Quality control

[joatham]

I'm just building my second mission, and I've come to putting the steering posts into the mountings which attach to the chassis. They are meant to be handed, but I've got 2 the same in this kit. Also, the mounting bolts for the motor were missing from the bag.

The first Mission I built had the wrong pins for the pinion shaft in the bag, the 2 pins were the same size when they should be different diameters. Also, the sockets on the steering knuckles were poorly formed.

Now, the Mission is a fantastic car, once built I am really pleased with it. It has a lot more adjustments than other tourers I've seen, and also seems to be a lot stronger, especially the wishbones.

But this lack of control of picking is frustrating, I've had to do a 25 mile each way trip to my nearest model shop to get it sorted each time. I've got no complaints about the service I've received from the shop, and also Schumacher themselves were very helpful in replacing the steering parts on the first model, but when you are in the middle of building and you reach a show-stopper like that, it tends to tarnish the view of the car.

Is this common, or have I just been extremely unlucky?

[MattW]

I think you have been very unlucky. In the last 5 years i have had at least 10 kits of various cars, and i can't remember the last time i had anything that was wrong.

[joatham]

Ah well, that's good news I suppose - bad news for me though, I must be jinxed. I'm probably going to buy Mission number 3 pretty soon, as my other lad wants one too, I just hope it has all the right bits, otherwise I might get paranoid!

[SunnySpoon]

I too have had some quality issues aswell - both the CAT 3000 and Fireblade I built didn't have some holes counter-sunk in the chassis and have also had odd bits missing. Have to say though Schumacher were very helpful and replaced the missing parts. Great cars though, miss my CAT.

[joatham]

.. glad I'm not the only one. Schumacher and my "local" model shop have both been helpful too. The worst things for me are (a) finding a part missing or wrong when I finally get the chance to build, and (b) when I go back to the model shop, I find that I just have to buy something (I got the part changed today at lunchtime, and came back with an airbrush :P)

[bakera]

hi i have had several schumacher kits and have never had a problem with any missings or faulty parts.

john check your pm.

[SunnySpoon]

Just a point - these little issues I'm sure are very rare. No one I know has had such problems. What happened to me hasn't put me off buying another Schumacher, I would as they make some of the best r/c products around. I'd say equal to that of anyone else. With the right driver, as with any other machine, a Schumacher can top the podium at any level. I'm looking forward to a new 2wd & 4wd off-road choice...

I have had..........................1 shumacher kit and nothing wrong, just my building as i left the diff bearings out ::) im getting the other mission when it comes out if i have sold my E-max by then....hope so ;D

[rice98w]

john i have a mission carbon for sale, see my post in the for sale section.

[al]

ive had a couple of missions;

in these kits ive had the vairious

missing hindge pins - front

half of the top deck screw holes had not been counter sunk !!!

and a not drilled layshaft mount

wahayyyy way 2 go lol great cars thogh ;D

al :D

[NumanR]

Never had a problem with Schumacher cars but I did have the wrong bit in a TTech DTMi kit, no one had a bit so I drove to that model shop that is on the corner, the one you have to aim for!!! and picked up the part. A round trip of 320 miles and I raced it the following night. Bl**dy mad!!!!!

[joatham]

Update: Mission number 3, contained 2 17 tooth pulleys instead of a 20T and a 17T.

Fortunately, I run 17T on all the Missions, so now I've got a spare, but that seems a pretty basic error to bag 2 of the same ones.

I hope they sort out their parts picking process with the Mission 2!

[Scimdarren]

John

I totally sympathise, as I had the identical quality issue, by being supplied with 2 identical supports instead of handed. Additionally, some self tappers were missing further on in the build.

I bought the kit in October as a Xmas gift for my son, so this tends to put a downer on it even more! Apex models didn't quibble, although the difficulty in trying to describe what side it was over the telephone led to the wrong item being sent again (these parts are not individually coded). Luckily, Phil Degavino a team driver, also sent us some parts which prevented us missing the next race day.

Is it worth complaining to Schumacher or are they aware of these problems?

This is my first Schumacher kit for about 10 years. I experienced no parts missing during my ownership of CAT CAT XL PROCAT TOPCAT and COUGAR. This was Schumachers early years where you could see the presentation of there kits grow as there results and reputation became established.

At the end of the day, you would be more inclined to moan if it was a lousy car, but the awsome design and current price tag- along with the improvement in my sons results, tend to make you very forgiving, and it wont stop me buying another Mission for myself!

Darren

[DA_cookie_monstA]

As much as I hate to say it, but I feel mistakes like this is a problem of the integrity and setup of the packing process. This usually involves labour, as cheap as possible, I don't think most of them actually really understand what they are packing, and that is where the mistakes are made.

Back in the early days of Schumacher, the people in charge had a hands on ALL aspects of the business, and the people packing kits were more than likely involved in racing one way or another.

Complain to Schumacher, as it isn't the shops fault, this is a deliberate issue with Schumacher. Also, if they have any QA recognisation, like ISO 9001, or the equivalent BS standard, then they are obliged to look at the issue, and put into action, rectifictaion!

[MattW]

Guys, All of the kits that leave the factory are checked for weight. This happens to both the individual bags and then the final kits. This is all recorded by batch code and hence they could probably tell you what the weight was of your kit when it left. If a bag is light then it should be checked to see if anything is missing. Unfortunately this will never stop the human error of putting 2 left parts in a bag. That will always happen.

[joatham]

That's interesting, but as you say it doesn't point out if an incorrect part has been packed, if it happens to weigh the same as a correct one. I can understand that it's impossible to double-check everything though, or the cost of the kit would rocket!

I still think that having 3 out of 3 kits with incorrect or missing parts is not as good as it could be. I've built plenty of cheap Tamiyas and always have spare parts left over rather than parts missing. Not complaining though, as I said before the customer support was exemplory, and the cars are great, they are certainly stronger than a lot of the other cars on the track (which for beginners like me they need to be :o)

One thing that does seem to be missing from the manual is a full parts inventory for each bag - that would be useful, as I like to check them before building where possible, and it would mean that if there was a part missing or incorrect in Bag 8, I would be able to get it replaced in advance of reaching that bag....