What I don't get, is why some people fawn over the manufacturers, it's the same on Pinside and other forums. If the product isn't good quality then the customers has every right to complain and ask for the issue to be rectified. It's that simple. Having to swap out a playfield of all its components is just not right, sure it's a solution that Stern and Nino settled on, but it's just not right and could be argued sets a precedence. If Stern and other manufactures can get away with this sort of treatment, what onus is there for them to do anything over and above that??
Once upon a time, on the rare occasion there was major playfield defects that couldn't be swapped out easily, the old time manufacturers would send NOS wired playfields out and ask the operator to swap their defective playfield for the new one and the manufacturer/distributor would take the defective one back. Or a heavy discount was provided for their next purchase. Why would Stern do either of those things, when people accept less?? They can and would do more if pushed by their customers. Same as any business that wants to stay in business would do. If the penalty for poor playfield quality control was the expense of building and sending a replacement playfield, I'm sure they wouldn't cut corners in future!
Just my 2 cents on the whole affair, it pisses me off that Stern take their customers for granted.
My situation was going to be unique right from the start. Thanks to Joe in WA and Michael at AMD, it was decided that I would receive a blank playfield as this is what I indicated I would prefer. I didn't want a populated playfield. Greg always had spare playfields (Stern, Bally Williams, Williams and Gottlieb) that he would have clearcoated and saved for a later date. The other thing that worried me was the history of poorly cleared Stern playfields. It has always been "hit and miss". So I wanted a blank from "day 1". I will have it cleared properly at HRP, then swap them out.
The option of delivering the machine to the local Stern dealer to swap out was never going to happen (from my perspective).
So my situation should never be presented to anyone unless they specifically asked for it to be a blank playfield. AMD and Joe were helpful in this regard.
Stern USA were also helpful in ensuring I was a happy customer. I even had a call from the boss, who was a very "down to earth" person and he wanted to hear everything I had to say. Unfortunately, the emails to Stern R&D have not progressed, but I had "my say", and I know from other manufacturer's, that Stern was definitely interested in starting to look at newer technologies. It has hit a brick wall, but I'm going to try again in the New Year.
It is an enigma - something so bloody easy to fix at the manufacturing level - and these issues would be minimized. There would be no need to store surplus playfields for warranty claims. It is frustrating, because I know HOW to fix this - it is no big "trade secret". But how do you get their attention long enough for them to bend ? My LE is bloody perfect - I love it - but I don't want to sound like a whinger.So frustrating.
