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Post by runamuckchuck on Sept 12, 2024 0:01:59 GMT
While we may be in the vast minority on OGF, those of us who preordered the primo scale Christmas to end all Christmases Lionel Sleigh Bell Express set (or whatever Lionel called it) were royally urinated off when the Yuletide car came in misspelled.
After much hand ringing and gnashing of teeth by upset buyers Lionel's response was and continues to be crickets. Can there be anymore graphic evidence that Lionel does not give a rat's rear end about the crap* (without so much as a 'by your leave') they are pushing out at premium prices?
Sorry madockawando but adjusting for inflation does not make up for incompetence and contempt for your customers.
In the absence of any reasonable response from Lionel our very own Rockymountaineer took the initiative to contact a vendor to create an adhesive attached 'plate' to cover up the misspelling with the correct spelling.
Now having just received the 'plates' there is no way to tell how well the colors/text match, but I am here to say I do not care. Dave has at his own initial expense and on his own initiative done more for Lionel customers than Lionel was willing to do.
How bassackwards is that?
The 'plates' are very attractive and fine in their own right. That is good enough for me even if I never attach them to my defective car.
So Lionel can brag about their Legacy features, whistle steam, wheel slippage, brass hybrids and Cab 3 blah blah blah, but if you don't get the fundamentals right you still lose the game.
Is this over the top for a simple spelling mistake? You bet.
But when you can't complain about the service because there is none seemingly excessive criticism of Lionel on my part is warranted if not deserved in this instance.
Hell hath no fury like a hobbyist scorned.
* in this instance the product result and the Lionel nonresponse was and is crap. To be fair however Lionel does offer excellent products and results as well. Just not this time.
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Post by rockymountaineer on Sept 12, 2024 3:41:53 GMT
Thanks for the kind words, Charles. Glad you are happy with the resulting plates!!!
As a reminder for anyone interested, here’s the before-vs-after images of the car “as delivered” from Lionel vs. the car with the new correctly spelled YULETIDE plates.
$15 per pair (includes USPS First Class shipping) while supplies last. When they’re gone, they’re gone!
PM me here on OGF if interested.
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Post by JDaddy on Sept 12, 2024 3:57:42 GMT
Sorry to hear of your frustration. I can only agree with you on the huge screw up on the colors of the 20th Century Limited. The passenger cars were a bungle at best- very cheap looking plastic with molded in grab irons... and the stripes and colors not lining to the locomotive just added insult to injury. I learned never to preorder and avoided a 3,500.00-dollar heart wrenching mistake. Next was the D&H passenger cars. the stick-on yellow marquis and the yellow stripes chipping off would just make you sick. A 1,900.00-dollar mistake that still makes me sick. Add to the fact the PA locomotive bodies overhung the trucks to emulate this face of an engine with a huge overbite. Fast forward to the latest legacy F7 UP F3's the yellow was a pass but the bright green patch on the nosed. Makes you want to cry. I dodged that bullet and kept my older TMCC variants. My days of buying in advance are done. I really hope Lionel will be held accountable in the future by people just passing on poor product.   |
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Post by superwarp1 on Sept 12, 2024 11:39:12 GMT
Harry Heike has made a killing and been kept very busy fixing Lionel's paint screw ups of late. I still have to fix my Rutland Milk cars with the flaking paint on the door hinges. Warning on the first run of the re-release of the new Milk cars. Don't open the doors.
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Post by Adam on Sept 12, 2024 12:21:09 GMT
The badge was a great solution. Very sad that Lionel doesn't support their customers properly.
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Post by runamuckchuck on Sept 12, 2024 12:43:57 GMT
Sorry to hear of your frustration. I can only agree with you on the huge screw up on the colors of the 20th Century Limited. The passenger cars were a bungle at best- very cheap looking plastic with molded in grab irons... and the stripes and colors not lining to the locomotive just added insult to injury. I learned never to preorder and avoided a 3,500.00-dollar heart wrenching mistake. Next was the D&H passenger cars. the stick-on yellow marquis and the yellow stripes chipping off would just make you sick. A 1,900.00-dollar mistake that still makes me sick. Add to the fact the PA locomotive bodies overhung the trucks to emulate this face of an engine with a huge overbite. Fast forward to the latest legacy F7 UP F3's the yellow was a pass but the bright green patch on the nosed. Makes you want to cry. I dodged that bullet and kept my older TMCC variants. My days of buying in advance are done. I really hope Lionel will be held accountable in the future by people just passing on poor product. Wow the D&H stripe is really unfortunate. I suspect the actual ribbing had a part in the problem not having a fully flat surface to adhere to. Might this have encouraged Lionel to go with that shadow line paint technique they did on the C&O Greenbriar? Did you ever ask your dealer or Lionel directly about this issue? Otherwise a very spiffy paint scheme against the stainless.
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Post by healey36 on Sept 12, 2024 13:34:04 GMT
In a quote attributed to the late great Merle Haggard, "Back when I was growing up, if you didn't start somethin', there wouldn't be nothin'."
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Post by dlagrua on Sept 12, 2024 14:17:43 GMT
All I will say is that customers of "premium products" deserve and have every right to expect reliability, quality and service for which they pay. This is a paramount issue for doing business and staying in business.
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Post by harborbelt70 on Sept 12, 2024 14:59:25 GMT
All I can say is, nice trucks/colors on that passenger car but the body workmanship (if you can call it that) is a disaster. I have a similar experience of balking at a big outlay on some Legacy Santa Fe diesels that turned up with very bad board programming issues - thank goodness I did not get stuck with them.
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Post by JDaddy on Sept 13, 2024 15:00:51 GMT
Sorry to hear of your frustration. I can only agree with you on the huge screw up on the colors of the 20th Century Limited. The passenger cars were a bungle at best- very cheap looking plastic with molded in grab irons... and the stripes and colors not lining to the locomotive just added insult to injury. I learned never to preorder and avoided a 3,500.00-dollar heart wrenching mistake. Next was the D&H passenger cars. the stick-on yellow marquis and the yellow stripes chipping off would just make you sick. A 1,900.00-dollar mistake that still makes me sick. Add to the fact the PA locomotive bodies overhung the trucks to emulate this face of an engine with a huge overbite. Fast forward to the latest legacy F7 UP F3's the yellow was a pass but the bright green patch on the nosed. Makes you want to cry. I dodged that bullet and kept my older TMCC variants. My days of buying in advance are done. I really hope Lionel will be held accountable in the future by people just passing on poor product. Wow the D&H stripe is really unfortunate. I suspect the actual ribbing had a part in the problem not having a fully flat surface to adhere to. Might this have encouraged Lionel to go with that shadow line paint technique they did on the C&O Greenbriar? Did you ever ask your dealer or Lionel directly about this issue? Otherwise a very spiffy paint scheme against the stainless. Actually the root cause is the paint will not stick to the acetate stick on placards on the cars. Just a bad choice of materials. Dealers had a 100% fall out. Lionel gave me some replacements but they too have the same issue.
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Post by david1 on Sept 13, 2024 19:08:28 GMT
And yet people keep on buying them!! Until they can prove they can make a quality product at a competitive price and quality service the days of buying their products should come to an end!!
Never accept a shoddy product, let them keep it by never taking delivery!!
Dave
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