February of 2017?

That's a week away, and considering they rejected redknights playfield, I'm guessing they only have a handful of 'approved' playfield replacements to respond to

Alternatively: "We think me might be able to replace the three playfields we've deemed defective in the upcoming months."

Time for more popcorn.

"Sorry but your incredibly horrible looking inserts do not warrant playfield replacement"

I have to agree with you here....

Herd that before.... lol. His is much worse though!

What I would like to know is since mine is not eligible for replacement at this time and for me to wait and see if it gets worse how long do I have until its too late if it does get worse?

They probably mean until the end of Feb....

No way.

When HEP or I remanufacture a game, it's 200% (maybe 300% for HEP) better than a factory machine.

If that is the timeline to see if mine gets worse it seems like im SOL!

OK you can set your stop watches the play field is on the UPS truck!

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Nice line up! Good luck to you sir!

In car collecting, what you describe is called 'Over Restored'. Better than original.

Our distributor is on the case

Picture HEP being the auto shop that takes your orange-peel BMW factory paint, and turns it into a show car.

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BMW can't take each $90,000 M5 and give it a good 5 day paint job, so you have to take your new car in to a competent shop and let them perfect it.

The factory orange-peel paint is sanded flat, re-cleared (depending on how deep the orange peel is), and then polished to a mirror finish.

The plastic bumpers are re-cleared and polished.

The mirrors and plastic trim are tru-blacked.

After a few days of labor, you get a panty dropper - but it sure did not come from the factory that way.

I would have linked you to some of Chris Hutchins youtube videos that showed his process, including a couple that showed exactly what he does to a reproduction PF from Mirco. In fact, one of the videos that he posted he was actually working on the Mirco MB playfield that I sent him as part of the MB restoration that I was having Jim McCune do. Unfortunately Chris takes his videos down after a certain amount of time so it's no longer available.

Vid said it well!

Sometimes a picture (video) is worth a thousand words. This is my MB that McCune restored and HEP did the PF.

You gotta get over here to play it!

Good thing you weren't around in the early Woz JJP days Kpg.

Your head would have exploded

Always enjoy the detailing on the inside of games restored like this.

Yea that's how i am now lol... only getting super nice original b/w pins or restored ones.... you sld see the fh i just picked up ...

Dude... wtf? No love for Bryan Kelly?

Always stick with 30 year old titles.

At least you know what to expect.

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Did ja' hear? Sony is releasing a super-mega-remastered-50th-anniversary version of Dark Side Of The Moon.

It's supposed to sound really great, and will have all 10 songs on it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This monster bash is truly amazing. Most beautiful pin I've ever seen/played....next to the McCune restored AFM that rob sold dam him!

Who?

Hey Vid, can you (clarify) add to this. 50 years of what?

Sony Records? Pink Floyd? Certainly not Dark Side of the Moon. That album was released in March of 1973.

Glad I'm not the only one he fooled. I think he was making a joke about how you don't always know what you're getting with a thirty year old item. Sometimes it's been altered.
But I love my SACD Dark Side of the Moon.

At first I read '30 year old titties'... and agreed.

Just view any of his restoration threads here and you'll quickly see how HEP is way beyond 'new'

Yes, there are already plans for the 50th reissue.

Get your wallet ready.

Those songs are going to sound great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Even his early work, which isn't up to his current standards, is amazing to look at and play. If ever there was something "better than new", it's a HEP restoration.

Using the car analogy, I had to unwind an Aston Martin deal for clear issues under the hood. I get what you are saying, but it's a new consumer good. New is new. Not "Stern" new. Peeling clear devalues any vehicle, but value lies in the purchaser. Most of hobbyist buddies in the AMCOA would never purchase a vehicle with peeling clear, let alone missing maintenance records.

I do have skin in this game as my GBLE playfield started to fail slowly, but has been disintegrating exponentially over the last few months. Waiting for a replacement play field as well.

The difference is my AM dealer realized it was not a new item as it was defective and was in their best interest to unwind the deal. Taking care of the customer was of paramount importance. This is scaleable. Think Costco and their return policy. Amex and their relentless protection of their cardmembers. Amazon "and their usual" solid return policy, etc...As NIB pinball prices continue to escalate, the experience becomes bespoke and as such, the expectations of the consumer align with the emotions involved. I'll get off my soapbox, but it's almost like Stern is evaluating play fields with #alternatefacts.

My replacement playfield immediately began to chip. I wouldn't bother sending your faulty one back in, just flip it and move on.

Honestly... the concern is "the ghosting is minimal" now. And it's even more concerning because you have that nasty cracking situation elsewhere on the clear.

What happens in a year when the playfield starts to have clear issues elsewhere (or that minimal ghosting starts to progress). What then?

Not trying to rain on your day... but this is exactly why Stern needs to speak up. They have basically mumbled a policy and made fairly non-committed comments about the situation. You've got one distributor buying a game back... you have a supposed replacement program... there's one documented case of a replacement playfield having ghosting...

It's a little odd to see Stern complete disengaging itself. Frankly, I think they are just looking to minimize how many games they have to replace.

sorry to hear that...I may have missed it but if you have not posted your replacements pf details, please do. When you received it, date of manufacture and anything else that you can think of...

Unreal that Stern has not got this issue under control....its only been 6 months or so...

I own that too... the multichannel presentation is sooooo sweet

Got it a week and half ago. Will post more details later

And this is what I assumed and dreaded.

It appears the only Stern machines I will buy now are 12 month old HUO.

Has anyone thought about going through a distributer and just buying a PF, having it recleared and swapping it out. IF, you can buy one that wont have the same defects that is. I'm thinking that Gawy is going to replace the least amount of these shit PFs as he can get away with and these ghosted, chipped PF games are worthless as they are just going to get worse fast. Yes you will have more money in the game but at least you would have one that looks nice. It is a shame it has come to what it has, These games are shit and still astronomical in price. and Gawy is pretty much counting his cash and giving people the finger. Same goes for Jack at $12500 per game. I'm seeing the old W/B games becoming worth more and more.

I will only buy used games now. Routed or HUO, it doesn't matter as long as the condition is good. I just don't want to roll the dice any more with NIB Stern games.

The thicker the clear, the more likely the inserts will ghost.

Well, you could always buy it NIB and have it dropped-shipped to HEP and have him fix it up properly. I mean, add another $5K to the price but it'll be the nicest version of that game ever.

I don't think hep is going to sand the clear off the playfield and reshoot it

So let's begin the discussion about finding an attorney to file a class action lawsuit.

Why not play the F out of it and then send the PF out to be redone by the masters 50k plays later, or whenever?

That's what I'm doing, thus I'm worried about what happens in the meantime

Pinball is fun and enjoyable. Not gonna ruin my experience with crapola

Right. Also, the more pronounced the dimpling that people complain about.

Why not? That's exactly what he has done in the past. That's what he did with my MB reproduction PF that was brand new. It had too much clear on it. That's right...too much clear, which can cause various problems, including fitment of the parts on the PF as well as what Vid1900 mentioned.

People have even sent their NIB pins to Chris in order to have him do various things to them...to make them better than NIB.

So, what's the possibility here that there's no problem with the playfield/clear, but a problem with the design, speed, airballs, etc. of the machine? I'd be curious if ghosting occurs without any usage, or are airballs/etc landing on the inserts causing it?