Quality Control? in our hobby

[TsgtRet]

I've read several reviews of the new SRC cars from several different sources and it got me to thinking what we and the manufacturers accept as "ok to sell". From all reports these are beautiful cars ( and I admit to lusting after the Capris) but seem to follow the "Fly" pattern. We accept these as normal problems to be dealt with if we want that particular car. On the other hand we have people like Jules that bend over backwards and pull out their hair to bring us a quality product and actually think the words "customer service" mean something. Just an observation of the things we see in our hobby and make some of us go "hmmm".

[HomeRacingWorld]

This should be a good one.

[goosenapper]

I think it's a lack of quality for our money across the board, and not just in our hobby. I can't even count the number of dvd's that I've found scratched after opening a new copy that I bought at the store- or ones that skip or pause but show no signs of damage. Then there are the numerous computer programs or peripherals that are advertised to perform in one way only to be either incompatible, incomplete, or just flat unable to perform the stated task.

And it's not just tangible goods, but services too. I signed up for DSL "for life" at $14.99 per month. Well, the company discontinued that service and began charging me more, until my land-line and internet alone run almost $100/mo. Then there are the guys who were supposed to fix all of the crumbling bricks on my house- fixed most of them, but left a gaping hole where a brick should have gone.

It's not just slot cars, and it's not just goods- I think that there is an overall mindset of "if it's good enough to just get by, then it's good enough." Apathy has taken the place of pride in not only industries, but daily life too. When was the last time that a stranger smiled and said "hello" as you passed on the street? It doesn't happen as often as it used to. I think that the real root of the problem is that a lot of people just don't care (about others, their work, or sometimes even themselves) these days. It's possible that the WWII "get it done and give it your all!" generation's leaving of the workforce had something to do with the downturn. Like Doc Brown said in Back To The Future: "It's your Kids, Marty. Something has to be done about your kids!"

:angry-soapbox: Of course, I grew up in a small town and watched Leave It To Beaver and The Andy Griffith Show, so my view of reality may be a bit skewed. Maybe people never cared. Ok, I'm done now...

[TsgtRet]

Goose, no argument on any of your points....I just put my "slot car blinders" on when looking at it.
I think you hit it on the head with the "WWII generation leaving the workforce" comment. While I wasn't raised in a small town per se I spent most of my childhood in base housing at a Navy base (same idea). I, too watched "the Beav" and Sheriff Taylor. Most of my values came from that era.
The best lesson I ever saw on customer service was just pre 9/11 and I was at the SF airport waiting on my (then) wife. I was sitting out at the gate and there was a departure across from me that was delay for maintenance. A gentleman got off the plane and went to the desk and told them he needed to change so he would make an important connection...the ticket agent said: "Well, sir, what you need to do.." the man held up his hand and said: "STOP! I don't need to do anything, I am the customer, YOU need to make this right". And they did! Too bad the world has lost sight of that way of thinking. Soap Box empty, NEXT!

[DAVE]

It really breaks down to what the American consumer is willing to accept. Sales will always drive how much money
a manufacturer will put into the creation, production and distribution of a product. Market gurus will study similar
products, and using sales figures, consumer product reviews, and feedback from the retailers will try to decide
just what will sell and what level of quality is needed for customers to purchase the product. As long as the
American consumer is willing to accept a lower level of quality to get a slightly lower price, that is what will
be offered. I have been on the soapbox about the poor quality of foreign products for the 45 or so years that
I have been involved with manufacturing. I have listened to people complain about problems they had with a
product, then watched them go back a buy another cheap foreign made product to replace it. This is the
practice that lead corporations to buy product from offshore suppliers, and in turn shut down their stateside
production facilities which they no longer needed. And, of course that meant that the employees of those
facilities were out of work. The U.S. is largest consumer of goods in the world. If we stop buying crap, they
will stop making it.

[ElSecundo]

If you are the owner of a business, you have the right to pursue what you feel is best for you. If you have a BBQ restaurant, you might offer fish, but it's not going to be as good as your specialty. As long as people are coming in and enjoying your BBQ, it may or may not bother you if your fish isn't the greatest in the world -- it's only there to satisfy the few who come in with a family of BBQ lovers, but don't really want BBQ themselves. Does this mean that they are not taking care of their customers? Does Texas Roadhouse have to cater to Japanese guests who want sushi? I would say "No, they are going to focus on what they do best, and if that doesn't handle everyone's needs, that's unfortunate. Their product is clearly not for these folks, and that should have been plainly evident to the sushi-loving people before they walked into that restaurant." Is this a quality issue? Not at all, it's just that their particular product isn't geared for those particular customers.

"I can't get a 1:24 flexi chassis car to run worth crap on my home wood track. What a piece of garbage -- don't they know that people would buy their stuff if they made it to run on home tracks?" Well, no. I am clearly not their intended audience, and there is nothing that they should change for my benefit, unless their business model isn't allowing them to be profitable. This is the right of the business owner. If people are dissatisfied with their product, they are welcome to return it. But in our hobby, with information available the way it is, it's just plain idiotic to be uninformed. I know before buying that a Black Arrow car is likely not the kind of car that I collect. If I buy it and am dissatisfied, that's my responsibility -- and I'll know better next time.

As a consumer, I don't necessarily demand the same 'quality' that others expect. I need my cars to look awesome, and I can handle the rest if it's not a good runner. You may demand your cars to be great runners, but you don't need quality paint work, or are willing to do your own. Each manufacturer is like a Texas Roadhouse, focused on what its customers like, and saying 'sayonara' to the folks who want sushi. If customers don't know what to expect from the restaurant (or manufacturer), then they are rolling the dice when they walk in the door. Too bad for you if you walked into Texas Roadhouse wanting sushi. If it's a problem, it's not the restaurant's problem -- you should have known ahead of time what Texas Roadhouse has to offer, and if you didn't, then you accept responsibility for buying something not to your tastes.

So some of you say it's the restaurant's/manufacturer's responsibility, and lack of 'quality' is the business not taking responsibility. I say that it's the consumer not taking personal responsibility for knowing what he's buying, and then blaming the manufacturer for making something that isn't to his liking. If people are loving the company's products and the owner is making money to his satisfaction, does the owner have to satisfy the sushi lovers?

[waaytoomuchintothis]

El Sucko has a good point, as always. There is a reasonable assumption of specific quality that is not necessarily an assumption of best quality. In the case of a slot car, it may be reasonably assumed to be functional as a slot car. When it isn't, it is reasonable to squawk. In that statement is another set of assumptions, such as the assumption that if it has magnets in it, its functionality has be judged in the general area of a magnet track, the same idea as El Sockerino's 1:24 reference. So far, we aren't talking about quality control, however.

"Quality control problem" more properly refers to the failure to achieve minimum standards, not excellence. The overlap happens when superior quality control slips to minimums, the most poignant example of which would be the recent Scalextric goofs. After many years of good-to-excellent quality, something went gorky at Hornby and they produced a series of dumb mistakes, not only in quality of product, but oddly, in choice of product to produce.

Hard times in Europe and elsewhere have done in a number of slot car resources, and injured all of them. Poor Jules was double clobbered, and is fighting his way back. But he ceased to produce rather than make something crappy. I'm a Pioneer fan largely because of that attitude. I love the cars, too, but Jules is a hero. Jules knows that quality is fluid. If, for example, a "good" slot car suddenly costs twice as much as it did, the quality (that is, value per dollar), is cut in half inescapably. If, at the same time, quality controls slips, that should be a death rattle for the manufacturer, but with people committed to collecting regardless of quality or value or anything else, we still have them hanging around, tempting other manufacturers to hike up prices.

In short, after more than a decade of the most extraordinary quality and choice slot cars have ever had, we are experiencing a crisis that seems more urgent than it may be. We are still arguably in a valhalla of slot car stuff, just not quite as care free as we were just a few years ago. But the most injured manufacturers are on the mend, and though the big outfits were late to show troubles, they will no doubt also recover. For some of the bigs, there are bad decisions to get past, for others, a reality check in the leadership offices will help a lot. The situation is fluid, and the direction is toward recovery. Frankly, its a wonder we weren't much more injured by all this financial turmoil.

Also, when a steakhouse offers sushi (its not food, its bait), the owner is oblivious of the normal risks of doing business, and the person who orders it is just dumb, proving once again why it is not reasonable to perpetuate and bad decision by a manufacturer. They will just keep doing it. Collectors beware! Your patronage is misplaced.

[Jesla]

Great post, Kurt!.......

I stopped going to SteakHouses for Sushi along time ago........

Take LMM for example.....I buy them for the body and detail KNOWING it's a
total crap shoot underneath until they went slot-it. So they have a car I want
and no one else makes it......what to do...what to do.....Buy it of course!
Should I now berate the company for putting junk underneath? I don't think so
because I knew going in what to expect and they met my needs and expectations.

Another thing I stopped doing a long time ago was the need for absolute speed......

I run my cars in like-groups from Ninco Classics to all out Monsters. Another thing
that I enjoy is getting a car to run it's best with as many stock parts as possible.
This works well but there are always a few cars that jump groups for instance,
a car like an Alfa GTa that should run in the lower TransAm class but instead nearly
dominated the top tier or vise versa. So I deal with them and move on. It's the way I race.
I don't need or want every new Slot-it(or whatever) to be faster than the last. I just want
them to make something I'll buy.

[ElSecundo]

[ElSecundo]

Fair enough, 1:1 and slot cars are a bit different. But if our daily driver car broke as often as a these exotics do, we'd call them junk. The point is that exotics are not made for working schmucks like you and me -- we aren't their audience. They can have HORRIBLE service histories, but their owners love them and are happy. A LMM car is like that exotic that costs a lot (and how many times have we heard "for this price, the car should be perfect") Well, if slot car guys bought a Ferrari, would we be saying "For this price, this car should never, ever break down -- it must be junk"?

Or is the Ferrari meeting the needs and expectations of the target audience? And if it's doing that, does Ferrari have to change?

LMM is a great example, so I keep coming back to them. If their slogan printed on the box was "Beautiful slot cars for guys who like to fix shi**y cars", would it be a problem that they are tricky out of the box? Come to think of it, I really like that slogan. lol If that was the slogan, and that was the intent for the product, would they need better QC? Or would they already be meeting the expectations of their customers who just love to fix beautiful but shi**y cars? And if that model works for them, why on earth should they change what they do for somebody who didn't like fixing shi**y cars?

[TsgtRet]

You guys have hit on most of the points that are abroad in our hobby right now. It's a great hobby with a niche for everyone (remember slotters don't have faults.....they have character traits).

As someone that has a very small slot budget I have to be very critical of what I am buying and what quality it offers.

As for the 1:1 car world it is almost as emotion driven as the slot world; I was a service writer/manager for 11 years and was with VW when the New Beetle was released....it was a nightmare because they were trying to get them out the factory door as fast as they could and made many QC errors, but people were buying them regardless and loved them (would you love a car that the radio quit because a taillight burned out?), shady used dealers were even "grey marketing" them from Canada due to the demand. Emotion driven.

I mentioned the other day that someone told me Monogram makes beautiful cars then they stick a motor and gears under it and leave it up to us to sort out. This, to me, isn't a QC problem, i.e. nothing is falling off, misaligned, bent, broken. It is a poorly balanced car that needs sorted out. Wheels that fell off some of the Pioneer cars was a QC problem but Jules dealt with it at once and made sure we were happy. So a lot of this comes down to what we each will accept in the product we purchase. Some in this hobby are collectors, to me, if it's a slot car it's meant to be run....for collecting I do die cast. But if the collector is happy then the product has met his needs while the same product falls short of mine.

It's a great hobby with room for all of the "character traits" (and characters).

[TsgtRet]

M_Del, a little off topic but at that time we said the ideal inventory for a used car lot was: New Beetles, 2001 TBirds, Chevy SSR, PT Cruisers, BMW Mini Coopers and Toyota FJs. A license to print money...emotion rules!

[waaytoomuchintothis]

Yeah, the 1:1 comparison just doesn't work. Its like saying a hen's egg crushes a robins egg- so what? An ostrich egg crushes them both. Exotics aren't intended for use as a daily driver car, any more than a giant wheeled Bigfoot truck is. Compare a Ford to a Buick, and you've got something to talk about, but a Ferrari vs a Ford is the same as comparing an ATV with 4 wheels to an ore car in a mine because, "they both have 4 wheels".

By the way, a Ferrari being used as intended doesn't break down much at all. Lamborghini even less. A Lancia, or a British Leyland anything can't begin to compete for reliability.

[boopiejones]

I think LMM is a good example of how to do things correctly. They know their strengths (building beautiful bodies) and their weaknesses (chassis, running gear, etc) and have decided to outsourced their weakness to an expert in the field. And i'd be willing to bet that their cost hasn't changed much by outsourcing. Making molds for chassis and wheels isn't cheap. Probably better to buy from slot it, especially for lmm since they do relatively limited production runs.

The problem I have with poor quality slot cars is that price doesn't reflect quality. If I'm paying slot it prices, I expect slot it quality. If I'm paying $30, then I would expect to spend more money to get it running well. But the poor quality cars don't cost 30, they cost 60 (or more) and I think that is unacceptable. If the only good thing you're selling is the body, then sellme a reduced price body kit! I already have a huge pile of wobbly wheels, cracked gears and hard tires. Don't need any more, thank you.

[Jesla]