I feel your pain. I'm just a home owner and I've been waiting for so long for new wireforms for my Iron Maiden that I actually forgot they were on order until I saw this topic.

They just did a run of IMDN and somehow my warranty order sat unfilled for the last 6 months...if they were running production on that machine why not get all of the back ordered parts made too?

Stern reminds me of a lot of these companies where it's impossible to get a hold of anyone but if you do the experience is generally good. IT who makes golden tee is the same. they will ignore 5 emails but the one they answer they tend to take care of you.

I'm at over 10 months now waiting for my wireform for iron maiden. They even did a run of maiden machines in that time and never sent me it!

It's crazy that they are prioritizing new games over parts for existing games, especially for operators. Like I get it from a monetary point of view but they clearly have so much demand that they just don't care about support. It will eventually bite them in the ass, but probably will take a long time.

There's a defect that causes the ball to come flying off the wireform ramp as it comes down. They told me it's a known issue so covered under warranty and sent me one side after about 6 months, but it's been almost 6 more months and no sign of the other one. They even confirmed for me that the warranty claim is still open for the other side, but I've basically given up at this point.

If they did a run of machines during this timeframe and couldn't order some extras for warranty then I don't think they have any intent on satisfying the claim.

Yeah that's what annoys me. I have my machine at home and I would totally understand if they prioritized distributors/operators over us HUO players. But to leave an operator with a non-working machine for months seems like a slap in the face. Like they're begging them to go with another company. I guess lack of competition really makes it easy for them to turn a blind eye.

I bet if there was some sort of revenue sharing like Golden Tee and other arcade games have they would get them back up and running a lot faster.

And stop releasing new machines until you can support the current lineup...

I felt the same but have had no issues with mine. Like most things 90% of people will have no issues ever and will love it, but if you get stuck in that 10% that has an issue there is a chance you will be stuck waiting ages to get it fixed, or paying an arm and a leg to get a new board ASAP.

I get why they went to newer style electronics but considering the way these machines get used it would have been smart to keep them in a format that is easier for people to service themselves.

I don't think stern has the equipment or the expertise to repair this kind of board which is pretty much all surface mount components. You'd need a specialist with access to the schematic to do this kind of repair most likely.

Makes me wonder if guys like Louis Rossmann would see any profit offering repair services for these boards.

I think it depends on if they use any proprietary parts, which I'd think is unlikely, and what the issue is. Some issues can be tracked down by checking component by component for the problem part but a lot of the time you need a schematic to know what each part is supposed to be doing.

It also depends if any of these boards are layered. If they have multiple layers the repairs become a lot harder from what I've seen.

If someone can get a hold of the schematics it would probably go a long way to get repairs going.

Yeah there needs to be more viable competition. I know there are a few companies out there right now like Spooky and JJP but they don't produce anywhere near the volume to threaten Stern. Also Stern has a legion of fanboys who will buy everything they release sight unseen so they really have no need to change what they're doing at the moment.

Yes and no. Obviously the situation would be a lot better if they were able to provide replacements quickly and affordably but the idea of moving to stuff that needs to be scrapped and replaced is a huge problem these days. Right to repair people have been trying to hammer this home, but at some point you just won't be able to get replacement parts for these types of devices and a system that uses easily repairable boards with common off the shelf components is always going to have more longevity than the stuff we are getting currently.

Hell most devices aren't even made to have replaceable batteries these days. I remember a Louis Rossmann video where he showed some multi-thousand dollar e-bike that said on their website that if the battery dies you're likely going to be ready for an upgrade at that point anyways, so just chuck the entire thing in a landfill and buy a new one rather than replacing the battery. That's just absurd, and of course things like the ESG score pay no mind to that kind of design.

That means they need to slow down on shipping new games IMO. They did a production run of a game that I have a back ordered warranty item for and I never got my part... how can they just leave a warranty order open for almost a year while running that game through production? It's greed or negligence if you ask me.

I'd be surprised if a chargeback would work in this situation, especially with how many parts shortages there have been since covid. CC contacts the distributor, distributor says we're trying our best but the manufacturer can't source parts. Case closed.

Sure but you'd have to convince the CC company of that. Maybe you can, but I don't think it would be a simple chargeback like other situations. I think flynnibus is correct the way he describes it.

That's one of the annoying things about this situation, people saw this coming a mile away with the new designs. It's inevitable.

And I decided to dig out the e-mail for the warranty item I'm waiting on (Iron Maiden wireform). I opened the ticket in November 2021... so well over a year now with nothing sent to me, and they even did a production run of Maiden in the meantime. If they weren't going to fill back ordered parts then I guess it's hopeless. I'll have to live with foam glued to the ramp to prevent air balls smashing the glass.

Stern finally got back to me on my followup for the replacement rail that I've been waiting on for >1 year.

"Part# 515-1891-00 isn’t in stock in our inventory , we have stock in one of our off sights. We are doing inventory the first of the year so it will take us a couple of weeks to get this part into our stock."

I guess this is them telling me it will be filled soon, but I don't know why I've been waiting more than a year if it's sitting in some warehouse somewhere. Just send it!

haha, I didn't realize anyone cared!
I am not even sure the new rail will fix 100% of the air balls since they've replaced the left one and I occasionally get an airball on that side still, even more so since I got the precision pinball flippers, but at this point it's more a matter of principle than anything. I just want the warranty to be filled! If I still get airballs after that I know it's 99% likely to be that my setup is not leveled correctly or something on my end rather than the rail being bad.

Well my saga is over. I think it took 18 months but I got my Iron Maiden wireform. In fact I got a spare since they sent me the left one last year and it looks like they sent me both today.

I'm on the fence about this whole situation. If not having the replacement part had prevented me from playing the game I would have probably been turned off of owning pinball machines forever, but it didn't. I was able to keep playing while waiting for this part to come. I am also not the original owner of the machine and the machine is probably 5 years old at this point so the fact that they replaced the part without question is pretty nice.

I think Stern is generally a good company from the few dealings I've had with them but it seems like they are overwhelmed with volume they can't keep up with and they seem to be lean on staffing because the impression I got when e-mailing with them is that my e-mail was just one of thousands that a small team is trying to keep up with.

In the end I'm happy but if this had been a part that I absolutely needed to play the game I know I would have gone out of pocket to get it a year ago.