Hi Shannon,

One rod is above and in the other picture it is below, I must go and check.

Ian.

Hi, Shannon,

Can you correct that problem yourself? Or will you need a correct spare part?

This surely should not occur - but if that grey plastic part is symmetrical and only clipped on, you may be able to fix it in two minutes.

The BR 23 on the picture also slipped through all the QA instances at Märklin (they always show 'em on Märklin TV; I don't recall how I fixed it, but it only took a minute or two):

Hi Shannon, It would appear that it is an assembly fault & you have every right to be upset. It looks like to me you have two right hand sets of rods fitted. No part numbers are offered in the blow up diagram. But on further inspection I believe you can disassemble the rods by removing the press in press out pins & reverse angle of the rods to put it so to say on top again & all should be well. Maybe your dealer if local would be happy to do that for you or return the loco for a replacement. But you definitely are correct about one slipping through the QC process.

Hi Shannon,
I think Tom is correct, the plastic part has been inverted by "someone".

Did you get this Insider model from an authorised dealer? If so, that is the place you should complain.

regards
Kimball

It's sad to see these errors occur, however, as the locos are assembled by humans then there's bound to be human error. This doesn't rectify the problem and it's a shame that you have to pay expensive freight for the item to be repaired.

A note about QA (Quality Assurance) and QC (Quality Control). I know that this is a little off the topic, but I think it needs to be addressed.

QA is not necessarily QC. When one says that this problem passed by QA, they really mean QC. QC is the process of inspecting the production process. Whereas, QA, is addressing the procedures in a particular environment. In this case, the product was missed in QC and now QA will investigate why this happened. A lot of companies don't know the difference and these companies are the ones who don't rectify their processes to prevent the problem from occurring again. I've been trying to press this idea to the Sydney based office of one of the largest companies in the world - and they don't have a QA procedure program - madness. However, they are making plenty of money and as long as they do that, then everyone is happy in the organisation.

Regards
Greg

The vertical rod is called the "lap and lead rod", the bottom rod from the crosshead is the union link and the top one in the picture is the radius rod. To me it looks like the radius rod is just bent down, and could be carefully be bent back.

Tom, what's happened in your photo is that someone assembled the valvegear with the expansion link(curved part of the gear) in the wrong position. I've done it a few times as well. It's easily fixed by removing the nut from the crankpin, taking the eccentric crank off the crankpin and moving the expansion link back into the right position.

Cheers,
Rick

Hi Shannon,
One thing I should have asked - did the dealer notice this fault before handing over the locomotive?
If the dealer is wise enough not to attempt the repair himself, he should also be wise enough to accept the expense of returning the item to Marklin at his cost. That is my opinion.

regards
Kimball

Hi Kimball
Thanks for your suggestion.
My dealer did not find fault before delivery. I had asked him returnning it to Marklin for replacing. He agreed with my request with no shipping charge.

Hi Kimball, Shannon,
the difficulty is that a steamer model usually lies only on one side in a Marklin box.

If one side is faulty, chances are that the model may be in the "correct" position to only show the non-faulty side in the box window.

The dealer couldn't possibly spotted the fault unless he actually opened the box and lift the model out to see the other side.

Don't know how many steamers or other types of loco box that he'd have received in any one time OR whether he also sell other brands (most certainly). Add the difficulty of managing all the paperwork in relation of operating a small business, then to also cope with other in-store business problems that would also consume his time.

This make it understandable why a dealer possibly wouldn't have (the time to) lift every model out of the box to check every fault.
Not an excuse, but this is just a simple reasoning.

Glad to hear that the dealer is still being quite reasonable in the Shipment department.

Hi!
Depends on where you live. If you buy from a dealer in your country, this is just a matter of national laws.

You have no contract with Märklin (unless you buy from their webshop), so any Märklin warranty is voluntarily and they set all the rules.

If I buy from a German dealer, s/he'll have to pay for returning goods to the shop (could be parcel fee or a bus/street car/train ticket).
I never tried it, but theoretically I can have the dealer pay for the bus tickets I have to buy to return an item under warranty; I won't get 60 € for a train ticket when a parcel for 6 € would be enough.

Problem is sorted out now. Märklin could have sent spare part #23 either to Shannon or to the dealer to avoid sending the loco back to Germany.

One person made a mistake assembling the rods.
Another person assembled the loco without noticing the fault.
A third person gave this loco a test run without noticing the fault. They only check whether the loco runs and makes noise - they don't check for missing details or assembly faults.

BTW: locos come in clear plastic frames. You can take the plastic frame out of the card box to inspect the rods on both sides without opening the plastic frame (but other faults cannot be noticed on such a "quick and dirty" inspection).

In a funny way, there is something positive to look at out of all this - Marklin products (or this one at least) are STILL being made by thinking breathing humans just like us.

I'm not downplaying it, not for a minute. When you consider that the person fitting this part probably does hundreds in a week, you'd think they know straight away that it was not right.

Just going off-topic slightly, many years ago I heard an interview with a specialist dealing in counterfeiting money. The question was asked "You must spend a lot of time studying counterfeit notes?". The answer was surprising;

"No" he replied, "I only study the genuine article, because after that the counterfeit is easy to spot"

I'm sure you get my drift.

We all feel for your inconvenience, but at least a pair of hands played a part in the final product - they may have been clumsy hands of course, that just depends whether your glass is half empty, or half full

Good luck with getting it sorted. Perhaps you can ask for a photo of the original assembly worker putting it right and a signed "Certificate of Correction"?

Regards

Cookee
Melbourne