I'm Offically Mad At Kato

[TexDoc]

I finally got the GS4 replacement for the first piece of junk that derailed, shorted out, and should have never been released.
So first when I opened the tender to put the DCC decoder in all the parts fell out. The weight, and the brass connections that hold the board. So after spending 45 minutes re-building and installing the decoder I finally ran the engine. Wow!. It pulled my 12 car Daylight consist beautifully. No derailments, no decoder problems. Now lets fast forward to today...
I have run this engine maybe an hour, total. And guess what? Derail! What? Why? It threw a traction tire. Barely an hour's running total and already it throws a traction tire. Man am I mad at Kato. Here they produce this beautiful Daylight set and a stunning GS4 to pull it and the engine is crap! I am sending it back to my dealer in the morning for a refund. Unless and until Kato gets its act together and fixed ALL the GS4 problems I'm through. There is no excuse for Kato to produce this great a looking and running engine and not have traction tires stay on more that an hour.
I'm done. I'll pull my Daylights with my PA's and E9's. I would love to have used the beautiful GS4, but not with the present production run.
Thanks a lot Kato.

 

[CSXect]

Is this about par for the course as far as kato quality or is it the case of a poorly conceived design? I never had any kato stuff so the info would be nice as I someday may run a shop and it would be great info for the future.

 

[brakie]

Is this about par for the course as far as kato quality or is it the case of a poorly conceived design? I never had any kato stuff so the info would be nice as I someday may run a shop and it would be great info for the future.

Kato like all manufacturers will stumble and fall.In HO there has been several issues to include wrong colors,missing road specific details, etc.There has been some issues with their N Scale as well-mostly missing road specific details and even their drives is no longer the smoothest performers..

 

[Russ Bellinis]

I think it has everything to do with the father. The kid loves American prototype and sees a market for it in the U.S. The old man likes only Japanese prototype and couldn't care less about sales in the U.S. and Canada. The old man is in his 80's. Because of the way the older generation is revered in Japan (not a bad thing in my view as I get older), the old man will continue to run things until he either decides to retire or passes away. Right now the kid gets about 2 months per year to take over the factory and build American prototype models. When he gets the factory, he has to rush everything through and get it shipped before the old man takes over again. The result is that sometimes the quality suffers, colors are not right, and details are not prototype specific. Of course Kato is not the only manufacturer who doesn't get the details right for each prototype. P2k builds a single model and decals it for every road that had that model without changing any details for prototype specific. A case in point, my P2k Santa Fe zebra striped Gp9 has the wrong air horns.