Who should be responsible for the cost of mazak rot.

[cypherman]

Hi all,

Just a question and a thought. If you bought a car and 10 years down the line it was found that it had a serious problem in its manufacture they would recall these cars and fix the for free. Why is it that we let companies use substandard alloys in their products and when Mazak rot sets in we just accept it. Surly if substandard materials are used and the items fail it is the fault of the companies selling them and not ours. Should they not be forced to replace the faulty items. Any thought on this would be welcome.

[DCB]

Seems like the manufacturer should be responsible, but we don't usually buy from a manufacturer so it's the retailers responsibility,  if it fails in a reasonable time frame.  Retailer,  Exactly the same as with a car. Retailer should have comeback from the wholesaler, Hornby usually, and they should have come back from the manufacturer, but they are based somewhere in the far east so precious little chance of that and anyway the cost is probably only what, 10/20% of retail.     Obviously I tried to send my very secondhand Duchess of Atholl back to Meccano at Bins Road Liverpool when it got Mazak rot but they have moved away without leaving a forwarding address.    What is a reasonable time frame?  12 months, 50 years?  Its all a bit academic to me as I can't afford to buy new locos anyway.

[Hal Nail]

6 hours ago, cypherman said:

Why is it that we let companies use substandard alloys in their products and when Mazak rot sets in we just accept it.

 

Lets not forget it isnt done deliberately.

 

Like most discussions, this boils down to the almost universally overlooked problem that money doesnt grow on trees.

 

If manufacturers were forced to fix everything we expect from 10 year old mazac rot to missing handrails and slightly wrong shape tooling, they would go bust.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Hal Nail
typo

[Il Grifone]

Zinc pest* is such a long standing problem (nearly 100 years at least) that it should have been long solved.

However it is the retailer's responsibility, but for how long is a moot point.

It is unusual for a Dublo 'Atholl', or any post-war Meccano product, to suffer, but, since their guarantee was only 90 days,** I don't know what their response would have been - probably a new locomotive as a goodwill/keep quiet gesture.

 

*    The stuff is commonly called 'mazak'. but it is a trade name and didn't suffer AFAIK.

**  Manufacturers could get away with it back then!

 

 

[spamcan61]

6 hours ago, cypherman said:

Hi all,

Just a question and a thought. If you bought a car and 10 years down the line it was found that it had a serious problem in its manufacture they would recall these cars and fix the for free. 

Only if the fault is safety related, plenty of folks have forked out big bills for inherent design/manufacture faults a few years down the line. 

 

Personally it boils down to the perennial question of how long products are supposed to last. I think it's unrealistic to expect anybody to pick up the bill for a 20 year old toy train. Seems zinc pest is just one of those things we have to take a chance on.

[Hal Nail]

2 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

Seems zinc pest is just one of those things we have to take a chance on.

I dont know in these days of outsourced production, if the manufacturers are equally at the mercy of the factory? They can specify the quality of the zinc but can they tell what has actually been used?

[PaulG]

I guess it falls into the same category as some plastic goes brittle, steel rusts, some scenery flock material isn't colour fast etc etc, with age. And my liquid superglue goes thick in the bottle!!!!

 

Paul

[APOLLO]

A market here surely for a cottage industry to make replacement chassis etc out of brass etc for the most popular affected models ?

 

Brit15

[spamcan61]

10 minutes ago, Hal Nail said:

I dont know in these days of outsourced production, if the manufacturers are equally at the mercy of the factory? They can specify the quality of the zinc but can they tell what has actually been used?

Oh absolutely, I had this in my day job back in 2009; specified a specific grade of stainless steel for some screws in an equipment cabinet made to my specification  by a leading Chinese supplier, their subsequent chemical analysis showed they were using the wrong grade. They never admitted to it of course.

[spamcan61]

16 minutes ago, PaulG said:

I guess it falls into the same category as some plastic goes brittle, steel rusts, some scenery flock material isn't colour fast etc etc, with age. And my liquid superglue goes thick in the bottle!!!!

 

Paul

Worryingly I've had 3 plastic items (2 TV remote controls and an MP3 player) go 'sticky' after a decade or so, and these are items that spent most of their life in a cupboard. Hopefully it's related to lots of skin contact when in use early on, but it's not something I've seen before. thinking about it Lexus had a similar problem with dashboards on some IS250s.

Edited June 22, 2022 by spamcan61

[Dunsignalling]

5 hours ago, APOLLO said:

A market here surely for a cottage industry to make replacement chassis etc out of brass etc for the most popular affected models ?

 

Brit15

Brass replacement castings for the dodgy motor mount in Hornby T9s have been available from Peter's Spares for a year or three,,,,

 

John

Edited June 22, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[Dunsignalling]

22 minutes ago, PaulG said:

I guess it falls into the same category as some plastic goes brittle, steel rusts, some scenery flock material isn't colour fast etc etc, with age. And my liquid superglue goes thick in the bottle!!!!

 

Paul

I keep my superglue in the fridge between uses. Seems to stave off the thickening...

 

John

[Bernard Lamb]

1 hour ago, Hal Nail said:

I dont know in these days of outsourced production, if the manufacturers are equally at the mercy of the factory? They can specify the quality of the zinc but can they tell what has actually been used?

Quite easily. A quick check is to weigh the parts. Once you have an acceptable tolerance band, backed up by chemical analysis. a sample test of the parts will show up any problems. It us quite a long job to set up the procedure as a catch all. For toy trains it would not be worth while but for any safety critical items it would be essential. There is of course the question of age and storage conditions and any chemical contamination as well as faulty original material when finding the problem in parts made a long time ago. 

We had a list of parts that had to be made from checked raw material. Parts that could be made without checks and you trusted the specification from the supplier. Parts that could include a certain percentage of waste material from the casting process. Parts that could include scrap parts and even floor sweepings.

Bernard

[Johan DC]

2 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

Zinc pest* is such a long standing problem (nearly 100 years at least) that it should have been long solved.

It is older than 100 years. In the first Worldwar, the Royal Navy blockede of the Central Powers was so effective, the German industry made the fuses for their artillery shells out of Mazak. Which made them less effective, especially around Ypres, and a serious nuisance for Bomb dispossal units today. (my old job). A British bras fuze today, over a century old, looks almost brand new in comarison, even with settings, date, factory etc. still clearly vissible. A German one, half gone, rotten away, with the steel firing pin dangerously sticking out, with almost nothing to stop it.

 

On topic, are there laws or reglements for material or components? 

 

 

[DCB]

41 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

Quite easily. A quick check is to weigh the parts. Once you have an acceptable tolerance band, backed up by chemical analysis. a sample test of the parts will show up any problems. It us quite a long job to set up the procedure as a catch all. For toy trains it would not be worth while but for any safety critical items it would be essential. There is of course the question of age and storage conditions and any chemical contamination as well as faulty original material when finding the problem in parts made a long time ago. 

We had a list of parts that had to be made from checked raw material. Parts that could be made without checks and you trusted the specification from the supplier. Parts that could include a certain percentage of waste material from the casting process. Parts that could include scrap parts and even floor sweepings.

Bernard

Mate, these are toy trains, Not ICBMs   0% of us actually contact Bachby or Hornmann to demand a refund, the last thing they want to do is fail anything they receive, they just want to send a couple to the model press for glowing reviews of the number size and shape of the rivets and shove the product out of the door to get their money back before they pay the supplier their 10% cut of the total list price.  We pay a lot, the supplier gets little.  If they can use a cheaper brand of material, or slip a couple through which should have failed quality control, well C'est Lavvy, you aren't going to North Corea and grip the foreman round the throat and have a reasoned discussion are you.   

 

2 hours ago, APOLLO said:

A market here surely for a cottage industry to make replacement chassis etc out of brass etc for the most popular affected models ?

Brit15

I would think we are talking £40/50 retail even just for a replacement block and most of you will pay a tenner tops.     Much more fun to moan than to whittle a new one from a bit of old wood, from a skip.  Or a nice bit of ivory, From a long dead Victorian Pianoforte not a freshly dead elephant...

[Bernard Lamb]

14 minutes ago, DCB said:

Mate, these are toy trains, Not ICBMs   0% of us actually contact Bachby or Hornmann to demand a refund, the last thing they want to do is fail anything they receive, they just want to send a couple to the model press for glowing reviews of the number size and shape of the rivets and shove the product out of the door to get their money back before they pay the supplier their 10% cut of the total list price.  We pay a lot, the supplier gets little.  If they can use a cheaper brand of material, or slip a couple through which should have failed quality control, well C'est Lavvy, you aren't going to North Corea and grip the foreman round the throat and have a reasoned discussion are you.   

 

I would think we are talking £40/50 retail even just for a replacement block and most of you will pay a tenner tops.     Much more fun to moan than to whittle a new one from a bit of old wood, from a skip.  Or a nice bit of ivory, From a long dead Victorian Pianoforte not a freshly dead elephant...

What the hell is that all about?

I was trying to answer  a technical question and at no point did I mention toy trains.

As I read it you actually agree with me that the standard in model trains is quite along way down the list from what is possible.

Bernard

[Enterprisingwestern]

My 2 cents worth.

If something wasn't made right in the first place, be it toy trains, houses, cars, electrical equipment or whatever, then a lifetime guarantee should apply, wear and tear is a perfectly acceptable reason for things to wear out so I'm not advocating that things last forever, but to accelerate the demise of something because it wasn't manufactured right to begin with is unacceptable.

 

Mike.

[Barry Ten]

3 hours ago, spamcan61 said:

Worryingly I've had 3 plastic items (2 TV remote controls and an MP3 player) go 'sticky' after a decade or so, and these are items that spent most of their life in a cupboard. Hopefully it's related to lots of skin contact when in use early on, but it's not something I've seen before. thinking about it Lexus had a similar problem with dashboards on some IS250s.

 

The early Lumix G cameras had the same problem, which was not addressed, and I've also had several guitar stands go sticky/g;luey, all from the same manufacturer, and again no redress.

 

With the Lumix, I was able to get the coating off using cotton buds and alcohol, taking it back to bare black plastic. It looks cheap and nasty now (and the function labels were lost in the process) but it's much nicer to handle.

[33C]

Google " Tofu dreg" !

[daltonparva]

Hornby products seem to suffer a lot from this, especially relatively recent products. Bachmann not so much. My experience anyway.

[Allegheny1600]

I doubt this will be popular!

 

If you want cheap products, then China/Far East will provide but woe betide you if they fail.

 

If you want quality products, make them where you can control the quality. This usually means a “Western” nation but China/Far East can do it when they want to (Apple products, Samsung, Sony etc. Etc).

But be prepared to pay the cost of such quality.

[kevinlms]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

My 2 cents worth.

If something wasn't made right in the first place, be it toy trains, houses, cars, electrical equipment or whatever, then a lifetime guarantee should apply, wear and tear is a perfectly acceptable reason for things to wear out so I'm not advocating that things last forever, but to accelerate the demise of something because it wasn't manufactured right to begin with is unacceptable.

 

Mike.

Define 'lifetime guarantee'? That is a key part of the question.

Apparently, Hornby give a 12 month warranty on their models, including locomotives. So there should be no question, within the first year if the mazak rot affects the model.

 

It's after the first year that there becomes a problem. It is reasonable to expect Hornby to be responsible for additional time beyond that, at least another year.

 

What about them offering an extended warranty, at an additional cost - lots of manufacturers and retailers too, offer that? Maybe to take it out to 5 years - after that you're on your own.

 

But will you then run into the infernal problem of - 'You didn't get it serviced regularly by us'!

[Steamport Southport]

5 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Define 'lifetime guarantee'? That is a key part of the question.

Apparently, Hornby give a 12 month warranty on their models, including locomotives. So there should be no question, within the first year if the mazak rot affects the model.

 

It's after the first year that there becomes a problem. It is reasonable to expect Hornby to be responsible for additional time beyond that, at least another year.

 

What about them offering an extended warranty, at an additional cost - lots of manufacturers and retailers too, offer that? Maybe to take it out to 5 years - after that you're on your own.

 

But will you then run into the infernal problem of - 'You didn't get it serviced regularly by us'!

 

Lifetime Guarantee (sometimes called Lifetime Warranty)  is usually 20 years with normal wear and tear. You will get a replacement of similar type and value to the item.

 

Normally found on things like luggage/rucksacks, walking boots, tents, bicycles, etc.

 

If the item is deemed to have been misused then you can be refused. But they are usually fine.

 

 

Jason

[SR71]

I was told - can't remember but whom but who had some knowledge - it was often contamination that causes pest rather than consiously cheaping out on the materials - although that will cause it clearly. One is a matter of process where as the latter is bad faith.

 

This is why some people end up with a 'good one'. It will be from a melt that wasn't contaminated. We buy castings for work and for all the wizzbangery today it's still effectively throwing bits in a very hot pot and stirring. Often runners or failed castings from a previous melt will be thrown in. I believe if some of these have been round the cycle too many times it can cause problems.

 

In probability even the casting suppliers aren't knowingly providing defective products. The only way to stop it would be to have resident inspectors monitoring that the processes are following best practice and that takes a lot out of your bottom line on small run products. It's typically only done for critical items for pressure system or aerospace applications etc.

 

Quality vs price. A cheaper supplier may be so because they save time by not following the best practice to the letter but the ones that do fully price themselves out the market. As is seen on here with every new release price is the dominating factor other 'issues' are traded off against.

 

20 years ago Bachmann chassis were available off the shelf at most model shops but that seems to have gone by the way. Availability of replacement mechanisms is the issue now that we have lots of small run models. Beyond a few years even the manufacturer won't have replacements. If it were possible to get these then pest in 10yo models would be less of an annoyance.

 

As said above car recalls are only for safety critical items and there are plenty of defects that don't come under this. Beyond the standard warranty period you would be looking at some kind of latent defect clause but as, in all probability, these would be not negligent or even known at the time of manufacture you would have a hard time claiming it.

 

If you tried to enforce recompense for 20 year old models you soon wouldn't have any manufacturers as they would be broke. Even if they didn't pay out the adminstration of claims for models that failed for all reasons would be prohibitive.

 

Finally, the best course of action if bitten is not to buy from that manufacturer again. It doesn't get your model back but at least stops you getting bitten again and hopefully sends a message to the manufacturer.

 

Sorry that turned into a bit of a monologue. I hope it is worth reading though.

[Enterprisingwestern]

1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

Define 'lifetime guarantee'? That is a key part of the question.

Apparently, Hornby give a 12 month warranty on their models, including locomotives. So there should be no question, within the first year if the mazak rot affects the model.

 

It's after the first year that there becomes a problem. It is reasonable to expect Hornby to be responsible for additional time beyond that, at least another year.

 

What about them offering an extended warranty, at an additional cost - lots of manufacturers and retailers too, offer that? Maybe to take it out to 5 years - after that you're on your own.

 

But will you then run into the infernal problem of - 'You didn't get it serviced regularly by us'!

 

My point is that "built in obsolescence", ie, the use of inferior materials, shouldn't be the responsibility of the end user.

In the case of mazak rot, as Hornby have accepted it as a problem in the first few years then they are duty bound to replace faulty goods which are found to be made of the same suspect material ad infinitum.

When I win the lottery the crap peddled by model railway manufacturers is on my radar for a court visit!

 

Mike.