I've had pretty good results with eBay. Early on, I got ripped a couple of times, but you learn pretty quickly. What has been suggested is excellent. If you are careful, and ask a lot of questions, it can be a great place to get some really excellent deals ... on the other hand :-) .... you can get 'stung' really bad.
Be careful of any locomotive that is advertised as "I haven't any way to test if this is working" (usually means, I think, something is pretty badly wrong with it). Also, I always ask if the person has tested it, if it has any loud grinding noises, jerky movements, and if the lights work, etc. If I get 'evasive' answers to any of these questions, I;m 'outta there' (like:' "its wrapped and i don't want to take it out of the box to run any tests, etc').
The two worst experiences I have had out of many satisfactory purchases were a P2k ICRR GP18 advertised in 'mint condition'. This was about 2 years ago when that series of P2k's were fetching a good price. I got it at 'way low' price even for eBay (which should have been a big red flag to me in the first place).
When I got it, the wheels had obviously lots of run time on them and, yes, you guessed it, the axle gears on all four wheel sets were split. The body was beautiful (I think the body was mint and the seller put a pretty well used chassis in the box with it. The locomotive motor was terrible. I tore the whole chassis apart (a great, but frustrating learning experience), rewired the motor (I use only DC/analog), cleaned the armature and brushes and got a new set of replacement wheels from Walthers (it came with the original warranty card which was, by the way, worthless).
Once I put everything back together, with the new wheel/axles it runs beautifully. In fact it's one of my quietest, smoothest diesels.
The other one I got 'stung' on was the Bowser 2-10-0 kit that was advertised as 'mint'. However I didn't realize that there was an old style and a new style. Again I got a great price, BUT ... :-) (1) Someone had already worked on it and it was not 'mint'. No big damage except a couple of drivers were messed up. I solved the problem by having an 'expert builder' put the chassis and valve gear together, with a Helix Humper motor. It runs like a dream. (2) Being the old style, it's boiler is the very heavy and very soft white metal. Nothing I have comes close to hauling like it can ... but the details, cast on for the most part, are very far from Spectrum quality. It did come with a 'super detail kit', but I'm really not too impressed even with its quality. The running quality, however, is incredible and the HH remotoring job is now very quiet and smooth (and insulated for DCC if I ever convert).
have fun, but be careful, on eBay
lanny nicolet
Be careful of any locomotive that is advertised as "I haven't any way to test if this is working" (usually means, I think, something is pretty badly wrong with it). Also, I always ask if the person has tested it, if it has any loud grinding noises, jerky movements, and if the lights work, etc. If I get 'evasive' answers to any of these questions, I;m 'outta there' (like:' "its wrapped and i don't want to take it out of the box to run any tests, etc').
The two worst experiences I have had out of many satisfactory purchases were a P2k ICRR GP18 advertised in 'mint condition'. This was about 2 years ago when that series of P2k's were fetching a good price. I got it at 'way low' price even for eBay (which should have been a big red flag to me in the first place).
When I got it, the wheels had obviously lots of run time on them and, yes, you guessed it, the axle gears on all four wheel sets were split. The body was beautiful (I think the body was mint and the seller put a pretty well used chassis in the box with it. The locomotive motor was terrible. I tore the whole chassis apart (a great, but frustrating learning experience), rewired the motor (I use only DC/analog), cleaned the armature and brushes and got a new set of replacement wheels from Walthers (it came with the original warranty card which was, by the way, worthless).
Once I put everything back together, with the new wheel/axles it runs beautifully. In fact it's one of my quietest, smoothest diesels.
The other one I got 'stung' on was the Bowser 2-10-0 kit that was advertised as 'mint'. However I didn't realize that there was an old style and a new style. Again I got a great price, BUT ... :-) (1) Someone had already worked on it and it was not 'mint'. No big damage except a couple of drivers were messed up. I solved the problem by having an 'expert builder' put the chassis and valve gear together, with a Helix Humper motor. It runs like a dream. (2) Being the old style, it's boiler is the very heavy and very soft white metal. Nothing I have comes close to hauling like it can ... but the details, cast on for the most part, are very far from Spectrum quality. It did come with a 'super detail kit', but I'm really not too impressed even with its quality. The running quality, however, is incredible and the HH remotoring job is now very quiet and smooth (and insulated for DCC if I ever convert).
have fun, but be careful, on eBay
lanny nicolet