Do you ever get tired of posting the same garbage in every thread?

Exactly! And we could go on and on and on with issues. The point being is they will all have issues... ALL OF THEM! And we can still love them all! I hope JJP sets a new standard for quality and all early signs look great but even they will not be immune from these issues. We just have to live in reality that's all...

Same thing happened to me when I set it up. Right flipper button popped out. Had to replace it

Guys you are scaring me ....

I have a MoPLE/METLE on its way, and that will be my very first pinball, was very hyped about my first pin, but after reading all the posts above, I now expect a mechanical madness that will launch LED bulbs towards my eyes, and flipper buttons that will explode on my hands, electrocuting me in the process. A machine that will need weekly repairs.

Seriously and frankly pls, should I expect those issues? are they so common? it happens in every machine or is just bad luck if you get the wrong one?

Im frightened

I'm not bashing Stern, but comparing a new stern to an older Bally/Williams is like comparing a Bic lighter to a Zippo...

Disclaimer: this is MY opinion! if you don't agree that's great this is America we are each entitled
to our own.

The RGP community was strong during the nineties.. including the operators and techs. This isn't a 'well you just were around then..' scenario. Well.. most pinsiders weren't.. but the pinball community was

We know all the faults and design flaws the old games have.. its well covered. Not every game is 'solved' already, but we know what the common flaws are. Most are simply game specific mechs or toys that have unique behaviors.

Stern keeps coming up with new generic build quality issues to haunt games with.

LOL, sad some of these guys can do this to you but please relax! Some here are like the mad media. They like to take a minor occurrence or event and totally blow it out of proportion... you'll be fine. Issues can and will happen but I wouldn't worry about it. Chances are good you won't have any problems and the couple you MIGHT have will more than likely be very easy fixes and nothing to worry about.

Looking forward to all the JJP posts about the slippers coming off the flippers in WoZ. ROFL. Saw it happen in Texas at TPF. Quality issues are part of manufacturing and can be reduced through proper design and quality control.

Don't stress out, it's mostly minor stuff. You should expect you will have to take the glass off and go in there for something soon enough, though. That's part of pinball ownership no matter what you do.

But you didn't make that comparison. You were the one who said 'after 20,000 games is where B/W shines' when a user said they had no issues with their Stern after 200 plays. I was just pointing out that they have many issues after 20,000 plays. Thy are not some magical machines that have no issues.

Heck, why does Clay's guides even exist if those machines have no issues?

My Sterns on location have been great. Just my anecdotal data.

Think my BSD has had over 20000 plays.

There was more wear where the ball disappears by the flippers on my XMEN-LE after 100 plays than BSD after 20000!

That is not good and it does make me think twice with prices where they are.

Every pinball will have issues, just be prepared that NIB Stern games (and likely other manufacturers) will almost always have more issues that any older game which has already been fixed up or restored and tuned in by a competent person.

I will say it is a bit alarming the number of design issues/parts I have already heard of on MET.

I mean>>> how the heck do you mess up flipper buttons. The direct contact point from player to game and has been a pretty well vetted piece of equipment forever.

I can understand game specific parts having some unforeseen issues when games get out on route and get abused, but common pinball parts failing in such a short time is cause for valid concern from anyone that actually plays their games.

You just keep demanding a 10% cut in price from the parts suppliers until it gets to the point that all they can make and still make a profit is junk.
If Stern could put a photoshopped picture in place of an actual button they would.

I have a lot of Sterns and never had any breakdown problems or bulbs burning/popping out.
Guess I am lucky. But if I did have a problem, the service dept. is wonderful at Stern and resolves issues in a timely manner.

But as you know, everything is cheaper nowadays! If bally/williams were still in business today, I can guarantee that their product would be cheaper build/quality of 20-30 years ago of former machines. Just the way it is. I will say most newer Stern machines are much more challenging and fun to play than the older williams/bally machines regardless of the
so called build quality.

So you're saying that Metallica has worse QC than Avengers?! This is an outrage! I am going to give the game a rating of 1, despite never playing it, because if how often this machine breaks and what a headache it must be for operators. Maybe the HUO crowd can get some enjoyment out if this, but clearly Stern has delivered another lemon!

Just kidding!

Except for my SM, I would choose no new pinball machines and buy used B/W. Saying that though, the prices would have probably been double or triple!

Same here, left flipper button. I had a spare so not a huge issue.

For starters the interpreter needs to explain the purpose of the small led light boards to the assemblers so they screw them in centered on the inserts, not facing the wood on the PF next to them.

I'll bet under 25% would agree if you did a poll. Not a specific Stern pin, but a Stern pin in general.

So is the flipper button falling apart ? If so it could be a bad batch of flipper buttons from a vendor.

Just in, new Sterns will not have flipper buttons , all you pro buyers will have the true collectors item, a pinball machine with flipper buttons .

If this happens get your Distributor involved.. its his Job to make sure you are taken care of.

It's the circle of life... back to flipperless pins!

Guess I would be in the 25% I have played all the old games TO DEATH. Vary rarely do I enjoy a classic game. There are a few exceptions wh20, jm but not many. This hobby gets boring kinda fast.Unless you have oodles of cash to have lots of pins.

You want the ultimate in flipper buttons start getting some parts from lizardlick. Sanwa buttons rule.

Nooooooo! not another poll!

In addition to the LE-only MANUAL!

My Sterns rarely break. So easy to fix. My tools seriously are getting dusty.

New pins need adjusting and are hand made in the USA. Expect to work on them.

I cant believe you took the time type that a bulb came loose!

Luckily we had our crack team of button specialists on site who got right on it.

555 incandescent bulbs don't seem to pop out of the sockets. Seems like an issue with the LED manufacturer.

I have owned several HUO and NIB Sterns and they are not built to hold up as well as a B/W. The difference in the materials used is pretty obvious. Weather it is playfield thickness or wire quality, they are just not as durable IMHO. It doesn't mean they aren't great games, but anyone who says they are the same quality as BW are fooling themselves.

Comments on here about burnt GI's on BW games have merit, but only for a routed 20,000+ play game.

Neither Stern nor BW games can hold a candle to a Gottlieb EM in terms of durability. I have Gottlieb EM games with 80,000+ five ball plays and they have hardly any playfield wear and work 100% with little/no maintenance.

Look what you started Neo! Go to bed with 3 comments and wake up to this.

I don't have a ton of experience with newer Stearns. That being said, the tech at the tournament seemed to always be fixing something last night. Couldn't even keep TSPP working and it had to be shut down. I think that since the home market is driving demand right now, that is how Stearn is building them. And many of us actually like working on them at home which makes it more "OK" for Stearns current quality level. Commercially though I feel bad for the operators.

End rant.

bally williams had their issues, but at least the components used were designed well. I'm not sure Stern (at the volume they produce compared to B/W) can afford to build tanks anymore? JJP can because he doesn't have a huge staff to put out 3 pins a year, he doesn't have loans to pay back, he has his redemption business to keep cash flowing.

It's hard to really quantify how many quality issues there really is, but it sure seems like there's a new thread once a week. And someone like Tim that maintains decades of various pins should be a pretty good indicator of where Stern stands. Tim is a pretty frugal guy, so if he's putting in X amount of money/time into williams titles, and Y amount of money/time into brand new Sterns (which can have anywhere from $1000-$4500 higher cost than used), and Y+buy price exceeds X, he may just forget about buying NIB.

This is something that happened to me when I played Avengers on location and the ball got stuck on the Tesseract disc/wood lip. Instead of kicking out another ball after the ball search failed, it ended the ball and THEN kicked out another. When I knocked the stuck ball loose w/ the new one, and that drained, it ended THAT ball. I don't recall this ever happening on other games during ball search. A new ball should kick out and no penalize the player...then if the old ball gets back in the trough the game should know "Oh, there's the missing ball...back to normal now". I might have to test my older Sterns to see if it was always like this or not.

I'll take both.......but I can understand the bias from a flipper/pumper, its all about the benjamins, I get it!

As for the quality difference, its clear and it is what it is, let's see what happens down the road, when everybody figures it out.....doesn't mean the Stern's aren't fun, haven't met one I don't like....

But hey, at least my pin will be still standing in 2029 and I hope I'm still here to see it!

I agree ! One game manufactures pin don't even work, right out of the box !

What?

And who's one of the biggest WoZ pumpers on pinside? It has to be you... The way you've pumped WoZ for the past year I am surprised Dorothy and Toto haven't turned up pregnant!

You forgot the TF.

I get tired of this comment. Just because someone isn't happy with the current quality of a machine doesn't mean they are haters if that's the case then you are a Stern fanboy. All I know is if Clay or Tim are posting about quality issues I'm all ears, I'd rather hear from two guys that have been working on these machines for forever and a day than the people that just have games set up in a home that get limited plays.

It's very disappointing to see someone of your stature in the pinball community constantly bashing Stern. Dragging Tim into it and half quoting him is even more disappointing. You keep bashing, and their sales were up 30% last year. Rather than bash Stern, wouldn't it be a better contribution to the hobby if you instead promoted the companies you feel are building good games? There's enough negative in the hobby. No need to pile on.

From my view, the good that you offer to the hobby via your website doesn't make up for your constant Stern bashing. The net result is a negative. While I appreciate what you've done in the past, it doesn't make up for the apparent chip on your shoulder you now have for Stern.

That there is funny!!

I think Stern is building for the home market and figures a HUO won't ever get to 20,000 plays. Time will tell on JJP quality, but Stern has a track record of either very mediocre pins/software/quality over the last 10 years. Avatar, TRS, BBH, NBA, CSI, 24, WOF, HD, XMEN come to mind.

Yah, no other pinball company ever built any dogs, had quality issues, or unfinished software.

I have a few bally/williams which just tick along they feel like they are built like tanks. I have been trying to play an ac/dc at a local shop, gone twice and it was down for maintenance twice. The ac/dc just feels very light and cheap and already looks very beat up at about 6 months old. My 20 year old pins feel much more solid and had less PF wear then the AC/DC I saw!

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTLLIEB!

I work with a local pinball bar that's been around for a long time. Since the 90's we've been buying new machines, running them there until they die and then I haul them off and restore them.

When we were buying Bally/Williams, we'd have them shipped direct to the bar, unboxed and put on the floor for immediate use. We do not do that with Stern pins. I have to have them shipped to my shop, setup, FIXED/tweaked or flat out repaired before they can go on location.

With B/W pins, we got huge lifespans out of them. AFM lasted 15 years, got the hell played out of it and was still mostly functional when we pulled it out. Monster Bash lasted almost that long, TOM, etc, all had really long runs, taking in plenty of coin.

With the latest version of Stern (2000 on), they have improved drastically over how bad they were in 2001-2003, but they still don't last worth a damn. If we can get 4 or 5 years out of a Stern in that same exact location, we feel lucky.

Stern's roller switches instead of optos in troughs, LOTR's sword lock, etc are crap. Brand new they work fine but they don't hold up like an opto version. Almost every single Stern that doesn't have the armor around the flipper buttons is worn through to the wood on their crappy cabinet art. (That was okay when they included the side armor, but now it's mostly just an option)

Stern's choice to use one triac instead of the three stage system that B/W used leads to more frequent and quite a bit more expensive repairs from blown power driver lines. (Yay for $7+ transistors dieing)

If you compare the two, there's no reasonable doubt that Sterns since 2001 aren't built anywhere near as well as Bally/Williams were.

The majority of the thread is about Stern's quality and software and that's what I was commenting on. I have an SM and have had very few issues.

hmmmm.... my ACDC still issue free after 1 year and 2 months

hmmmm.... my ACDC still issue free after 1 year and 2 months

How could anyone forget TF? Best...Game EVAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

just curious, how many plays after that amount of time?

If this is your first pinball and you don't plan on getting your hands dirty, I hope you are buying from a local distributor that can support you.

In 2004 I bought my first 2 NIB Sterns (LOTR & TSPP) and I was too busy to get my hands dirty...I was interested in playing them, not fixing them. As a result, I bought them from a local guy who was available to fix minor "dust settling" bugs. I actually had very few problems...pins worked nearly flawlessly ever since.

Now fast forward to last years purchase of a NIB AC/DC Premium. I had lots of problems...opto boards failing, canon motors freezing/failing, light failing and popping out. Fortunately, I am more skilled @ fixing them now and Stern is good about sending out replacement parts.

Nevertheless, based on my experience (and the experience of other collectors I know), Stern quality isn't what it use to be. I understand MANY folks have good luck, however the percentage of problem pins seems to have gotten worse.

Even if you don't have a distributor to come fix issues, I'm sure Stern will support you if you have problems in the first couple months. From my perspective, once you fix the initial set of bugs, it is usually smooth sailing.

Good luck,

snaroff