Quoted from koji:As I understand, many of the classic NOS PFs floating around were not suitable for use in the original runs... but at some point were acquired, and now being sold as NOS, but sometimes contain small imperfections.
It is too bad JJP is not more transparent (NPI), about the whole PF thing. Such a PR nightmare that I can't imagine how it could have been handled any worse.
I didn't know about this for NOS pfs. They didn't sell them however which my theory is that JJP sells defective pfs not only as art but to sell them at cost to avoid a loss. My theory is JJP is contractually obligated that they can't ship back to Mirco due to international shipping rates and redo work would be cost prohibitive. This goes for their "factory finds" as if they act like they don't have an up-to-date inventory total on every screw they have. I think the vast majority of buyers don't know about these issues or know and don't care. That doesn't make it right though.
Honestly I don't think think the entire blame is on the Abess family.
Quoted from BMore-Pinball:100% Agree - Your warranty replacement PF SHOULD BE 100% FREE
That's the issue with JJP - it's not just the crappy PF's - It's how they treated customers with defective PF's
All companies and people make mistakes - it's how you fix the mistakes that makes a lasting impression.
At least they are not putting them in machines
As much flack as Stern Pinball gets they have a better track record than most companies. One of the many reasons why operators choose to route them or most of your friends have a Stern Pinball game or even yourself. They earn and they rarely go down and if they do customer support mostly has your back. Scoop issue on Rush was acknowledged by Stern and a fix will be sent out as an example. Earlier with say splitting cabinets with Ghostbusters or say node boards failing they don't replace. That is troubling and something they have to improve upon. The majority of serious issues with Stern games are a non-factor however. Coil stops are easily replaceable or a node board. The majority of most JJP pfs are defective. The freaking playfield itself.
Quoted from zr11990:No horse in the race anymore. I will never buy a new pin and will be selling all my pins at some point in the future to make that money work for me. But, I read these posts and you guys are bitching and raising hell about JJPs business practices yet you continue to buy. Hell, someone posted that toy story ces were sold out, at what 13 or 14 K. When it comes to this issue you guys are your own worst enemy. Let these games rot in their warehouse and they will get their shit together or at least you won’t be paying a fortune for a game that is defective out of the box.
I bought my game from pinballs.com or Automated Services.
I know of a few things that is going on at JJP that again I won't write publicly. Jack Guarnieri, Eric Meunier, Ken Cromwell and especially Mark Seiden I consider close friends whom I would buy a beer or lend aid at a moments notice. I purchased a GnR Standard at the end of May last year from Mike Daddona. I had full intentions to purchase a BM '66 and the last time I was at the showroom he had only the LE on the floor. Well this time he had a Standard and I played it. To me it offered more stuff in the game and was cheaper. So to support my friends at JJP and Automated I decided to go with JJP. I also noticed the LE model next to the Standard was chipping, Mike knew about it, and promised me he would "fight for me if any issues arises". Mike is a known trusted distributor and very close with JJP so I felt safer in those regards.
I had an unboxing party. Upon unboxing the game as the game was still in the box with coin door facing up in the bed of my truck, we see the coin door sticker was slapped on crooked. Ok, not a big deal but could have been prevented with an alignment jig for the sticker. We figure out a way to get the game off the truck and unbox it on the driveway. Yoko2una, I have it on video, points out the cabinet decals around the flipper buttons are wrinkled. Again not a huge issue as I will just take the flipper buttons off and smoothen it out. Could have been prevented by the line worker being trained properly not twisting the flipper button but rather the lock nut inside the cabinet. It's an issue sorted out around 7 years ago with Stern Pinball KISS but an issue with JJP still. Since my place doesn't have room currently I placed this game at an NEPL location to promote JJP/GnR. The game played fine and when I returned for an NEPL night about 1-2 weeks later I went to play my game. The game wasn't played that much since I left it and had under 50 plays. However pooling started on my game. It's as if the game being exposed to oxygen like a mummy was making it fall apart or something. So what I do is I notify Mike about these issues and tell him to not worry as I will "fix it" and I know I will meet JJP at Pintastic and Expo to talk about it. I spend like $100 on a freaking iron and silicone washers and I'm taking apart my game and it only has 80 or so plays at this point. People during league nights are watching me take a freaking iron to my $8k game going "didn't you just buy this game"??? Fast forward to October last year and I finally meet just about everyone including former and current JJP employees. I won't go into specific details however what I was told was rather alarming. So when I get back home I email Mike and Mike this time calls JJP directly and leaves a phone message. He doesn't get a phone call back. Then when Pintastic came Jack was informed about this situation by Mike in-person and wanted to be included on this case. Anyone who has ever met Jack knows Jack cares about you and will give you his own phone in fact to call the person responsible. I even have it filmed on a Pintastic seminar.
To this day Mike Daddona hasn't received a call back. I have another friend who has an LE through Automated and she got more lucky with a response from JJP and they told her "there is nothing they could do and buy the pf protection kit". Hers looks much worse than mine. Aside from the decal issues and playfield issues the silicone washers also created pooling including underneath the apron where the ball doesn't even hit. I spent more money on PETG washers and started to install them but gave up realizing the insanity of it all. Also at a certain point the clearcoat does cure and trying to heat it up will chip the clearcoat rather than re-flow so you're essentially making the problem worse. The reason why the newer production games the pfs have had like a year to cure so that could be why the games are not pooling anymore. Luckily the pooling/chipping has stopped it appears like. The record spinner used to wobble because of a screw under the record not having Loctite on it. Not the nylon locknut but the screw under the record sticker. It would create serious airballs constantly. So I had to pay $48 for 6 stickers to fix that problem. Those are all the problems I have had with this game and have spent like $200 on repairs. Currently the game is at a pinball coop/museum in Providence, RI for the public to play. It has over 400 plays and looks fantastic and plays fantastic. Again most of the people at JJP are good people and they do care about their games but talking is different than proving. Honestly from what I learned it's a company culture issue with egos but that is with all the companies. Don't be too harsh on QA or the aforementioned people. They are good people who want to make good games but are just stuck in a shitty situation and sometimes they can't do anything about it even though they want to.
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