there or something new doesn’t require fixing in the first place. I seem to be getting broken “brand new” things more often these days.
I’ll vouch for that - Keith [at WKW Customer Service] has pulled my chestnuts out of the fire not once, but twice, when I ran into problems with some P2K locos![tup]
I like success stories like these. I was missing all the coupler box cover/pivot screws but two from my 4-car Bachmann Spectrum heavyweight passenger car set. Bachmann sent me replacements as soon as I supplied proof of purchase.
About eight months ago, I was assembling my three span combo deck and thru girder bridge by Micro Engineering. I was missing some pieces, and they had them to me within about two weeks, without asking for proof of purchase.
I’ve had good service with Walthers, Accurail, Microscale and DPM with either broken or missing part replacement. It sucks that they are missing or broken to begin with, but with such polite quick customer service like that there’s no reason to think twice about buying their products. [tup]
Several years ago, I had a great experience with Bachmann. I had purchased a Spectrum 2-8-0 about a year before, and it suddenly started running very roughly and in general acted like a broken (or just bad) motor brush. I wrote them a letter explaining the problem, and asked them for the price on a new motor module (I also explained I had not sent in the warranty card), seeking to order one.
About a week and a half after I sent off the letter, I received in the mail a complete boiler weight assembly, with the motor module, gears, pulley setup, and all. No charge. Way more than I needed. I wrote them a nice letter thanking them.
Some companies have got it figured out. I bought a second 2-8-0 right after that.