I have 2 koffs which have on the box made in Germany Goppingen.


Trix modells are perhaps made in China not the Marklin ones. I have not seen one train from Marklin made in China yet.

And for the rest this all bulsh-t. Maybe there a couple of koffs which have problems with their paintjob. But if you see what is happening with older Roco trains then Marklin is still top of the bill.

Over time there's been quite some debate over the" made in China" issue.

From what I seem to understand,there's a considerable difference in the legislation on this topic between the European and the US governments.
While in Europe we may be happy with a label "made in Germany" this "statement" may be a legal offence in the US when that isn't entirely true.
So your Köf might well have been finished/assembled and packed in Göppingen and labeled as "made in Germany",but a large part of that loco may still have been made in China.
And that's where I think the differences between the way we see it stem from



Kind regards
Guus


edited:once again a posting that crossed another one.Sorry Dale couldn't help!

The Zinc corrosion topic is also"hot" on the HAG forum.

I know there are quite a few members here that can read German,so i thought you may like this reference to the HAG forum.There's a very informative link to a scientific explanation on Zink corrossion to be found in the first posting on this topic there.


http://www.forum.hag-info.ch/viewtopic.php?t=671

Kind regards
Guus

The made in China thing keeps coming up. All I know is if you live in the USA or Britain then the country where the goods are made must be stated on the box and /or on the article itself. What happens in other European countries I dont know. It is the same with manufacturer warranties, they are pointless here and I expect in many other countries where the sale of goods law is the only thing that counts.
As I said earlier I dont really see a problem with the Marklin Kofs in general but as 7 Gauges has said he has seven of them made in China but many European countries other than the UK appear not have a legal requirement as to where their stuff is made.

David

From Guus: The link from the HAG-forum: http://www.8703.ch/train...fo/zinkkorrosion_hag.pdf

@Davy: It is not Bull****!

I have seen this many times; on many different items; but never on any model-train.

The reason for me, not to have seen it happen on trains, is the storrage.

Per.

Yes, "not caring much" where it is made and how it is manufactured (all for the sake of a lower price) has been one of the many causes of the decline of the German industrial manufacturing sector, in recent history ......

It is also ridiculous to assume these are counterfeit models - there is a limited profit margin on these low cost models (the Koef)to begin with - the big money is in counterfeiting the expensive models.

Just accept the fact that outsourced Marklin manufacturing in Asia has at some point not been subject to rigorous quality controls - and forget the true BS about these being counterfeit models ... in fact that is just about the most inane excuse I have heard for poor quality on this particular brand.

Interestingly, however all of the recent Miniclub stuff (which now <u>all</u> comes out of China) has been of exceptional quality ... it is pretty clear that the outsourced manufacturing in China occurs at two entirely different sites.

Good point![^]

Why is it that when a quality issue occurs, everyone jumps to the conclusion that the Chinese are to blame? IMHO this kind of problem can just as well occur on a product that was completely manufactured in Germany (or anywhere in the world for that matter). In fact, where I work we have to deal with a lot of quality issues from our European suppliers (including Germany). Cutting costs is done everywhere and not always without touching quality.
In the end, Marklin is responsible for quality control, raw materials used and the manufacturing process, wherever the product is made.

Just my 2 cents!

but i fear nothing will happen......
alfred
You may fear this, but whenever there was a problem in the past, they settled it. 4 out 7 Sinus 2 engines are back now and the electronic parts have been updated or exchanged. V90, E10.3, and VT798 are running fine now. I am still waiting for the VT08, 39572 and HWZ.
So thaks to Marklin for their good service. I am sure that all the owners of that KÖf will be helped.

Friendly advice from Webmaster...

Please don't quote pictures in topic replies unless it is a relevant detail you wish to point out...

Here's the reply my dealer got on 16/01/2008, regarding the c-sine campaign:

“Dear Mr. Antunes,

there is no ongoing upgrade campaign for the C-Sinus motor.
New locos of course have the new motor.

Best regards“

I sent two compact c-sine loks in October complaining about running characteristics. I got them back, untouched, with an "individual" response letter saying there would be a campaign, starting in the end of 2007. In January they deny that, while taking care of German clients. I wonder what is going on?

4 am in Europe:

In the absence of Lutz, I would like to point out,
that I never experienced any circles in any of my trains,
nor was I ever sent in any circles by Märklin.

My layout is a circle, and I send my trains in cirles; but this is solely
my decision, and I see no reason whatsoever to blame Märklin for this.

Per.

P.S: Counterfeit models, or anything else, from the correct mould?
Either thrown out by the quality control or stolen, and then
build by employees, taking the rest of the parts elsewhere.

hello lutz, your statement :
PS: I see no reason why Märklin would want to post anything on their website (all those "great" forums in the world do this already; someone not using i-net would not know it anyways ) or any other medium, unless they have made a decision which they deem important to be known by all their customers. If a customer has a problem with a model she/he can claim it; the corresponding, individual response is what counts for her/him, nothing else.

exactly says why maerklin should publish the problem, only owners of the 36805 which use internetforums are now aware of the problem, i think there are many owners of the 36805 which are not members here or elsewhere.
and they should do it in advance before the problem will be published in other publications (MIBA for example), that would be good for their reputation.
i would have never noticed the problem without the forum here, you can't see it at a first glance when you look at the KÖF, only the falling out bumpers are another sign of it. and in another 6 years period from now on the model would fall into dust after unpacking from the box....

let's see (and hope)....
alfred

I have a lot to say about the Märklin communication departement, but I'll save some of it to another post.
Regarding what's been said above, I can just say that any company having the above attitude towards customer relations will, and indeed should, perish...

Sander has a good point when talking about the change of communications. Information spreads extremely fast these days. For good and for worse. Just look at the stock-markets.

But this is how it is, and it's Märklin who has to adopt to this! They must simply be more "transparent" in questions like this and show that they do care about their customers and their problems. That doesn't mean that they have to react to every rumour, but when there is a problem with any substans to it, they must get some information out. Stopping or clearifying rumours can only be of benefit to them in the long run.

And finally, the e-mail service... If you don't have time to answer the e-mails, close the service down until you do have the time. This is a service every modern company thinks it must have. But as it is today, it's just "badwill" for Märklin.

Sorry for going a bit off-topic.

/Torbjörn

hello eduardo,
i followed the recommendation to send it to maerklin service one week ago, i will post the result immendiately when i get an answer. your problem will be the high postage from venezuela to germany....reading some forums about this problem, we can be sure that the koef's are made in china, although the boxes of the koefs sold in germany state 'made in germany', if only 8% of the worth of the merchandise is sourced in germany you are allowed here to write 'made in germany'...no further comment about this.
personnally i do not insist on 'made in germany' or whereever, but this is a high-price product and i insist on quality...
good luck
alfred

36804: Made in Germany.

Thank you all for the welcome. Now I am very concernd with the probabilitie that other models can have zinkpest. I hope that this will be only for this kof. I will be watching my colletion specialy for all items bought since 2001.

Best ragards
Eduardo Palacios

Hi folks
For being involved for many years with old Marklin restorations, the basic cause for zinkpest to appear comes simply from the quality/purity of the material used during the injection process.
It is possible that, regardless of where it was produced, the material used in a few batches of Köfs was defective and in short time triggered the onset of the "disease", as the ambient humidity reacts with teh contaminants (essentially SO2), creating sulfuric acid which breaks the metal particles down into white powder.
There is no cure, but it can be stopped by simply sealing the entire surface of the incriminated part.
Not always possible, but I have had durable success (Over 20 years) by immersing the parts into highly liquid/ high temperature epoxy mix, then let it cure after wiping up the excess.
Marklin has never been prompt to acknowledge a problem like this, but if they want to prove they are really in the 21st Century in terms of customer satisfaction, they should have put in place a replacement program.
Maybe some of our friend here, "close to the factory" could enlighten us.
Marklin-cinically and -clinically yours

HAG did make such a Te 2/2 switching loco a long time ago. It's a bit out of scale by today's standards, but cute and certainly without Zinkpest. The model often turns up on Ebay, but mostly for DC operation only.

See this example:
http://cgi.ebay.de/HAG-o...WDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

so finally my 36805 has returned from M service, with the notice 'loco completely exchanged', and both my BR44 are back, too, from a so called 'service partner' of M. i have not documented for myself the serial number of my 36805 so i can't proof if i have got a complete other loco or not, but as stated in other threads, the decoder ist not the same as in my old one. the 'new' 36805 shows tracks of usage, the slider is clearly used. this weekend i will try to check all the repaired stuff, my lesson learned for the future : do not rely on the M quality which i was used to, check all items after arriving.
so i look forward the the pre-ordered 2008 new items....
again thanks to this forum for the notice here of problems with 36805, i would have noticed this for sure much time later....
alfred
alfred

of course i am happy with the service of M, but i would be happier if there would be no need for service, as it was for all my M items since 1960. and i am very unhappy feeling that many owners of the 36805 will recognize the problems much time later and then get no more exchange of the product by M, one reason can be that there is only a limited number of this version still in stock at M. and both problems with my BR44's are for sure due to a lack of 'end of productionline' control. in former years locos carried a tag proving this control...
alfred

This topic now seems to turn into a court case after Marklin apparently fired their "chief developer" a couple of weeks ago in connection with the Zinkpest discussion on the Internet.

Perhaps somebody is able to provide an English summary of this article that appeared today:

http://www.handelsblatt....an-maerklins-nerven.html

Really good translation. So, why learn a language when you have google?

me too but it

Seems that way.

But Lutz has posted many times since the article says Kern was fire on the 22 of Feb. So maybe not

"Zinkpest" is an incurable disease that hopefully should now be eliminated from modern locomotives. Zinc pest is a form of intercrystalline corrosion. The process is accelerated by moisture in warm air and relative humidities of 65% or greater. Hydrogen released from water migrates into the grain boundaries of the zinc alloy and causes expansion which results in cracking along those grain boundaries.

Zinc can be alloyed with aluminum, magnesium, copper, lead and cadmium usually at levels less than 1%. Larger concentrations of iron, lead, cadmium and tin could have an adverse effect on corrosion resistance, which results in structural weakening of the die casting.

Two types of zinc alloy were developed. In the 1920's, ZAMAK (zinc-aluminum-magnesium-copper) and in the 1970's ZA (zinc-alumunium) were produced. The ZAMAK contains about 4% aluminum and are identified by their numbers 3,5 and 7.

Maerklin uses ZAMAK 410 which is like ZAMAK 3 or 5. ZAMAK 3 and 5 differ by the addition of 1% copper to the 5 to make it more ductile.

Permitted additives (= aimed added metals to reach around certain material properties) in cast alloys ZAMAK 3: Aluminum 3.8 to 4.3% copper up to 0,03% magnesium 0.03 to 0,06%.

Permitted impurities (= which one can still tolerate at impurities to hold around the costs of the production in the framework): Iron max. 0.1% nickel max. 0.02% manganese max. 0.01% lead max. 0.005% cadmium max. 0.005% tin max. 0,003%

Data suggests that higher levels of copper and lead in the zinc alloy aid the degradation. High levels of aluminum can cause oxidation to occur leading to rust.

Some people regard tin pest as the actual cause of zinc pest. With tin pest pure metallic beta-tin is converted below 13,2°C into non-metallic alpha-tin. Energy becomes free and the density falls, i.e. the volume grows. Because the content of tin is well under 1%, then the volume in the zinc alloy to cause zinc pest alone by tin is not really substantiated.

A comprehensive treatise on zinc pest is given by Peter Berg at
http://www.tischeisenbahn.de/Restauri/page4.htm

One can always get the metal analyzed using Wavelength or Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence (WD-or ED-XRF)to see whether or not you have a good metal alloy casting. If parts are being manufactured in China there is a good chance that lead levels will be high. As those of us here in the USA are fully aware there has been a plethora of childrens toys manufactured in China that have been recalled due to high lead levels.

Maerklin should have their Quality Control Department conduct routine WD-or ED-XRF analyses on their metal castings. These instruments cost anywhere from $25,000 up to over $100,000 depending on the sophistication of the analyses and detection limits required. There are now hand-held models that could easily be used to do rapid testing. For a reasonably minor investment in this technology Maerklin may save thousands of dollars and valued customers.

Hi Guus,

Thanks for the nice comments. I know that some German TRIX Express and British TRIX Twin models suffered from "zinkpest" in the 1930's and 1940's. We know that it was due to inferior materials and supplies due to the war effort and its aftermath. In the major industrialized countries our metal processing technologies should have this under control. China is catching up but still has a long way to go in material selection and quality systems.

For Maerklin to fire a chief development engineer after 23 years of service certainly makes one wonder what is happening in Goppingen. Is there more to the story or was he the corporate scapegoat?