There is a young railway fan called Daniel with whom I exchange emails in the UK . You may know of him , he appears on other forums occasionally .
Last year , he bought an Aristo Mikado , and so far has hardly run it because as he describes it to me (I have not seen it ) its wheels went out of quarter very quickly because they are not locked properly to the axles .
He has not opened it up , he took it back to where he bought it , and they diagnosed the problem . The loco was returned via Bachmann and sat in their depot for 6 weeks awaiting return to the USA for examination .
He posted a query on the Aristo site , asking for advice .
It makes dreadful reading . Nobody seems to want to admit that there is a serious design fault with the model . It even says in one post to look at the previous posts because the problem has come up before , but if they want to be helpful (ha , criticism is not liked ) why not summarize the problem and suggest a cure ? The trick of “we’ve already looked at this” is a cheap politicians’ trick ,with no place on a railway forum .
The use of loctite in such a critical place , as is advocated , is nothing short of criminal . Why can the item not be correctly manufactured in the first place ? At least there should be splines , at best square axle ends to mate with quartered wheels . From the descriptions given of "cures " to the problem , this item is going to be a source of problems until everyone gets fed up and leaves them in a siding to rot while they operate decent models .
I have bought and quickly sold Aristo , I was not impressed with the quality . I stick by my other manufacturers who not only do a decent job in the first place , but provide a decent spares service locally and do not require a six week wait in a warehouse whilst a container full is produced from defective items . Just think how long this lad is going to have to wait until his loco is back . Not very good . Does no end of harm to the good name of the United States .
I , based on my experience with Aristo , would not touch another of their models with a bargepole . Fortunately , my prior experience with other models originating in the US kept me buying US , if Aristo had been the first example I bought , I doubt I would have bought any from the US for serious operation .
Critique over to you–do you think they are up to scratch ?
Mike M