Hello all and thank you very much for the support. I'm still very new to the world of model trains and my learning curve is still quite steep.
The train I purchased was a Bumble Bee 4-6-0. The box says #91602. It did come with the metal swing arm thing up front and shortly after running it the thing would stutter and was kind of jerky. The lights would flicker. After some of you offered suggestions on how to troubleshoot, I used my Ohm meter on the truck assembly and could see that under certain conditions the pickups would present an open circuit and drop voltage.
After explaining this to the tech at Bachmann, he sent me a replacement swing arm assembly. After replacing the swing arm assembly all was running very very nicely but then after a few hours of use I detected a second problem which presented as a ticking sound. It got worse over time and then when I opened the bottom cover I then noticed that it appeared that the brass axle carriers were turning in the plastic chassis mount locations and were chewing up the plastic.
After again contacting Bachmann they asked me to send the entire locomotive in. The turn around time was very fast. I was quite pleased with this. It appeared as though they replaced the entire unit. Before putting it onto my track I thought to inspect and lubricate as I know this is important. When I turned the unit over I noticed that the bottom side was very much different. The front carrier assembly was a plastic affair and now had a spring in the middle. When I removed the bottom lubrication/inspection cover so as to apply grease, I noticed that the gears were now plastic instead of brass.
I did contact Bachmann again and asked why the different unit. The service manager said she would look into it. A few days later I received a phone call from the technician who essentially said that the replacement chassis with the brass and metal parts were not available and that the unit that I received was as good as the one I previously had and that it would serve me for many years to come. It was explained to me that this is how they do warranty replacements and that I should not be alarmed. I was encouraged to put it on the track and run it.
Currently I have my replacement engine running, pulling my newly lighted caboose and so far after about 2 hours of run time, all is well :-)
The train I purchased was a Bumble Bee 4-6-0. The box says #91602. It did come with the metal swing arm thing up front and shortly after running it the thing would stutter and was kind of jerky. The lights would flicker. After some of you offered suggestions on how to troubleshoot, I used my Ohm meter on the truck assembly and could see that under certain conditions the pickups would present an open circuit and drop voltage.
After explaining this to the tech at Bachmann, he sent me a replacement swing arm assembly. After replacing the swing arm assembly all was running very very nicely but then after a few hours of use I detected a second problem which presented as a ticking sound. It got worse over time and then when I opened the bottom cover I then noticed that it appeared that the brass axle carriers were turning in the plastic chassis mount locations and were chewing up the plastic.
After again contacting Bachmann they asked me to send the entire locomotive in. The turn around time was very fast. I was quite pleased with this. It appeared as though they replaced the entire unit. Before putting it onto my track I thought to inspect and lubricate as I know this is important. When I turned the unit over I noticed that the bottom side was very much different. The front carrier assembly was a plastic affair and now had a spring in the middle. When I removed the bottom lubrication/inspection cover so as to apply grease, I noticed that the gears were now plastic instead of brass.
I did contact Bachmann again and asked why the different unit. The service manager said she would look into it. A few days later I received a phone call from the technician who essentially said that the replacement chassis with the brass and metal parts were not available and that the unit that I received was as good as the one I previously had and that it would serve me for many years to come. It was explained to me that this is how they do warranty replacements and that I should not be alarmed. I was encouraged to put it on the track and run it.
Currently I have my replacement engine running, pulling my newly lighted caboose and so far after about 2 hours of run time, all is well :-)