High guys, I bought the Heritage Y3 a while ago the first one three of the four cranking rods fell out of the drivers after a couple of loops on the layout. The LHS took that one back and gave me a replacement in its place. The second one ran real jerkiy as if it was binding at slower speeds. I was told to let it break in. But no mater how long I ran it it did the same thing. I even ran it for six hours in each direction nothing changed. I finaly sent it back to Walthers. they checked it out and told me I would be getting a replacement loco. It arrived last Wendsday. When I opened it up it looks like the same loco it has my garage dust on it still. It does seem to run better but it is not a replacement and now the speakers have an allfull crackling sound to them. I checked for loose plastic on tender, because I know that it would vibrate and make those sounds also. It sounds like a stereo with a blown speaker when it is chuffing on the layout. Should I call walthers and send it back? I beleive I was lied to the first time because the tech there told me they tested 40 locos and sent me the best one. But I could swear on the Bible this is the loco I sent in. And how could they have 40 of them when they are showing they are all sold out? This is in N scale
Yes, definitely call Walthers and send it back. But before you ship it, make a small mark somewhere that will identify it as the one you sent. I did that once with a BLI return. My mark was a small x on top of the lead truck assembly. You would have to remove the lead truck to see the mark. So be discreet, but protect yourself.
Yes. Definatley send it back. An engine like that shouldn’t be having all these problems. So definately send it back. Put a small mark somewhere as well. I’m suprised that a walthers steam engine is doing this. Something must be wrong with the quality control tests.
The Heritage series of steamers are truly fine, although I see several complaints about them being light pullers almost across the range of their line. I have a tiny 0-6-0 that I love. They are highly detailed, and if assembled properly, they run really well and reliably.
With that said, I agree with the others. They tend to be pricey unless blown out, and they are worth getting repaired. No one likes to spend more money on a locomotive than the initial purchase, but I have long since learned that sometimes you have to spend more time and money to get them to work as intended if you can’t fix them yourself. In six months the aggravation and expense are forgotten and you have the fine locomotive that you identified as a desired object at the outset.
I agree with other who have said send it back of course by all means that being said in Walthers defense I find it extremely hard to believe that the customer service guys at Walthers would try and pull a fast one by sending back your locomotive and telling you it was a replacement, if in fact it was actually your original one I would say it safe to say it was merely by mistake. How can the say they tested 40 and still be out of stock, I have gotten parts for out of production kits form Walthers many time. I couldn’t begin to guess but if i had to take a stab at it I would imagine their inventory when they first stocked that model may have been in the thousands perhaps so having 40 on hand of any given item is more then likely very plausible.
Walthers customer service department is second to none, I have had personal experiences with these guys where they couldn’t have been better if they tried. I know they will eventually have you as a satisfied customer.
My intentions are to call the gentelman I spoke to about this on Monday. And explain to him what I was returned. I do not want to put down Walthers in any way. I was just posting my personal expeirence with this perticular loco. And to see if anyone else has had simular problems. And then again the loco I sent in did not have a speaker problem and this one does, maybe they just replaced the tender. Who knows? but I will call Monday and post the results. And I am a little frustrated this thig cost over $300. and this is suppossedly my third one returned with problems. For that price it should run like a swiss watch. And that is one of the reasons I bought it, RTR hassle free all the bells and whistles. not my luck.
Truck, have you checked to see if the speakers have sucked up any metal shavings? I have had about 4 engines here at the layout suck up rail spikes and made God awful racket. Maybe while at the services department it sucked up a screw or something?
I did look at the speakers very closely with a magnifying glass and found nothing. But I am going to mess with it some more today. I think the tender wheels are vibrating with the chuffs. I will put a weight on top of tender to see if that stops the distortion I am hearing.
Hey no need to explain never thought your were trashing Walthers but merely frustrated with the way your problem was going from bad to worse. I hear you on spending the extra money and having more then reasonable expectations of it working as advertised right out of the box. I have had a running gun battle going on with Bachmann Trains for quite a while now over a Spectrum J class 4-8-4. Like many others up until this point I was thoroughly pleased with Bachmann’s customer service and replacement policy.Except when it came to this piece of junk.I has an obvious flaw with the drawbar system that causes the trailing truck and front tender truck to lift off the rails in curves resulting in derailments. It’s a well known flaw and even appears on their own website numerous times, with user’s posting their fixes for said problem as they haven’t got satisfaction form Bachmann either. So having had now four replacement locomotives sent to me all having the same issue and who knows maybe one of them was even my original because none of the replacements were new sealed in the box units you can see how I understand your frustration. I really want to see this problem worked out for you so your not like me owning an expensive dust collector
Truck, open up the tender and look the speakers from the top side as well. If it is the speakers, they can be pretty resealable in prices. I bought some from Ulrich Models for my Big Boy HO scale for around $12.00 for the pair. For my self, I rather spend $20.00 than wait for a month for a free repair.
I am goig to call Tony’s trains instead of Walthers, the loco is actually running pretty good now it is just the speaker issue. If Tony’s has speakers that will fit I will put them in myself. They are pretty savy about speakers. I went on Walthers web site and punched in the part number from the parts list for this loco’s speakers and zero matches found, go figure. Walthers wants $15.50 sent in with loco’s for repair, and who knows what I will get back. I already went through this once. I will spend the money at Tony’s instead.