What do the manufacturers do with the loco’s, tenders, rolling stock, etc. that are sent back? Is there just a big graveyard somewhere, or do these re-appear as used and purchasable? Do they simply use them to pirate parts to repair others that are not replaced?
I would imagine that they would have no problem reselling them!
They most likely will Cannibalize the good parts. If the bad parts were large and plastic, they could simply melt them down and make new engines, rolling stock, etc. After all, they are plastic (at least most of them, I found that out the hard way when I was 8 and put my lego model on a hot lamp). If there is a minor problem it could be hand-replaced and re-sold.
Referb, resell…
David B
Where? I’ve never seen them!
Speaking from first hand experience it is not economical to do anything but cannibalize parts. American labor costs are too high to fool around when the factory price is so much lower. As far as regrinding plastic parts, once painted they are useless for making first rate parts because of the contamination. Also, it is a real pain to regrind stuff ( again, I know) - noisy, dirty and time consuming when you could be doing something more profitable. I know of a couple instances where employees worked on defectives at home at night as a goodwill gesture for the company, but in general it does not happen. Bachmann in particular uses the returns to repair customer units as they generally do not have a parts supply on hand.
Broadway Limited Factory store resells refurbed returns with new warranty. Some excellent buys here, availability changes quickly
More then likely they are sent to the Q&A lab to find out what is wrong , why it happened, how it happened and how to fix the problem in the assemble line so it will not happen again.
Or is there a big graveyard somewhere? A model train graveyard? I find this very interesting, very interesting indeed.[}:)]
Reminds me of years ago when I used to work for a hobby distributor. In the back corner of our warehouse, known as the “graveyard”, any defective or returned products not worthy of selling were piled up. Most of the stuff was in good condition, just needed some minor work. It was mostly RC planes, cars and boats, but there was also trains, games and other craft items.
Unfortunately the owner wouldn’t let us scavenge for at least 2 reasons: (1) He was afraid we’d repair and sell the items ourselves and (2) he didn’t want any defective items in consumers hands (liability).
One day when the pile got large enough, he brought in a big roll-off dumpster. He hired someone (wouldn’t allow us) to take a sledge hammer and completely destroy everything that went into the dumpster. He was worried we’d climb in there after hours. It broke our hearts to see all that “almost good” stuff get destroyed. What a waste!
Now I work for a toy company and we would never ever consider reworking or repairing and then selling as new something that’s already been in a consumers hands. When we get stuff back, after we evaluate what the problem was, it goes into a large industrial shredder, it’s chewed to bits and then it’s disposed.
A freind of mine works in industry and I asked him about defective and returned products today, and what they did with them. Now we are just talking about MR here so this may not apply at all times.
He told me that they set aside so many days each month and select a crew of workers to do “rework”. It is basically a salvage operation, with saving some products, and pitching some. I guess there is a range of a 50 to 70% retake of the stock on some rework days, other are a complete waste of time he said.
I am sure that the Manufactures also do this some time, but they build up defective stock and wait for a day to do this.
I know they do this with power tools, me being a self employed contractor, means I have to cut corners sometimes to keep cost down. So I buy refurbished tools sometimes, Like Dawalt, Skil, Porter Cable and so on.
Well in the case of Walthers and what I know of theyget the product back check it and ssee if its ok to put back out on the market as used or discounted. Usually get good deals if you go to their Showroom. I use to get a lot of broken stuff and fix it.
More than half of the cars we get back have nothing wrong with them. Sometimes people see a smudge through the packaging but when we open the box it turns out the smudge is just that… on the packaging. Sometimes we get cars returned because the box is damaged. In these cases we put on new packaging and resell the cars.
Other times we get cars returned because the skirt is not attached or some other part has fallen off. We put the part back on and repackage and resell the cars. If there is a scratch on a window, we will replace the window and resell the car. If there is a warped frame, we will take a good frame, replace and resell.
We sometimes get cars returned because there are fingerprints on the cars. 9 times out of 10, Dan can wipe them off with a soft cloth. Those cars are of course resold.
Basically, the only time we can’t resell a car is when there is a paint flaw. We use these cars for the frames and other parts to repair other cars. Dan does all of the repairs and repackaging.
Our return rate of cars that genuinely can’t be resold is well below 1%, and you’ll find that this figure is about the same for most manufacturers. When we started shipping passenger cars in 2006 it was much higher because our packaging was not protecting the cars well enough in transit.
You live and learn…
Regards,
Jason
Referb, resell…
David B
I wonder how many tons of Athearn MRC decoders have been recycled or thrown into land fills by now??[:-^]
I’m a pack rat. That would kill me to see all that hobby stuff smashed up in a dumpster.[:(]
It probably depends on the manufacturer, the value of the item, and its condition. If it can be economically repaired/salvaged, that’s what they would probably do with it.
I know of one case where an individual sent a Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0 in for repair and they sent him a new one. Unfortunately, we had forgotten to take the decoder out of the tender. He phoned Bachmann and was told that his locomotive had been thrown into the dumpster, but they were able to retrieve it and sent the entire locomotive back to him so he could remove the decoder.
Good story. It sounds to me like we have heard the gamut of the whole matter. Some stuff really is not worth the time to put it right, and out it goes if usable parts that it contains are not in short supply. BLI, as mentioned, has a repair shop (how many in it is a good question…one person, two maybe?) and they do return individual engines ‘cuz I got my prize-winning J Hudson back from them…you know, the one I weathered up all nice an’ purdy. [:P] Okay, okay, but I did get my own “painted” engine back, and nicely fixed.
-Crandell
I would guess that prize is a big issue. If the engine is expensive, say 500$ and an error might cost 20$ to fix it my guess is that they fix it. If it’s a cheap 5$ car they toss it or put in a bin for people to buy at a fraction of the price.
I would also probably depend on the nature of the errors that are most common on the product. The problems that Rapido tells about it would be stupid not to “fix” them. If it is a huge problem it me be be going to the bin, for example massive damage due to poor shipping.
Magnus
Now that we have a manufacturer’s ear, let us know some more about the decisions you make, what made you decide to manufacture what you do, cost % of tooling ect., also what have been your biggest
Why would it kill you to see Athearn MRC decoders in a dumpster? Isn’t that where they belong?
What happens to engines sent back…
They end up for sale on ebay as rare-never-run-nib-collectors-items for outlandish “buy-now” prices. [(-D]
-George
Um, they all go to the big Atlas Roundhouse in the sky?! and the rolling stock goes to the big atlas flex track staging yard in the sky…