wow - just read all of these new messages.....thought non number matching LEs were being received but apparently it's cabinet drama.

For the record, I will be PISSED if my 8k+ "toy" has a crack down the side. For the people who are saying you can't expect it to be perfect.....are you out of your mind? Sorry if you're a push over but when I spend 8k+ I expect to have a cabinet that is not already damaged.

I have no idea how widespread this truly is but for the pinsiders who have experienced it - sorry! CGC is a standup company so I expect they will resolve this.

"If" I decide to purchase a HUO... for sure I'll be looking for cracked decals. If so... the price / value will definitely be taken into consideration!

I have been trying to decide just how I truly feel about the decal cracks, and the more I think about it, the more I don’t like it. Here is my rub... When I played the LE at Expo, when I looked at the bright and shiny new plaything, you know what? The damn cabinet looked perfect. Smooth as glass, not a wrinkle, crack, nick or scratch. That is what they were offering at $8300 delivered. Thats is what better be in the f-ing box when it arrives or it’s going right the f*ck back. How much simpler can it be to understand? “Oh your asking too much from a pinball manufacturer” to what? get what I paid $8300 for? Thats not too much to ask for in my book. Don’t try and defend pinball manufacturers for building a shoddy product. I might expect cracked decals on a bargain basement, bottom of the line product, but your flagship, top of the line model? Give me a break.

I'm glad, in a way, to see I'm not the only one experiencing extended ticket durations with CGC recently. With MMr and AFMr the response and resolution to my tickets was extremely fast, one reason I bought another CGC game with confidence. Currently I've got a couple MBr tickets in processing that are approaching 3 weeks old with no contact after an initial question or comment back. Very disappointing compared to their past level of service.

To add some positivity to my post I do have one closed ticket thanks to the AMAZING Lloyd who in less than a day helped identify and fix my topper issue. This is the level of support a lot of us are accustomed to thru the first two games but seem to be missing lately. Lloyd, you are the man!!!

So my local distributor's website has MBr classics available but they are asking full MSRP and charging you $150 for shipping even if you pick up at their location. Is this the norm? It seems to me that if you are already charging MSRP you shouldn't also charge shipping to your own store but maybe I am just new to the pinball game.

Find another distributor.

I am one of the guys awaiting a response from CGC on a cracked decal ticket. I'll bet they are formulating a response.

If it were just one or two people having this issue, then they could handle it on a case by case basis depending upon how concerned the customer was about the issue. For example:

Customer has only a little concern about his cracked decal = Say they are sorry, send him a Christmas card next year.
Medium concern = Send out a new set of decals.
Freaking IRATE customer that has bought multiple games from CGC = Ship the game back to be repaired, or send out a new bottom cabinet ala Ghostbusters.

The challenge for CGC now that this has become a well known and documented issue that we are all talking about, is that they will have to formulate a universal response. Whatever they do to solve the freaking irate customer's issue, all customers will demand. I have faith that they are aware of and working on this problem - my ticket status shows exactly that, and I'll bet that is exactly the pause in communication that we all are experiencing.

I don’t think anyone here has said cracked decals are ok and that we should just accept them with no fix?

All I can say is I'm a little disappointed that CGC hasn't responded to my ticket about my problems with my topper, scratches on my mirror blades, cabinet issue, and the powder coating thats scratched on one of my legs....I guess my expectations were a little high since their support on my AFMRLE was great....hopefully they'll respond soon

Lol...I didn't even see that when I was taking the pictures. Needless to say, it has been plucked. Love my dogs, but they are shedders!

Yeah ... those issues have to be frustrating. I feel for you. Especially given the very recent focus on playfield quality, and the admission that LE's were getting preferential treatment regarding quality of components.

You have me thinking ... when I noticed the split decal on my LE, I left it right in the box. My logic was, maybe they'll want to pick it back up, or maybe the fact that it's still brand new in the box lends leverage to the resolution of my issue?? Now I wonder if my game has other issues that I don't even know about yet? If I don't hear something soon, I'm going to pull it out at least to inspect the rest of the game.

You’ve already taken delivery, I’d open and inspect. That said, CGC said they give the highest grade playfield to LE. I don’t think that’s unreasonable given it’s the LE. Someone explained it best akin to computer monitors. An “A” monitor might have 0-3 dead pixels. A “B” has 4-6. Anything more and it gets tossed or redone. The LE gets the As. Everything else the Bs. The couple tiny dots you had to zoom in to see and really scrutinize the PF to see on the CE or SE are totally acceptable to me. Even originals had them. It’s how the PF are made. But if it’s any worse than that CGC scraps and remakes them. The PF is going to get worse done to it from use anyways. I think the playfield dots got blown way out of proportion.

I will also be adding a bracket to the inside of the cabinet of my LE before it even goes on legs. Maybe it will help, maybe not. But common sense tells me that if its done properly it will make a difference. I will go to the extreme and put on a bracket or brackets all along the seam as space allows.

I think stabilizing the joint is a good idea. But the different lap joint they currently use puts that stupid seam in a very bad place. I get that over time, my cabinet may probably get a crack at this joint, and it is inevitable for a machine that is routed, but I would like to start out without one as a HUO customer. Is that asking too much from my pinball manufacturer?

since you already accepted delivery I don't see any downside to opening the game and inspecting.....

I'm gonna do just that.
It will be interesting to see ... now that I have a good idea what to scrutinize.

Here's a pic of my cabinet issue.....obviously doesn't affect game play, but its friggin annoying to look at, and shouldn't have been delivered that way....

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I'll photo mine when I unbox ... good and/or bad, and share with you all. Thank you for sharing that pic ... I'll scrutinize that spot.

That looks like a fit and finish issue. Is the right side rail positioned a little farther toward the front of the game than the side rail on the left, leaving that gap that you can see bare wood through?
The problem with that flaw - it's right in your field of vision. That would drive me nuts!

Some of these pictures make me wonder, did the delivery services intentionally park these over the trailer axle when shipping them? Or is the final test at CGC to drop them from a foot and a half high off a fork lift as they load it in the truck? I once saw a Twilight Zone NIB dropped off a trailer. There were some broken things inside the cabinet but the cabinet was 100% intact. That thing was a tank. Edit: not a semi trailer, but a lowboy for your pickup truck trailer... A semi trailer drop would have been catastrophic.

That was my initial reaction, but their the same...drives me nuts looking at it....be interesting to see what CGC says....

It's alive! - Just got my delivery from Automated. Mike's great to work with - and Elvis and Rodney are super friendly and made it fun.

No issues that I can see....and I'm not worried about the art cracking. I'm just happy to have a brand new MB in my house! - the lighting is fantastic.

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I went from disappointing....to discouraging. Very sry to see that happen to yours.

Like the furniture delivery guys of late, which all carry brown and black sharpie markers... for wood nicks on furniture, they are required to sharpie them before they let the owner see it. That bare wood would have been sharpied black by me now if it was in my field of view. I thought it was a sprung cabinet due to shipping damage, but if it is fit and finish, hello black Sharpie...

what CGC could do to eliminate those concerns about damage in shipping is to attach a shockwatch sticker, a hated item of the trucking industry. It's basically a tell all. It eliminates the question if the truck-line mishandled it. That little bar will show "Red" if was rough handled. If it is clear...and you see damage,(inside) probably was damaged before it was shipped. I'm not talking about obvious holes in ctn type damage which may not show. It is for a perfectly good looking ctn that may have tipped over and such.
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I don’t think so.

Hmmm ... another SE with perfect decals. I wonder if the topper being shipped on top of the box IS contributing somehow to this issue primarily on LE's?? I just took another look at my box - the weight of that topper and wood box would be distributed to the top of the box sides, because of those wood topper box brackets that go between topper box and cardboard box. The actual front of the machine is a couple of inches below the cardboard top box flaps, but that foam insulation in there is pretty firm - that could transfer shock from the weight of the topper box and packing, directly to the front corners of the cabinet - which is what they are designed to protect. Maybe Winter-time, trailer bouncing over bumpy roads, rough handling by fork lift drivers - all the shock of that topper weight would be transferred to the cardboard box (which is just going to flex), and the pinball machine itself .... and the game itself is the firmest weight bearing structure in that assembly.

Maybe it was the extreme temperature changes that we just went through the past couple of weeks.

This is not my idea, btw ... I think Bublehead originally came up with this. At the time, I dismissed because the topper sits on the cardboard box. But, now that I look closely at how these are packaged ... Every bit of that topper weight is ultimately being supported by some cardboard, and the game. I just weighed the topper in it's plywood box with the two wood side supports ... nearly 40lbs.

I'm more miffed at the lack of response from CGC....not communicating is the worst thing they can do....my tickets only been open since Saturday, but some have had zero communication for weeks, which is extremely frustrating....

I had a question about the splitting graphic for 5 days..no response at all, also.

I JUST got an e-mail from CGC! In a nutshell: They are aware and working on it.

Did you guys get the same thing?

This is progress... at least.

Nope, but its nice they at least reached out to u

One thing the Navy taught me to do as nuclear ractor operator was think outside the box, or on top of it

But honestly, when looking to solve issues like this, you gather as much info as possible, brainstorm all potential possibilities and then construct and conduct investigations that eliminate each possibility. Do we see CE’s and SE’s with decal cracks, no?, so why LE’s? The topper shipping box et. al. and it's 40 pounds of dead weight is a HUGE floating mass at the HIGHEST distance from mother earth, which is like the absolute worst combination. This would be on my list of “possibilities” along with “heat embrittlement” if they use hair dryers in the decal applying process, or “chemical embrittlement” if they use solvents for ANY cleaning operation, vinyl does not like some solvents and can become brittle when exposed to them. These three are the biggest what if’s on the list to be explored- phisical cause, thermal cause, or chemical cause. It falls into one of those three more than likely, so now figure out how to eliminate each one. That can take time, which is something CGC is already having a problem with on LE deliveries.

That is what also really got me thinking ... trying to understand why/how this phenom is mostly occurring with LE's.
We have already established that vinyl over a wood joint is a weak link. Add 40 lbs bouncing around with that weight distributed directly down through the cabinet right at the area of that joint - I think that you are right, and this is a plausible contributing cause. It would be so fascinating to see statistics if they immediately started shipping LE's with the topper sent separate, not on the box top.

Wasn't the topper packed the same way on AFMrLE? It seems like that would have shown up before now if that were the case.

I am cool waiting for my LE so that all the issues can be sorted out at the factory.

There is the solution, folks!

Great Any info when European games will be shipped ?

This is what the rest of the world think when we hear "nuclear ractor operator"

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I do not recall LEs being affected more or less than SE or CE. Did you collate the data from all the posts?

Edit: as I earlier suspected the vast majority of machines shipped did not have this issue. The number affected was being way overblown which is what happens as is the nature of forums. It’s great to see CGC is correcting it none the less.

I would think they'd collate data from the tickets on their Support - Help Desk.

LTG : )

Exactly my thought as well. I’m glad CGC indicated exactly how few have really been affected by this. The way these forums read, the sky was falling and 110% of machines were affected.

All I really know for certain, is that I have a brand new in box AFMrLE #900 (still in it's box, purchased last year) and just received MBrLE matching #900, and both games have cracked decals. Given that 1% stat, I guess that I am just exceptionally unlucky.

Thanks Ryan

That is the news I have been waiting for.
Going to hang in there now for sure.

Yep... Homer is my hero... or at least the only other reactor operator you know by name (besides me )

My AFMr LE #860 has no cracked decals.

Anecdote is anecdote. :/ I am sure CGC will fix your issue though! It’s great they posted.

What’s the reason for wrapping the decals around the corners when the originals were never done this way?