Oman posted:John Quogue RR posted:Everyone should send their power units back to get fixed properly. They pay for shipping. Don't let this bite you in the *** after warranty. Also they are making new covers for units. It was in dealer memo. I say no way was prototype wired this way. In production it looks like they opted for the shortest point (no pun intended on the short) is a straight line. No QC on this production they totally half assed this. No reason to hold the bag for a $450-500 purchase. Send it back.
I do not have these units, so you can dismiss my comments if you wish, but IMO we have to stop accepting bad product. SEND them back. DO NOT attempt home repairs. Only then will they, be it Lionel, MTH or whomever, get their s**t together.
I'm one of the lucky ones that hasn't had a problem with my F40 - yet (and mine's the #364). I figure I have at least an hour or more in run time, so far so good. If, to prevent future burn-ups, I make sure the number board wires are secured to the top of the shell, you bet I'll do that myself and prevent the hassle of sending it back. I agree Lionel should have thought of this causing problems and put a little more wiring there and routed it around the flywheel. But they didn't, however it's not hard to fix.
Several years ago when Lionel came out with their Amfleet "End" car, the sensor wires controlling the cab car lights were reversed, meaning the red marker lights were on when the cab car was leading, with no headlight. Every single car was delivered that way. Thankfully one of our forum members posted a detailed tutorial of how to fix it. When you know what you're going for it actually isn't too hard, and I did it myself. Problem solved. No way am I going to send something back to Lionel for such an easy fix, that literally took me 10 minutes to finish. True, it should have been done right the first time, but these are toy trains, if I can fix it myself and it's not rocket science I'm going to do it!
Now if it was a paint defect, or something to do with command control/RailSounds boards, etc, that's another story...
