Crescendo. Once I rebuilt the playfield and had someone knowledgeable fiddle with the start sequence, it's been a rock.

Meanwhile Metallica has a broken up-post, Fish Tales needed some switch adjustments, World Cup Soccer needed a new DMD and needs the ramp diverter slop cleaned up, and No Fear is a total project....soo....... EMS ARE THE MOST RELIABLE GAMES.... or something. #pinsidelogic

This is counter to its reputation, but Black Hole, my first machine, has been by far my most reliable. I can't remember ever taking the glass off other than to clean or LED it. Works flawlessly.

Well after i fixed the droptarget switches and the mylar my Grand Lizard have been pretty solid sofar (7 months now).

My Gottlieb "2001." Once I fixed it about 15 years ago, I've only had to open it up to wax the playfield a couple of times.

Whirlwind - just always works

Spiderman for me, but perhaps it isn't a fair comparison. All the other pins I've bought are either projects or much older.

Stern Stat Trrk for sure.

This is the ultimate "knock on wood" thread...

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Walking dead. 7500 plays and only a rollover switch out. Stern is sending me a free replacement too

Not one issue with my IMVE, MET pro, AC DC luci or STLE....
and my black pyramid always works also

There goes over half of the collection! Oh the humanity!

Only problem Spirit has had in 30 years (besides my father taking out the backglass and bashing it on a beam in the ceiling ) is one of the slingshot switches fused together after getting more and more sensitive until the coil firing would close the switch again and it started jackhammering.

Meanwhile my Black Hole has had more problems in the three months I've had it than any of my other working machines have had in their lifetimes. Blown upkicker coil. Blown upkicker transistor. Blown upkicker pre-driver. Blown lower pf ball gate transistor. Blown lower pf ball gate pre-driver. Ball getting stuck in lower pf ball gate. Ball jumping over gate on upper playfield because the coil is too strong. Wire fell off the flipper button. EOS switches fusing together. Flippers sticking due to worn pawls. Pop bumper coil stops magnetizing. Blown light transistors. Broken chaser board. No speech on sound board. Sound board cuts out randomly. Switch matrix IC blown. Switch matrix connector falling apart. Motor housing replaced with carved block of wood. What's next? We shall see. At least it's never the same problem twice, so eventually I'll fix everything.

Gilligan's Island - The Best Game Ever!

Palace guard. One bad pop bumper, clean the playfield since it had been in storage 20 years, everything else has worked forever. Didn't even have to adjust any switches !

My Sterns: LOTR and ACDC. All of that is offset by all the tooling around I've had to do to get GOT LE to work the way it REALLY was designed to...not the way Stern said it was designed to because they couldn't find a fix.

LOTR. Other than modding, I haven't had to do anything to it.

Avatar.....it's been good to me since nib 5 yrs ago.

Baywatch & POTC

POTC and ID4.

My NIB Mustang Pro, one of the first ones off the line has played perfect since it arrived. So zero $ and zero time in repairs OR adjustments.

i've had a lot of good luck with newer sterns,

besides that, hmm. I had a Cactus Canyon be so reliable, i had to wait a couple years while it was on route in a pizza shop to buy it- had to wait for it to break (blew a big driver diode)

I have a 1980 Gottlieb Counterforce that just plays mint every time you push start. Got it with two burned pop bumper coils. Replaced those and their pop drivers and it's been a tank.

Nascar have'nt done a thing to it in 10 yrs.

Williams Double Play pitch and bat. Developed its first problem ever in 40 years over the holidays. I would say that is damn fine run!

I would have said BSD until recently: 10 years almost no problem at all, but now it often gives a second ball.
I think my Road Kings are the most reliable. I own 3 (2 lent to others...1 Road Kings 2.0). In those 3 games I think only thing that broke once was the drop-target not working, so 1 real problem in 3 games in 5+ years.

Every game I've owned, ever, had an issue. Some issues were easy, some were a pain in my ass, but I love taking the glass off.

It's also the newest game I have, Stern Grand Prix

Agree, love getting under the glass.

Whoa Nellie. On location for 4-5 months now and it still looks brand new with zero malfunctions.

The one I never play.

Believe it or not, my Twilight Zone...even after it fell off of a lift on it's side on a tile floor (don't ask)....plays like a champ.

Indy 500 HUO had only 6 months so far
Earthshaker had for 6 years even taken it to 3 Houston Arcade Expo shows
Pinball Magic had it 5 years which also taken it to 2 Houston Arcade Expo shows
DE Simpsons had for 5 years taken it to 1 Houston Arcade Expo show

You really find out how solid your games are once you take them to a pinball event and gets played non stop for 2 or 3 days.

Avatar

Any System 11 I've ever had. My Cyclone is like Old Faithful..

Gottlieb Soccer has been a rock star since it's initial fix. Also my first machine and most reliable.

HUO RBION, Stern SM, MM, and although it was a complete beater as far as looks, Earthshaker.

So kinda of a closely related question I've been wondering about.... is the state of advanced electronic technology, the quality of circuit boards and wiring, and the reliability of components just so much better in 2016 than in the 1990's, such that it should be no surprise that a modern Stern will just naturally be more trouble-free than a Bally Williams?

Or.... is it not so much that, but more a function of ageing hardware? And therefore, again, no surprise that Stern pins are going to beat out the B/W machines of 90's on repairs

This question comes into mind more and more as we're now getting modern Stern games with rulesets and play action on par with, or sometimes better than, the greats of the 1990's.

DE Maverick. The only game I bought that was fully working. The only thing I had to repair was the optos and it has been 100% functional for several years now.

LOTR, but it probably helps it has been HUO all its life and is lightly played, literally just had to adjust the balrog switch slightly as it was over-sensitive.

Next would be T2, rock solid. Literally had 1 issue where the shoot again light was out, new lamp holder and all good again. Game needs a good strip down and clean at some stage though.

Tron. NIB more than 4 years ago. I had to shop it last year, but just because it was dirty and I was installing Eli's ramp light kit, plastic protection and LEDs. It's been crazy reliable and is still a blast to play after all this time.

Up until recently I would have said my BK2K. I would just dump it back in the garage after each pinball show, leave it in there until the next show (or maybe set it up for a while indoors) and everything would work fine on it each time. It has been a real workhorse over the last five years or so.

I had left it in the garage over last winter for eight months or so, and I set it up indoors last week - and it is now sulking with many GI lampholders not working, including a lot that are soldered onto circuit board strips, no 75 volts to the pops, display problems and I have had to replace/adjust several microswitches on the playfield. Looking like many more hours work to get it back working properly again!

Must be an SS game. In the EM world, less play = more problems

Scared Stiff seems Elvira likes to keep it up!!

Damn straight

Stern Playboy hands down. I've had it on location for many years and it just keeps on going.

Well I hope you've changed the balls a few times in those 10 years.

I have never had a single problem, not even a single switch issue, with Bride of Pinbot. Flawless from day 1.