Model Railroading > Intermountain Customer Service - A Positive Experience

Through the years I have had mixed results from customer service requests from different companies.  Kleins has always been great, MRC has always been willing to help with DCC problems at our club and technical questions.  BLI has also been great.  I had a run of defective decoders on four Athearn engines and after three e-mails and a letter to corporate HQ I got zero response.  I finally got through on the phone and they told me to take it up with the decoder manufacturer.  After that experience, I will never buy another Athearn product.

I recently sent an e-mail to Intermountain.  My problem was pretty simple, I had previously purchased four of their ESS44DC's and when they came out with the ES44AC's in the new CSX paint scheme, I bought one of those.  The problem was the four DC's ran well together, but the AC was not speed matched with them.  I needed to know the CV's to adjust the AC to match the others, so I sent an e-mail.

I got a response much better than I expected.  They sent me the CV numbers for both models to adjust for speed matching, but then they explained that the DC's had Tsunami decoders and the AC had an ESU Locsound (thus the matching problem).  They offered to send me a Tsunami decoder to swap out on the AC or I could send back the AC unit and they would install it for me.

I should have no trouble speed  matching now that I know the CV's to use, but I thought it was great customer service to offer either swapping decoders or installing one for free. 

I have had the pleasure of talking to the Intermountain reps at ProtoType rails on a couple of occaisions couldn't ask for nicer people..

Intermountain worked out great for me as well, had a problem with the old style multi-piece freight truck. They verified the issue with a few questions then mailed replacements. First e-mail to having parts in hand about 10 days.

I have always had excellent service from Intermountain. 

I once purchased a covered hopper that someone had rear ended with a freight.  The entire end was destroyed and they had also taken off the bolster and truck to repair it and lost it.
I e-mailed them explaining exactly what happened, told them which car it was and asked for a price for the parts.  I received an email saying they were checking the stock to see if they
had the parts or if they would be running that car again and they would be back to me within the week.  Well about six days later I received a package with the parts and a note saying
to enjoy the model and thanks for the support of IM products.

It's for this reason that I will continue to purchase IM products like their ES44, when their are other options on the HO market.  There can be no greater service to model railroaders from
manufacturers in my opinion than great customer service.

Kris

Yes, Intermountain has the best Customer Service. So good that I even took one of their reps out to dinner a few times while visiting Denver. All in the line of work--of course!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/15 11:35 by railwaybaron.

IM has some great people working for them, they love what they do and are very conscientious. === === = === JLH

I too, echo Intermountains great customer service.  Good folks for sure.

SantaFeRuss

RFandPFan Wrote:
> I got a response much better than I expected. 
> They sent me the CV numbers for both models to
> adjust for speed matching, but then they explained
> that the DC's had Tsunami decoders and the AC had
> an ESU Locsound (thus the matching problem). 
> They offered to send me a Tsunami decoder to swap
> out on the AC or I could send back the AC unit and
> they would install it for me.
>
> I should have no trouble speed  matching now that
> I know the CV's to use...

I agree about Intermountain's customer service.  Great people there.

Just as a word of warning, though, I've read that Loksound 4 and Loksound Select decoders have issues with consisting with anything else, and I believe IM uses Selects in their models.  Here's an excerpt from a thread on MRH, http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/magazine/mrh-2014-12-dec/di_loksound-dcc#comment-173073 :

"Nobody seems to have mentioned the fact that the LokSound 4 and Select decoders do not implement momentum in line with the recommended NMRA momentum factor.
The ESU LokSound 4 and Select decoders momentum factor is about 30% of all other brand decoders so consisting is not easily achieved and as we know diesels are consisted when in multiples.
Basically, the LokSound 4 and Selects will only easily consist with each other."

I have no experience with this myself, but would love to hear from others who do.  If this is true, it may be the reason that IM kindly offered to swap out the Loksound for a Tsunami.

Joe Atkinson
Council Bluffs, IA
www.iaisrailfans.org/../Sub4WestEnd

iaisfan Wrote:

> "Nobody seems to have mentioned the fact that the
> LokSound 4 and Select decoders do not implement
> momentum in line with the recommended NMRA
> momentum factor.
> The ESU LokSound 4 and Select decoders momentum
> factor is about 30% of all other brand decoders so
> consisting is not easily achieved and as we know
> diesels are consisted when in multiples.
> Basically, the LokSound 4 and Selects will only
> easily consist with each other."
>
> I have no experience with this myself, but would
> love to hear from others who do.  If this is
> true, it may be the reason that IM kindly offered
> to swap out the Loksound for a Tsunami.

Thanks for the info...Yes it is true.  I speed matched the old and new ESU decoders so that they match speed at CV2 (Start) CV 6 (Mid Range) and CV 5 (High Range).  After doing that, I still noticed the momentum difference between the units when consisted.  ESU should fix this problem so their decoders can be properly consisted.