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Hornby Poor Quality!

14161 Views 48 Replies 25 Participants Last post by  Doug, 
T
Has anyone noticed how the quality of Hornby seems to have gone downhill since they went to China?

When I say quality I DON'T mean detailing. Their loco's largely have cheap disposable can motors, poor traction, bits that fall off when you gingerly take them out of the box, spare bodies are non exisitant other than factory seconds and a few end of production run items.

Even the current re-issues of the Lord of the Isles and Caley single have been cocked up by Hornby fitting a new chassis and a tiny disposable motor in the locos instead of the X.05 motor. This has made the lack of traction on this loco even worse.

My family own a model shop and we had 122 Hornby loco's ordered for the start of the holiday season(we normally shift that lot in a month during the holiday season) and 77 of the loco's had defects ranging from poor assembly to motors that just didn't work, to marked linning. The quality control seems to have gone to pot at the big H.
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B
Take your points Sol,

We are lucky enough to have a stand alone fax, but most computers have a fax facility buried somewhere in the software.

Pity you had a bad response from the UK - not a good example of customer service.

The spammers will probably manage to kill off e-mail in it's present form. Eventually I expect we will have some sort of 2-tier system that you subscribe to where you have 2 pay something like a penny or cent for each e-mail or 10 e-mails you send - that's the only way I can see of reducing it.
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A
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Anyway, we get enough orders from phones calls or personal visits or Royal mail & not have to concern ourselves with electronic orders"

Consequently, that retailer is off my list.

which retailer was that then?

The sort of response you quote smacks of arrogance?
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Sol
The firm concerned was Totally Trains.
I had ordered a Hornby Terrier from their website & when my UK friend contacted them, outside of what I already have indicated, they also said " Nil stock" & when my friend mentioned about the Web having stock, the impression he gained was that the person speaking to him could not care & they still had it advertised for some months later. I never received any e-mails back from them at all.
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G
Funnily enough it was Totally Trains that I had suspicions about a few years ago. They were advertising in RM a certain locomotive at a very competitive price (Lima Class 50 I think it was) so I rang TT and was told that they had only minutes earlier sold the last one but was there anything else I wanted. Now life having taught me to be suspicious of everything that eats and breaths I got my partner to ring them a few days later to enquire about the same loco. Surprise, surprise she was told they had just only minutes earlier sold the last one but could they help her with anything else! Coincidence - maybe, maybe not. Like Sol, I've never been back.

Steve
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D
Well in my case as I mentioned in a previous entry - my E-mail to Hattons to procure a Heljan Class 27 was never answered, now removed Hattons from my list. My apologies to "Gofer" for this additional entry.
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G
Why use email and not the secure order processing mechanisms when purchasing online?


You should pass on any online store that does not have real time order processing, secure order processing, and real time stock updates as it suggests the outfit does not wish to treat online customers seriously.

Now the issue of course is that many cottage industry types are not capable of offering any of these criteria and cannot afford to employ website designers to enable these criteria given that there is a home made website of sorts in place.

We seem to have moved from discussion around poor Hornby quality to poor customer service and is it this that is the real issue and that poor customer service by third parties reflects unfairly on Hornby?


Happy modelling
Gary
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D
I'm a little late jumping on this thread but I'm old enough to remember the days when "Made in Japan" meant junk. When you bought a Japanese car and after a couple of years the doors sagged and you had to lift them to close your door.

The quality will come if you are willing to pay for it, irrespective of where its made. The problem I see it is that too many expect all of the bells & whistles at no increase in price. Something has to give.
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P
QUOTE (Gary @ 7 May 2007, 19:42) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Why use email and not the secure order processing mechanisms when purchasing online?


We seem to have moved from discussion around poor Hornby quality to poor customer service and is it this that is the real issue and that poor customer service by third parties reflects unfairly on Hornby?


Happy modelling
Gary

The answer to your first question is because its easier.
the answer to your second is yes, i agree.

Totally trains came up on the last page.
When i lived in gloucester (6 years ago now) i used to be able to go in there with my pocket money and hapily walk away with a couple of box cars or an athearn BB loco or a new kit to build. i never left there unhappy. not long after i left gloucester i was in ross for a day and so i popped in. for some reason it had gone all up market and there really wasnt much i could afford. it was mostly expensive continental stock that i had no interest in. it seemed like they had embraced the cream but given up on the bread and butter. there were a few walthers kits but thats was about it in my price range. i went home with some KD's and a magazine.
I have been back a few times since and now i seem to leave the shop mildly depressed. i remember it for what it was and not what it is now.
A large part of the shop has been partitioned off to give them more space for the mail order operation and whats left dosent interest me any more.

A real pity.

I still love those cheap athearn kits but i now buy them at the NMRA convention once a year.

Peter
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Doug
As threads do from time to time, then wind in and out of the fabric of life.

I close this one as it has run out of yarn and is fraying at the edges. If you wish to take up any specific issue mentioned herein, please start another, more suitably titled topic.
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