What you can do is to contact Stern first rather than creating a thread on Pinside.

Oh crud. Your distributor can probably get you some mew ones from Stern, but you'd have to install them yourself, which isn't a great solution. I'd either try to send it back or try to score some upgraded armor with lollipop side rails to at lease cover the affected button area.

I think that creating a thread is exactly the right thing to do. That's what pinside is for. The OP wasn't complaining or bashing stern. He simply wanted to know what to do.

Hey OP maybe it's a hidden message that you should get some of that badass custom armor?

that is horrible, never seen em that bad from Stern....Contact your dist. and they will make it right for you.

With NIB the price they are, that finish is truly awful. I would send the whole game back.

Posting on pinside allows these issues to be transparent to us customers

Bolts even look rusted?

send it back, Stern are charging top money now, they can do the job right.

That's the exclusive assembled Friday afternoon model.

I agree, for the amount of $ you paid I wouldn't expect anything less than perfect on those decals. That's just plain sloppy installation and very poor QC. That shouldn't have even been boxed.

Don't worry. If they are as well installed as the ones on Wrestle Mania, they will be falling off in a few more weeks anyway.

I've bought two NIB games from stern this year Metallica Pro and WWE LE, the head decals on both games have severely peeled off. It has really annoyed me. Yes stern is providing me with new decals but the point is they shouldn't have to.

I'm usually on the side of "these are commercial machines made for a commercial environment, there will be some small cosmetic issues" but this is a truly awful and amateurish decal job. Shocked that it got through QC.

The distro should take it back, apply new decals from Stern, and either give it back to you or sell it and give you a new one.

Are there more of these issues coming up now than in the past? Hopefully Stern doubling the line doesn't mean they're hiring extra workers and not training them properly.

I'd say Stern needs to seriously check their quality control department. I had several issues with my recent NIB KISS Premium (defective side rails, bad mylar job, several switches that needed adjusted to actuate). A call to Stern tech support got my issues resolved, but still. The quality control department looks to be letting a lot of shoddy shit get shipped to customers.

um yeah.jpg

Totally normal and will wipe off with a damp rag.

Yeah it sucks that we are seeing games like this. However you should notify your supplier first and they will work with you on the issue. This goes for JJP as well. Pinside isn't your Yelp review where you bash the company.

Oh, and just to be clear on my comment about the excuse to get the custom armor...that was said as a joke. Those decals are not at all acceptable. Go back to your dealer first to see if they can do anything for you. In reality, most dealers can't do much as far as exchanging the entire machine once you've received it and unboxed it, but you never know.

You should definitely be able to get a new set of decals out of stern, but I'm not sure what else. In reality it would be great if they would swap everything, but I just haven't heard of that happening.

But first = dealer. Second = stern.

Could shipping have caused this? Inexcusable.

I agree with going dealer/distributor first.

Rob

If it can be covered with armor, I'd probably just buy the armor and call it done. Maybe ask for a discount on the armor.

High humidity!

Most likely it was just game was assembled before the decal was given enough time to dry/cure... no way shipping does it. The sad thing is someone let it slide by... that's the part people should be critical of. The assembler obviously saw it, and the QA inspection was either skipped, or let it slide.

Kinda sucks - no excuse really.

Here is who u can blame though......

https://www.facebook.com/sternpinball/videos/10153316475089244/

It's definitely possible that shipping a game without fully "set" decals could happen, but I don't think that's the case here. If you look, the wrinkles are all "stressed" from fasteners being installed. If it was just bubbling in the middle of the cabinet that's a prep issue or a decal issue. These look like the cabinet was populated too quickly post-decal. It almost looks like they used a excess of rapid-tak (or whatever they use) which left the decals a bit slippers on the cab. They ran in the fasteners and the decals slipped a bit. I'm pretty sure it left the factory like that.

Stern QC since changing factories

homer-asleep-on-job.jpg

I would say unacceptable.

No excuse IMO. That should have never left the factory looking like that. That is guaranteed to have been seen along the production line and simply moved along. So Stern keeps pushing the games out like clockwork and we're buying. It's not 1995. A heck of a percentage of these machines are going to home use and Stern knows this.

I would demand they replace the machine, no way you should have to deal with new decals yourself, even if they supply them.

That is seriously bad form on Sterns part. Shows they just wanna get em out the door and get paid. No craftsmanship at all. For the price the are gouging their customers, buyers should demand quality. It will only get worse.

A new set of Decals to an average person isn't much of a solution. They are a bitch to install correctly! Heck that's all they do at Stern and even they appear to be struggling to put them on right.

Gotta agree here. I'd be lost with a set of a new decals....I'd just stand there and stare at them

Get that issue taken care of ASAP. I wouldn't be happy at all if that was my NIB KISS.

This makes me really nervous to buy any future titles from Stern.

This would be acceptable to me:

-Stern sends Distributor decals
-Distributor picks up game and drops off at sign/vinyl shop who can do work
-Distributor picks up and delivers game back to owner

Owner is without game a week and it costs Stern ~$500

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-Distributor picks up game and drops off at sign/vinyl shop who can do work

There's not a sign/vinyl shop within 200 miles of me that would know what a pinball decal is....

I guess im spoiled with HEP down the road..

Crap.

I recently unpacked and set up a few new Sterns, all different titles. I can't recall whether it was Kiss or Wrestle Mania, but one of them had head decals that would not stay on fully.

Its ok, at least stern is making pins. Whats next?

Why not? This is a public forum not a safe place for manufacturers. People need to see this so they can be aware. Posts like this will also hopefully get everyone better QA/QC and a better product.

prettyprettyprettygood.gif

Prefer screened cabs. Decals suck.

I can install the decals for you ... Have Mr Stern book me a flight, I prefer a window seat.

He didn't bash anything...he asked for advice

I recently saw the same head decal peeling on a WWE LE. There's no excuse for these issues to be happening when the games are costing $5k-$8k.

There seems to be more quality control issues coming out of Stern in the past 6 months then ever before. Personally I think we are seeing the downside to Stern rushing games out the door and an overall cost cutting mindset from their management to result in more profit.

Customers should demand more quality control and features at these prices. Stern is literally trying to squeeze every dime slowly out us. Less quality control, the back box redesign, moving the power button location, no longer offering true mirrored backglasss on LE's, less features in some games, and the Spike system are all examples of things to lower costs and increase profits. Are prices going down as a result of these changes? Absolutely not, they have gone up and that makes the problem even worse.

Sucks, but people keep happily paying premium $$$ for games sight unseen. We're "lucky" Stern has not wised up to JJP's model and started taking in the $$$ years in advance...

I was leaning toward buying the NIB IM VE but now thinking HUO may be a better bet- at least you can examine and test it. Even if it affects only 1% of machines, why does anyone have to deal with this when buying new.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

I would send the whole game back.