class T9 chassis rot

[Mountain]

Do not get me started on Volvo cars and their dodgy plastic bits or mechanics or paint or rusty tin or their warranty swerving dealers...
...and moving on to a newer Nissan Qashqai, everything is held together with disintegrating expanding plastic studs (clips) at £2 apiece from a dealer or the same price per hundred from China.
e.g. The front fog light brackets are secured by 2 of these clips and you have to take the front bumper off to get at them. Bumper is held on by ... yes even more of these clips.

Ten or more years ago I would say the complete opposite. There was no way we could hope to make a Nissan last and Volvos just went on and on. My 940 is still good and solid and I live in an area where a Ford or a Vauxhall is a definate "No". (My dads nearly new Ford Sierra needed four new doors in just two years. The car was around six to eight years old. A year later the rust was terminal). My old Volvo 360 GLT had a small rust hole under a fog light that got bigger but that was it during the same years I had it, and it was about 12 years old when I first bought it! I owned it the same time my dad had his Sierra.
Nissans here have a bad reputation with rust issues. Some cars built about 15-20 years ago didnt even make ten years before rust prevented them passing the MOT.

Going back to the T9 issue. So many seem to have had the same issues that it could be quite a profitable business to sell a ready made chassis frame to transfer the parts to so ones locos can run again.

[Bufferstop]

...and it wouldn't require any complex processes to produce. Brass frame plates, frame spacers drilled and tapped along with the screws, some frame bushes, plus the option of a back to back gauge and a simple quartering jig. Might even introduce a few more souls to the joys of building it yourself. The most critical bit is drilling the holes in the frame in the right place, do that and the rest is Meccano.

[GWR_fan]

.........................Going back to the T9 issue. So many seem to have had the same issues that it could be quite a profitable business to sell a ready made chassis frame to transfer the parts to so ones locos can run again.

I have six of them and every one suffered. Six models is a reasonable financial investment of money and my reward is that I choose to now ignore them. Five were purchased new from dealers and the fifth a pre-owned model that I suspected would be afflicted as it was a similar vintage to the others purchased. This last one was purchased to get the Maunsell coaches in the pack. Thus five were afflicted when purchased new, with the damage evident on arrival. The dealer from whom I purchased four sets new simply chose to ignore my emails and thus gets no business from me.

[Mountain]

It is not on if a shop ignores your contacting them. Even if their supplier has put them in it. I would avoid buying there as well! I assume they deffinately had the emails? Would it be the case if you wanted to buy they would see the emails?
How a shop treats its customers when things go wrong makes or breaks such businesses. A study found out a bad experience with one customer today can effect 700 lost customers, such is the power of todays internet. A good experience when things are sorted if they go wrong will certainly gain customers.
I've noticed that some shops really do survive due to the way they tend to the smaller issues as their customers can put their trust in them. Customers often will seek out shops not on price, but on trust.
Break the bond of trust between customers and the company or its staff or even its suppliers, and one is on a downward spiral that is almost impossible to recover from. Some of the largest companies can collapse due to this.

[GWR_fan]

It is not on if a shop ignores your contacting them. Even if their supplier has put them in it. I would avoid buying there as well! I assume they definately had the emails? ................

Yes, they responded to the first email as I reported extensive damage intransit to the fragile T9 cab. At the time I was not aware of the chassis issues. All the shop (not the usual two main stores but a well known store) replied was that the loco was tested fine when it was posted. No further response. This store I purchased four new Hornby Southern Railway trainpacks (1938 Suburban and Imperial Airways packs - 2 of each) in the one purchase. One would think that a response other than denial would be more appropriate.

[GWR_fan]

........................Break the bond of trust between customers and the company or its staff or even its suppliers, and one is on a downward spiral that is almost impossible to recover from. Some of the largest companies can collapse due to this.

A well known store in the West Country does not accept PayPal so each purchase requires a credit card. Each transaction entails an international currency conversion charge which adds to the final cost. On one purchase transaction the store's processing system mysteriously placed multiple charges on my credit card for the one transaction. Only one actual charge was incurred for the final purchase however, each of the mysterious multiple charges incurred a currency conversion fee from my bank. I challenged this however, the bank's response was that the fee is incurred by each transaction placed on my card so the multiple transactions each incurred a conversion fee even though they were not actual purchase transactions. Needless to say I no longer deal with the store.

[Mountain]

If it is the shop I think it is I once got to visit there. It is nice enough though I needed to point to the loco I required as the young man there seemed to be a bit mixed up in which class 37 is which. I basically needed to use pointy finger hand gestures to show him the version I wanted. Not really an issue but more that the young man was adamant he was right but he had got the two locos mixed up as to which is which. (Both were limited edition. One was a standard B.R. blue (Which I wanted), and the other was a Cornish liveried B.R. blue, and he was calling the standard version the Cornish livery and the Cornish version the standard B.R. blue. Why I had to physically point and say "I want that one! ).
I have ordered mail order in the past from there and had no problems. The main issue I've had mail order is when Hattons decided to have a computer address panelling system as they can't override it and no one seems allowed to physically write our village name on the address slip (As the computer address ignores the village name and ends in the postal town which has resulted in parcels going to the wrong address). Even though I reminded the man taking my order to make sure it says our village name, they didnt do it and after a month of waiting, I had to drive to the big city depot to get my parcel!
With Normal shops they physically write the address and all goes well.

[Bufferstop]

Many among the courier companies will only accept the address printed as it comes from the PAF file, from their contract customers. Any non compliant address has to be paid for at one off rates. We had a problem address where a new house in a village with only house names, as we had to wait for a solution until the PAF file had been updated with the new name, seems almost impossible to get it expedited, and then wait for the lagard and cheapskates amongst the dealers to implement the update.

[Mountain]

Many among the courier companies will only accept the address printed as it comes from the PAF file, from their contract customers. Any non compliant address has to be paid for at one off rates. We had a problem address where a new house in a village with only house names, as we had to wait for a solution until the PAF file had been updated with the new name, seems almost impossible to get it expedited, and then wait for the lagard and cheapskates amongst the dealers to implement the update.

Ours goes to a different village to a house which they are not too happy and I'm assuming, sends the things back, as my parcel was under a huge pile of stuff and the delivery person was throwing the parcels one by one to get to mine. (One sack split open and its contents (Animal food) went all over the floor!)
The postcodes are very different and so are the street names, but the addresses are often just the house name and the postal town (Which is the next village from here) so the delivery driver has not a lot to go on.
If they put the street name on the computer thingies it would give a clue!
Was the last time I ordered from there, though to be honest, I've not had the funds to buy the last couple of years.

[GWR_fan]

With a little time on my hands and "wanting" a bit more frustration in my life I decided to revisit my six T9 locomotives, all in Southern olive green. All six are basically new in the box with just test running mileage. To my surprise four still are functional after my repairs to all of them (for how long??????), with two succumbing to more degradation of the gear retainer causing the drive to disconnect.

My choices are to either source the brass replacement castings or just remove the wiring and run double headed with non-mazak affected locomotives. Given that Hornby released a T9 just last year, it still amazes me that I have not heard one instance of Hornby providing replacement parts for these locomotives. I know that they are getting onto eight or so years old but the mazak issue was highlighted not long after release back around 2009 and as we know mazak rot does not heal itself, it just gets worse.

Well, I achieved my aim in getting the frustration plus the disappointment, but also it reaffirmed my pledge to avoid all future Hornby small locomotives, even the lovely 'black motor' class 700. Trust is paramount and alas, there is no trust happening until Hornby improve their pathetic attempts outsourcing quality control and getting their house in order. Who signed off on the illfated 14XX? Surely blind Freddie could have seen an issue if just one production model was tested. With the criticism OR is getting at present will making him the new boss really improves things?

[Mountain]

Generally all Hornby need to do is make replacement chassis or just chassis blocks available for their locomotives as an aftermarket spare. None of us know how long our models chassis blocks will last, even if they are now older models, but if spares are kept available at a reasonable price, very few of us will see it as a problem. Will be more like routine maintenance... Yes, maybe a major rebuild, but most of us have the ability to complete the task without issues.

[Peterm]

I have to disagree, not with the question of supplying new chassis blocks etc, but with the idea of the customer paying for something that's clearly a manufacturing fault brought about by searching out the cheapest possible way of obtaining these castings, even when they've been through all this before. This company is really not helping itself by destroying peoples trust in their products and I really think they need to step up and put things right if they want people to support them in the future.

[GWR_fan]

..................... Yes, maybe a major rebuild, but most of us have the ability to complete the task without issues.

Brass castings are available to replace the faulty motor mount/gear retainer, however given the fragile nature of both the gear retainer plus the fragile ultra thin rear mount casting, mazak is simply not suitable. Apart from the rotten gear retainer mazak casting, most of my six T9 have the fragile rear mount broken as well. Remember, five of these are new in box from dealers with test running only (perhaps a few minutes maximum each) and a sixth purchased in mint condition (????). Replacement rear mounts are available (wonders never cease) but as they are so fragile one is better simply replacing the gear retainer with the brass casting and gluing the motor in. Doing this also avoids precariously dealing with the micro diameter wiring Hornby chose to use.

I achieved my aim this morning and once again am completely disillusioned with this poorly designed locomotive. Six locomotives is not a cheap financial investment and I have two terminal and four on life support awaiting the inevitable.

[Bigmet]

... This company is really not helping itself by destroying peoples trust in their products and I really think they need to step up and put things right if they want people to support them in the future.

I imagine the T9 mechanism problem, (which I would summarise as an intrinsically weak design that has been manufactured with a significant materials defect) will be 'somewhere' on the long to do list that the new CEO at Hornby will compile.

Straight up, and in my opinion only: it is not going to be addressed as a top priority, because those slots will be fully taken with actions to restore the company to stable profitability, now that a refinancing deal has been achieved. (Colourful analogy: When the ship is rapidly sinking because there are huge holes below the waterline, repair of damage to deck T9's cocktail bar is postponed with no date for work to commence.)

There's a problem from a business perspective. The first and well known mazak rot incident in Hornby's China manufactures was with the Brush type 2 (30/31) diesel. This was manufactured by the Sanda Kan operation, at the time comfortably the largest manufacturer of model railway product in China; well respected for supplying several other brand names in Europe and North America, with a well established rep for good quality built up over decades. This contractor was not a cost cutting back street shop by any stretch. Hornby were able to do the right thing in supplying replacements for these failed mechs, by the nature of the contract with Sanda Kan, which was clearly responsible for the defect: they produced the replacement parts under the terms of the contract.

The T9 was also a Sanda Kan production, introduced towards the end of Hornby's partnership with that operation, which has now been wound up and closed. Now there's a problem for Hornby, there's no simple recourse to the manufacturing partner for replacement parts made on their watch: this operation no longer exists. (I have no idea of whether there is any further recourse possible under Chinese law, but I'd guess not.) So Hornby are going to have to foot the bill, if there are to be replacements. Difficult to do until operating profitably...

[Bufferstop]

Interesting that the new CEO still retains his position with Oxford. Could Oxford Rail be the mechanism for yet another take over of the Hornby name. My understanding is that the "Oxford Factory" is owned by the parent company for whom the new Hornby CEO works.