Why are some mth techs crappy and other not?

How do you know a factory trained technician did the work?  John

Thats what the seller claimed. Albeit I do not no for shure, but that is the reson I asked the question in my post. Plus the sticker kinda leads me to belive it was done by someone other than the seller. When I asked about whether it was a 3volt or 5volt upgrade the seller replied back he would ask his tech who did the install. He repled back it was a 3volt ps2 install so I took his word it was seen by anathorized tech and bought the engine. Not sorry I did as I stated it is a beautiful set. Just wish his tech had done proper job on the installation.

This was one of the reasons I was told Lionel stopped training.  Of the folks that went, only about 10% were reliable to fix something correctly.  Seems a lot of the repairs that were coming back were through the hands of the folks trained.

The problem I have with no training is there are a lot of engines now out of warranty being repaired by guys who just "picked it up" as they went along.  I'm not saying that's a bad thing but it certainly isn't helping the folks that do have out of warranty items get things fixed with less trained techs out there.

As for MTH techs, as stated some folks pick it up and other don't.  They may pass the tests but when put into service they do enough to get by while others strive to get the job done right.  It's like any other profession I suppose.

It's like any other service industry.  Some are good, some not so good.

Rusty

It's like that old saw that goes: What do you call the one who finished at the bottom of their Med school class? The answer: Doctor.

I personally do not believe any mth tech would wire something incorrectly! I in fact can tell you honestly and truly what happened when I went to mth tech school and when finished the course helped mth repair customer repairs sent to MTH ! I personally worked on a ps 2 5 volt big boy and when checked it over someone had done a ps 3 steam kit upgrade, the ps3/2 board was fried and burnt marks on the stacker board connectors and regulators were fried and burnt right off the board and when I asked mth what did they want to do to repair it they "MTH" shop tech Jason told me that they did not believe a mth tech had even did the worked and mth was going to call owner and see what he wanted to do!

this is a  fact and true story so DON'T BELIVE EVERY THING YOU READ ON THE FORUM! SINERELY

Alan

Perhaps in house techs but the independent techs could easily vary in competence and ability.

Marty I agree. Alan sending it to mth factory techs is one thing. saying my personal mth tech did the work is another. wish I had known his tech did lousy work. I always use Raymond Manely from rays electric train works he does excellent work and always backs up his work. every single engine I have ever sent to him work on was done meticulously and 100% right the first time. I am glad he is only 2 hours away from me. looks like he may be busy after Christmas I have a few I need upgraded when I get the funds.😉

Not all Amish are good carpenters.

@David Minarik posted:

Not all Amish are good carpenters.

Good analogy Dave.

@geysergazer posted:

It's like that old saw that goes: What do you call the one who finished at the bottom of their Med school class? The answer: Doctor.

You beat me to it.

This is really a question that  has an obvious answer.  Please name me a trade where every person plying the trade, professionally trained or not, is competent, meticulous, and never makes a mistake.  I'd be very interested in that list, because it's going to be a short list!

I've gotten a few "upgrades" to fix, and I had to tell the person they were either paying for the upgrade to be done properly or I couldn't do the job.

Some mistakes I can forgive, but black electrical tape is 100% unforgivable!

MTH Service school is a very a detailed and demanding learning experience.  You are exposed to a lot of very detailed information, some of which is not covered in the service manual.  Classes are about 8 hours long, for 3 days, with a lot of information being learned.  When I went to school very little about the TIU and  Remote was covered.  PS3/2 boards and the WIU were brand new.  I accepted the challenge and studied each evening until about 10:00pm.

My theory is simple; if you do not know something - admit it and learn.   I am constantly adding notes to my service manual on descriptions, procedures and items I am not up to par on.  Us techs do network with each other.

More important,  the customer must realize that not all people are not created equal, some techs are more skilled and quick learners, some are not.  Techs must also be honest with their customers and listen to them.

During this pandemic things are very tough, communication between tech and customer is important.  Availability of parts, not just from MTH, is challenging. 

For someone to state that an item was repaired by a tech and have no proof is unacceptable.

In summary, be careful in how you interpret what you read and show respect.

Bruce

Unfortunate to have these issues. I’m not trained and I do my best for a factory like install.

To be honest. The Coal Turbine is one of the more difficult PS2-Ps3 upgrades Ive done. Besides the brass models. But that was the early days when I was learning....

@geysergazer posted:

It's like that old saw that goes: What do you call the one who finished at the bottom of their Med school class? The answer: Doctor.

or: What do you call the one who graduates last in their Law School class ? Answer: Your Honor.

It's all about time.   If this a $100 engine repair and I spend 25 hrs on the repair, that's $4/hr.   Pack it up, send it back. 

I am sorry to say, but three eight-hour classes doesn't sound either rigorous or demanding to me.  It sounds like a three day seminar.  Is there a formal Certification Exam they have to pass at the end?  Is there a hands-on problematic test as well?

Would you let an A/C guy show up at your house and work on the electronics of your $12,000 Heating and Air System, if he told you, "Don't worry.  I am fully trained. I had three eight-hour classes in A/C repair."

Just my opinion, but any "Certification" you can receive in three eight-hour classes is a joke.  Unfortunately, with the dumbing down of America, every place that wants to call itself a "Training Institution" hand out a "Certification" at the end of the classes to the unwashed public who passed with a D+.    I believe you could get a Certification for digging up tin cans if you looked around a bit.

We use to laugh at the outdoor magazine ads that said, "Learned to be a Professional Gunsmith in Just 6 Months,"   because we knew that was impossible.

Mannyrock

I don't know why some Lionel techs are so bad!

I don't know what you paid or who you're dealing with here.

Some mistakes I can forgive, but black electrical tape is 100% unforgivable!

Is gray OK? Or blue? I have both.

Is three days of training enough? It all depends on the person's background taking the course. A Phd in English, tenured professor, who doesn't know a transistor from a resistor likely won't know much more after three days. OTOH someone whose hobby is electronics, maybe built radios when he was seven and been doing it for 20 years, three days just fills in the gaps. Maybe he will be pointing out mistakes to the instructor.

Pete

@Mannyrock posted:

Just my opinion, but any "Certification" you can receive in three eight-hour classes is a joke.

And you're entitled to your opinion.

I wouldn't say the school was super difficult, and the general assumption going into the training classes is that you're already a competent model train repair person.  If you're saying you can't take a guy off the street that doesn't know a screwdriver from a soldering iron and teach him in three days to repair complex electronic model trains, you're 100% correct!

My goal, and what I wanted to get out of the training, was simple.  I wanted to get familiar how MTH did things; meet the contacts I would likely want to interface with moving forward; and get the detailed technical repair information, test tools, etc.  At the end of our training the last part of the class was we went into the tech lab and fixed MTH trains for a few hours.  It was interesting, and of course I had already had many MTH models apart before the class, so it wasn't exactly new.

The MTH "training" is more to allow the tech folks at MTH to see if you have the skills to do the job, not to teach you everything you need to know in three days.  Most good repair/upgrade guys never stop learning, that's part of any job that has any kind of challenge.

Excellent points John.   I agree that an extremely experienced, meticulous, fully competent, model train repairman, such as yourself, would reap excellent results from going through the three day training session.  Why?   Because you would view it not as the "end game" so that you could call yourself a Certified MTH Technician, but instead as an introduction to the general principals of MTH repairs, so that you could start from there, read and research every piece of the manual and other printed material that was handed out, and then go forth with additional study and interest to BECOME an extremely competent MTH repair expert.

The problem is, John, that you are Old School, and the vast majority of people today are not.  (In other words, you know the art of How To Continue to Learn, whereas most  people simply do not. )

I know that you would never walk out of the Class, waiving your Certificate, and telling folks that you are a fully Certified MTH repairman and start taking their money to work on their trains.  Unfortunately, I believe many others would.

P.S. John, thank you for the excellent electronic and rail stock advice you have given me over the past 6 months in getting my layout set-up and running. 

Mannyrock

We bought a brand-new boat in 2019 and our experience with the "service" provided by the selling dealer was a nightmare. Without going into details, the "work" he did on our boat to prep it for sale put us and everyone who rode on our new boat in danger of serious injury or death. As a result, we won't reward that dealer with any future purchases and we will never bring our boat back to him for service ever again.

Unfortunately, in every profession, there are competent and incompetent people. If you had a bad experience with an incompetent toy train repair tech, don't go back to them.

Yep, just speak with your feet.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Yep, just speak with your feet.

Exactly!!!

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Yep, just speak with your feet.

I totally agree. Unfortunately, learning to never use that tech again usually comes with a price. In my situation, an upgrade of a burnt out PS-2 board to ps-3 in an R-32 subway train by a guy who holds himself out as an MTH certified tech and services multiple hobby shops in my area resulted in multiple trips just to repair what he broke. When he first presented me the upgraded engine, it was clear that the frame was bent and not flush with the shell. That was because this bozo forced in the wrong speaker and didn't realize that the subways used a different, slimmer one from the normal ps-3 upgrade kits. I guess the fact that he had to bend the frame wasn't a glaring red flag for him.   When that was returned, weeks later, none of the front end lights worked because he never tested them.  After he got that right, he forgot to tell me that during the last "repair", he broke off the undercarriage fins on the engine and re-glued them on. It was obvious to anyone that could see because he glued them in crooked. Yes, i will never use this person again, but watching your formerly perfectly cared for, prized model get treated like a used car by a ham fisted fool is quite a price.

@Lionelzwl2012 posted:

Going forward when a seller says it was check or upgraded by an authorized MTH tech what questions can be asked or how can a buyer know if the sellers tech is good or bad so as not to get burned.

Its not the end of the world here, but it sure sucks and is very disappointing.

I see this all the time on the secondary market. "Checked or tested by an authorized dealer/ tech".

As far as I'm concerned, its a sales pitch, and means nothing. Caveat Emptor.

@Strap Hanger posted:

Yes, i will never use this person again, but watching your formerly perfectly cared for, prized model get treated like a used car by a ham fisted fool is quite a price.

That's quite a litany of screwups, even I haven't been able to string that many together!

@RickO posted:

I see this all the time on the secondary market. "Checked or tested by an authorized dealer/ tech".

As far as I'm concerned, its a sales pitch, and means nothing. Caveat Emptor.

Exactly! That's all it is.

This is why I totally despise the thought of out of warranty train repairs. None of the companies want anything to do with you or your train after the 1 yr warranty. You are totally on your own to find someone to do your repairs. Its bad enough getting warranty repairs done. I believe there is a post right now on this forum about a company not even bothering to answer the phone. I wont buy Lionel. I am an MTH guy but have stopped buying MTH locos as well just because of the uncertainty of the future of MTH. Truth is that you're not supposed to repair/upgrade. You're supposed to trash the train and buy a new one. Why bother with repairs? Make the train companies happy and buy new stuff. After all, aren't trains paid with disposable income?

I’m pretTy sure my PS2 upgrade kit came with a sticker. My expertise I fixing 500k Mass Spectrometers. I muddled through my upgrade and the loco runs fine. An MTH tech would crucify my wire routing and the poor job I did with the heat sinks. But... it’s got a sticker! Please take it up with the seller. If I sold you my 2006 F150 and swore it was maintained by the dealership, would you be mad at me or Ford, when you found my lie? Bummer that you bought a lemon, but one of the first model railroading lesson I had to learn the hard way was that used locos can be a gamble.

The reasons I got out of toy train repairs about 14 years ago.  My other two departments in my store far outpaced the "shop rate" train customer were willing to pay for repairs.  Both LNL and MTH were terrible in parts availability.  9 to 12 months in obtaining warranty or non warranty parts from LNL and MTH was totally unacceptable.  Consistently, being on hold behind 12-15 end users attempting to talk to the techs was unacceptable.  Waiting on email replies from service techs at both companies would average 14 days.  No warranty labor dollars from either company.  One company offered writing pens, Christmas ornaments and mouse pads as compensation.

I refer end users to a train store I trust to do good work.

Okay with all of that said, can someone recommend a good ....I mean very good MTH service tech?  I have two remotes neither work.  One is just the thumbwheel and the other I think is fried but I would like someone to tell me if it is.  I don't like using my phone but it is the only way I can run trains right now.

Called MTH and they recommended I find a tech

@msp posted:

Okay with all of that said, can someone recommend a good ....I mean very good MTH service tech?  I have two remotes neither work.  One is just the thumbwheel and the other I think is fried but I would like someone to tell me if it is.  I don't like using my phone but it is the only way I can run trains right now.

Called MTH and they recommended I find a tech

Contact GGG (George).  You’ll find his contact info in his profile.

There are a few MTH techs that became certified, in my opinion, to get the parts discount.  In talking with some on the phone, both Don and I think their certifications should be revoked....

I was a certified Lionel and MTH tech before I worked at MTH.  I felt that the Lionel  class was more thorough.  Very detailed theory of operation for the products at that time (TMCC and Legacy).  You had to pass a written test and were given two locomotives or accessories that had one or two faults in them and had to identify the problem within 30 minutes, each.  Some in the class did not pass and did not get certified.

The MTH class just glossed over the basics. No in-depth theory, troubleshooting or repair.  I never felt that strong doing MTH repairs, so when I was asked to work there, I did, not for the money (pay sucks), but to learn more about the products, problems and solutions.  There is so much to learn and that I am only part-time, I only focused on PS1, 2 and 3 O gauge and tinplate products.  I pretty much stay away from DCS, WIFI and transformers and HO.  I let Don do all that (he grumbles about that).  I am trying to keep him in the loop after MTH closes, because if we lose him, a wealth of information will be lost.

I'm very worried about tech support and parts when the doors close.

Thats like me when I was a kid, and growing up with mth, I would want to run something, my father would bring it out of the box and something what may be minor now such as resetting a P1 or a P2 model because of a low battery will be sent in for advance resetting and the model would come back with a cheat sheet explaining how the model would act up on a low or dead battery. When the model comes back, the issue was fixed but another would arise. Every other time. From a pinched wire, to another feature would stop on the model, so the model will be sent back again...

Growing up with mth, I learned to tinker with the model, from reading the manual, and trying it out on my own I would find success. Fast forward to now, I am very familiar with the models and have repaired many of my and the models in the local neiborhoods. Seeing posts like this makes me with I spent the time becomeing and MTH technitican, as of the last few years I learned about the basic electronics in the models. I was told by several local techs its good to know and have but never pursued that option.

We all do run into nightmare repairs at times - most go smooth but every year there seems to be a couple that don't work out well.  Same thing happens in all industries if you can get folks to tell you the truth.  Car repairs - yip you will find folks that swear how awesome a place is, and another person that would never go there again.  Restraunts - same thing.

The lack of new information in the last 10+ years has made it more difficult but for the most part can figure it out.  I asked Dean at Lionel for some Lionchief/Lionchief plus debug/repair information.  I did receive it, but it was so basic and duh information if you've done many repairs in the past that it was basically of no value.

I use the Proto 2, Proto 3, and TMCC test setups fairly often.  I look at it as a hobby and a way to help pay for our own hobby purchases.

Jim

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I'm very worried about tech support and parts when the doors close.

Don is absolutely the best!  He saved me MANY times.  He could start a consulting service.

I do not think you will have to worry about parts. 

Well, I won't argue your point, but if the parts aren't produced, there's not much one guy can do, no matter how good he is.

It would be nice to see an announcement from official sources about exactly what they have planned, that would go a long ways to allaying the fears about parts availability.  Right now we hear snippets of information from a number of 2nd hand and 3rd hand sources, but none from any organization that will actually be producing and distributing the parts.

I don't know how model train repair can survive as a trade.  A "simple" repair that takes only two hours to diagnose, disassemble, find parts, test, reassemble and do a final look-over, billed at a relatively measly 40 bucks an hour (this kind of skilled labor really should be billed out at way more if you're trying to support a business) is 80 bucks in labor.

Then let's figure it was a replacement of a drive shaft. So there's 30 bucks in parts after markups.

Add in 25 bucks shipping each way makes a "simple" repair a whopping 160 bucks. Although collectors with 1500 dollar engines may find that acceptable to keep their prize piece running, the vast majority of people with a problem will say "I only paid 300 for that engine, no way I'm putting another 160 into it. Screw it, it's junk"

And then they move on to something else.

The future of train repairs is going to be individuals who have learned on their own and are willing to charge way-below market rates to help people continue to enjoy the hobby. And they're not going to do that for just any Schmo who calls.

Which is why I'd like @gunrunnerjohn and @GGG to forward me their address so I can send them a greeting card and a bottle of nice bourbon as a bribe to stay on their good side for when I need help in the future.

Not much of a drinker, but if a nice locomotive showed up with a bow around it, I wouldn't be all that upset!

I think, just a gut feeling, I have no conformation but Samual and the guys in Michigan my be the MTH parts and service center.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Please name me a trade where every person plying the trade, professionally trained or not, is competent, meticulous, and never makes a mistake.  I'd be very interested in that list, because it's going to be a short list!

A living bomb disposal technician?

@GeoPeg posted:

A living bomb disposal technician?

Or like my nephew did for most of his life. He was the guy that went in a building that was Blown with explosives but didn't fall down. So Someone has to go in and make it right and they try again and it BETTER come down. Trust me he makes sure it is done right the second time as he is the one who has to go back in if it didn't. I told him send the guy who set it and failed then he won't make that mistake again.