Originally Posted by: river6109 
Cookee,
I think Kimball made the right decision although you have some valid points.
For Euro 50 you don't get much for repairing a loco.
(SNIP)
So all in all.
Advise when buying second hand locos:
only use known ebay sellers with a good feedback score
be prepared to be able to repair the loco
if you can't fix it yourself, don't think your repairer will do it for nothing or the same amount Marklin will fix it for.
Don't try to fix it yourself if you know you're not able to do so
Ask the panel of experts for advise.
Don't ever think because it is cheap you've scored a bargain every time.
It is cheap to climb Mt. Everest but it is hard to get your life back, so don't try to be a hero.
John
Hi John, good response and well explained for the others.
I'm with you, and being in the repair game also (I.T., PC's, Laptops, Printers) the scenario's you described are not confined to model trains either.
Not long before I left NZ I repaired some loco's for a Gent where the value of the repair was borderline. There were 2 x 3000's, 1 x 3080 DHG and 1 x TM800. The TM800 was an absolute delight to work on, and I just loved getting that beast running smoothly - it was worthy of the attention. I did not recover all my time on that, but it was a labour of love. Particularly a repair to the old reversing unit which I wanted to keep as original as possible whilst also stretching the boundaries of the legendary "Kiwi Ingenuity". In the end the required repair was very simple, but I needed to consider all options first and that took some time. I might post a separate thread about that so as not to clutter this post.
One of the 3000's just needed simple maintenance, but needed ALL the 'consumables' replaced (tyres, pickup, brushes and lamps) - but even those soon mount up. It's a well-known formula that "The sum of the parts is greater than the whole". At the final repair cost it was close to what you 'might' pick one up for on Ebay/Trademe, but there were two big differences. We already knew the state of this Loco, mechanically it was sound and worth repair. Secondly, he had owned it for many years and whilst perhaps not quite sentimental, it was still part of his collection.
The 3080 only had a broken field coil wire and again, needed consumables, but I quite like those little DHG's, they are colourful and generally run well and still get respectable prices at auction so in my opinion was worth it.
The other 3000 was completely a basket-case. Very very worn, loose sloppy gears, the brass chassis bushings that the wheel axles run through were worn and replacing those is a job I have not yet tackled so I'd want some experience at my own risk before attempting it on someone else's.
But the owner was very happy, he was realistic about the worn 3000, largely offset by having his beloved TM800 and the other two back in his running schedule.
Interestingly, just this week I've had a different experience from the customer perspective. I took my Mitsi Lancer Wagon into Midas to get the Muffler replaced. What a fiasco. They made a real dogs-breakfast of the job, so much so that I had to go to an Exhaust specialist for a second opinion. They were gob-smacked at the shoddy job that had been done using wrong parts, and at how much I was charged (Midas $261 repair vs specialist repairer $65).
The Midas General Manager (if Franchise operations have such a thing) received my email of complaint overnight and I am awaiting their response. Being in the repair game perhaps I'm more critical than the average punter, but I'm also realistic - things go wrong, but if you're open and honest about it, anything can be resolved without taking shortcuts that end up making a simple task much worse.
Shortcut = "the longest distance between two points"
On balance, it does sound like Kimball made the right decision for his circumstances.
Cheers
Steve
