I have the diverter issue but thats it. Ive been lucky with my 3 nib sterns as the playfields have been great and even dimpling isnt bad at all. I just hope the real diverter fix isnt too complicated as Im not good messing with these things!

I feel exactly the same way. I bought a DP premium in 2018 was my first NIB and what a disappointment in QC the playfield was dimples galore on day 1 right out of the box and cheap switches breaking rubbers popping/breaking off and post sleeves not much thicker than paper (ok that’s a little bit of an exaggeration) but still. Shitty experience when you spend so much. I’m dreading the day a pin comes out that I really really want to buy from Stern. JP comes close but not enough.

I too look through these new Stern game threads to see the QC issues that are surfacing and it doesn’t look like they are changing their ways, unfortunately.

Right now I’m happy my next NIB will be Spooky’s Rick and Morty and I think it will be (definitely hope) it will be a better experience! We’ll see in November when I get it.

Why would they improve something that as no impact on their orders...

Thanks, that sounds very difficult. I will try this first, next game.

Any good tips for the Training Shot? Seems near not possible with the right Flipper finger. On mine the ball rebounds the most times

Drop the upper flipper at the perfect moment to trap it in there.

Stern would only be running at 50% capacity at the moment. Combined with the production they lost being fully closed, and a new release, of course they’ve got a backlog. Doesn’t mean it’s boom times at Stern.

Because its costing them sales and probably giving them lots of headaches too from from unhappy customers, plus a company "should" take pride in the product that they make. Also when a customer buys a game he will buy another game...and another game if the quality was good on the last game that he bought. If you are in the pinball business repeat customers are what you want. Eventually this shit is going to catch up with them and bite them in the ass.

I guess what’s an acceptable failure rate for a nib? My buddy bought a big Lebowski that had issues out of the box With a coil that didn’t work and a dialed in with issues out of the box with the screen 1/2 too low, blown fuse and the mechanic not working properly. I don’t think any manufacturer is perfect. How many pins is stern making and how many have major issues? I have owned 5 nib and my buddies 10 or more and besides minor tweaking Im the only one that had a major issue with playfield chipping on one pin.

Depends on what you call major. If I buy an 6-9K pinball machine I dont want even minor issues when it comes to my playfield. I can fix a switch that isnt registering or something like that but I cant fix bad clearcoat on the playfield and I take pride in my games and I don't want a shitty playfield.

I agree, so let’s just say issues with clear that chips. Any idea how many stern has failing vs produced?

No one has any clue.

So how does any know it’s a major issue?

They don’t.

The only way to know for sure is if a distro gives up their sales vs playfield replacements per game.

i.e. sold 100 JP2. Replaced 10 playfields. (I have no idea about the numbers) and I cannot see that happening.

When did I say "business is booming". I said they can't meet demand and won't be able to for a long time. If you cancel your order you are doing nothing to them or your disti. You are not proving a point by trying to make them lose a sale.

They lost a sale today from me. Distributor mailing my payment back tomorrow. I’d rather me have the money than Stern. Now my JP2 gets voted on. Probably a unpopulated playfield at maximum.

I hope it works out better than that but it does seem to be the best case scenario.

I have several friends who have playfield issues and i also see lots of people on here that are having playfield issues so i gotta believe there is a problem rather than it being a coincidence. It’s enough to scare me from buying a new game lets put it that way. If these games were good quality i would have a JP Premium and a Elvira 3 sitting in my basement right now, instead i have been afraid to buy them and trust me I want these two games bad.

That's all we can do as a consumer is stop buying their product and hope that other consumers do the same, which would force changes. It's a shame because I love Stern games, own a couple and would love to purchase more of new Stern games.

This is my opinion only;

Stern has been riding the pinball resurgence bubble the last few years (or more) and they don't seem to care about the consumer that much anymore, if any at all. Like any other other greedy corporation they are trying to increase their profits while cutting their costs at the consumers expense. They have been giving less for more money on the pinball machines and they are getting even more greedy now with the whole mods, toppers and BS secret content if you buy their mods/add ons... I can go on and on.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens with covid and the effects that will have on business lost to Stern by arcades and machine routers.
Maybe none but if the majority of purchasers are people like us then maybe they will have to change their ways. (One can only hope)

Just commenting on the general conversation - I’d say Stern are hurting, like many businesses at the moment. Not addressing stupid QC issues like those raised in this thread will eventually catch up with them.

The odd consumer not buying a game will have almost zero effect on Stern. People have to stop playing the games.

Yep, I get it. I was nervous after BM66. I’m glad I bought my tmnt but I was definitely gun shy. I had an opportunity to buy a JP pretty reasonable and didn’t because of the BM66 issue. Then I started thinking about it and came to the conclusion that no one knows if it’s a common issue or not. I tried to put things in perspective a bit and said eff it I’m buying tmnt .

I’m not a huge fan of stern, I think they cheap out on any part they can but they are on a roll making some really fun pins. My brother bought JP prem and the playfield is great and the game is amazingly fun. I love our Deadpool as well. I guess either the playfield issues are minimal or not bad enough to deter enough people from buying. It took my brother almost 5 months to get JP prem and he ordered it in February. COVID obviously hit but he was told they were in a 2 month back log once they got back online

What a shame yet another Stern release is derailed by QC issues that are known or preventable. TMNT seemed like the golden child and here we are. How many times can you shoot yourself in the (123) foot?

That will never happen!

Except for now because if covid...
At least the people that don’t buy pinball machines.

Exactly. People will keep playing the games and complaining on Pinside.

If you keep trying, eventually you will shoot yourself in the head.

I agree with that sentiment.

Stern sales have been rising steadily the past several years per Dwight and Gomez AND confirmed by a big Distro I spoke to. Tracking sales for the year is doable with the serial numbers from Jan to Dec

Stern has two full lines and one smaller backup

When fully ramped they produce 50-60 games a day.

Like I said, my last LEs were great.

I still play my Munsters with pooling and it doesn’t impact my enjoyment one bit

Same thing with Ghostbusters, I don’t think about the two tiny insert ghosting slivers when I’m playing it

Would I rather have a perfect PF? Sure

But Stern sales won’t drop until they start making shitty games, prices go too high, the economy tanks or people just start losing interest.

If I wanted a TMNT, and I don’t, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy one, but that’s just me.

I respect the right of you guys being pissed off and unhappy and not buying

Since I already needed to take the ramps off to fix the diverter (side note: that service bulletin is missing some steps!), I thought I'd go a bit further to remove ball guides, flatten the ink, and put some fiber washers on the guides. Not for the faint of heart, but I do enjoy tearing into these games.

Here's what the ball guide in the back looks like. Not sure if it would eventually chip, but it certainly isn't pretty. I'd definitely recommend keeping an eye on these spots where the guides touch down. This is pretty much exactly what my JP looked like as well, and the steps I took to protect that one are holding up well ~1000 games in.

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IMG_20200729_154529 (resized).jpg

Also, those back hex posts weren't screwed in all the way. Both had about 1/8" of thread showing and were a bit wobbly.

That pretty well sums it up. Very well said, and there are a lot of us like it. If a playfield really is pissing me off, we will just buy a new playfield and let it just sit there. Times change and anything can happen down the road.

It's ok to buy, just dont be mad when you get a bad playfield and then bad customer service from Stern. I'm just personally hesitant because #1 8K is a freakin boatload of money to me and #2 I have two bad playfields right now. My IMDN Premium has pooling and chipping and my Munsters has some nasty pooling that's going to really look like shit if it chips....and it will. Stern has done nothing for me yet and it's been over a year since i started talking to them. They have totally forgotten about me now.

I love their games and they are my favorite pinball company by far but I just don't want to get another bad playfield is all because it causes me too much stress....something I already have too much of in my life right now. Pinball is suppose to be fun not stressful.

Yep, I understand the risk but they have actually been good to me on my claims and recently.

You may have a good distro. I think this is the main thing to help you get you claims over the line.

Does anyone have a rubber list for tmnt? Looking to switch the stocks ones to Titans

I reach out to them directly. Not though my distributor

PG 37 in the manual

Believe me brother Terry, if it caused me stress, I don’t need any more of that, I wouldn’t buy either.

Not to go off topic here but holy crap, just locked 5 balls on Gappa Angry, cellar shot didn’t raise for number 6 but man Lyman is a freaking genius great coder!!!

Elvira

Very much appreciated. Thank you

Even after seeing all the issues again with the clear coat I am still excited as hell for my TMNT. I know that doesn’t help with the whole boycott Stern for having bad Playfields. I do hope they get some stuff straighten out by the time the Premiums roll out but I know the clear coat will be a gamble. Cowabunga!

This photo.....Stern haven't corrected the problem at all. They literally moved the art away from the posts to hide it, but it's the exact same problem since when....B66? The paint itself is not adhering to the wood. Are they using 2 PF manufacturers? One is shit and the other isn't. At a wild guess, id say the one that is outsourced is not shit and the in house one is shit. But that's pure speculation.

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Haha. A covert way to say you're out?

Has anyone noticed the lights going out during team up mode? The lights will go black right after hitting a shot in team up and battle again won’t always light either. I couldn’t replicate in any other mode expect team up. Bug maybe?

Lol no I am still all in for my Premium. I just want some of the hardware issues to be solved before they hit the line. Wishful Thinking I know.
Let’s just hope Stern is keeping an eye on this thread and takes some notes.

Right there with ya buddy.

I have not got that far - yet! Which character, or does it matter?

Rob

I disassembled the pizza spinner gearbox and liberally re-greased everything in there with white lithium grease. On my game it was so obnoxiously loud before, even with the glass on. Now it's much quieter and smoother sounding. The gearbox is easy to work on, but you need to make sure you do not misplace any tiny shim washers that are inside.

Rob

the main problem is we have no stern alternative. we need our pinball drugs. stern is making the best.
i dont understand why stern doesn't fix this problem, officialy in interviews they seem to care about what people want, but on the other side they copletely ignoring us.
if George Gomez just would tell us that they are adressing the issues and not totally poop on us... but they are radio silent.

we need another manufactuar pumping out 2-4 good theme titles a year, making some competition... then we would have a choice what to buy.

Hot Wheels - bad theme for me
R&M - good, but sold out
JJP- too expensive
Multimorphic - too experimental and expensive yet

Jjp's quality is maybe the reason of the higher cost...
When I compare my deadpool and turtle to my woz and dialed in, the quality level is no way to discuss... Stern is making disposable toys