Has anyone received their replacement 'thomas' cars yet?

[Melanie]

Ds is eagerly awaiting his big box. We had to send back so many!

His free one came yesterday, though. "Toad." Is that whatever everyone else receiveD?

[jbrandy]

We sent a large box as well and we have not seen anything yet other than an email saying they were working on in and they returned one car that we sent that they said was not a part of the recall, although it looked just like one pictured on the recall sheet.

I certainlly hope that they send more than 1 car to those of us who sent in a whole box of things.

This whole situation frustrates me. I find it hard to believe that a company that seemed to pride themselves on making quality products would have let something like this happen without them noticing. Between this and discontinuing the "Lifetime Guarentee" that they used to have I'm seriously considering not ever purchasing any more "Thomas" products. I have a second son now and am thinking when he gets older we'll find other trains to purchase.

Thanks for keeping this topic alive in the posts -- I'm very curious to see what happens.

Beth B
DS 4-4-03
DS 4-18-07

[Melanie]

I'm not holding my breath for another freebie. The letter did say we'd get our postage reimbursement separately. I cannot imagine how they are going to fill all these orders! We sent ours the very first day in hopes we'd get in early. We also got the email and one car returned to us.

How DOES this happen? How do they not check before they make millions of toys?

[emschwar]

We haven't gotten anything yet. Not even an email. I'm a little worried...

[Radosti]

I got "Toad" as a free train in the mail last night. The letter said that they have the replacements on order, but to accept Toad as a free gift while we wait.

[shilo]

my email came from:

[email protected]

maybe you can try contacting them and making sure they've received your shipment.

hth, lori
Sam 5/19/05 How lucky I am that you chose me.

[emschwar]

I emailed them on 7/24 (it was the address on the recall form) and asked if they'd gotten my recalled pieces, but haven't heard anything back yet. If I don't hear something soon, I may have to call. I don't want to be out all those Thomas pieces! Noah is missing his musical caboose especially.

[Melaniee]

I ended up spending a small fortune to get ours sent registered, insured and tracked. I didn't trust them.

[AJs Mommy]

We sent back 23 trains and the Fire Station (we have 2 boys, so 2 of everything & some multiples of favorites) very early in the recall and all we rec'd back were 2 coal cars (btw, not nearly as beloved as any of the others that were returned). My boys are so sad, every day they watch for our mail carrier to see if their trains are coming... Their customer service really is horrible.

[Melaniee]

Not to argue with your customer service comments since it seems they are ignoring some people's inquiries; however I can see why it's taking so long.

I'm assuming they had to initiate the recall immediately upon the lead discovery, but that does not mean they had any replacements created yet to send out. SO they had to likely restart assembly and some of these may have even no longer been made. And, I can only assume the recall demand is much higher than their usual demand for any one product.

And yes, it still totally sucks for the kids.


I sent ours back the very first day in hopes we'd get ahead of the wave. We'll see. My son is very lucky and has tons of trains to play with; I feel badly for the kids who this may have made up the majority of what they had. They were still my son's favorites, but he has others.

[Freckle53]

We got S.C. Ruffey today.

Because it's a paint issue, it's not like they can replace/modify a part of what we had to send back to fix it. I think a lot of the recalled pieces were retired, so I assume that means they're having to restart production on all of them unless they have unpainted blanks sitting in storage somewhere.

I don't envy the mess they have on their hands. At least they're replacing everything. They could have issued vouchers for the value of the items and be done with it all a lot quicker. A voucher would have been fine with us because we only had Percy's mail car and the ice cream factory, which my son wasn't too attached to. But, I imagine many kids had to give up many trains and accessories that they were very attached to. At least they will get those same items back.

[AJs Mommy]

According to the rep I spoke with, none of the trains involved are retired & the delay is really due to a staffing problem given the large scale nature of the recall. Apparently manufacturing was temporarily outsourced to a plant in China who utilized the lead paint. Fortunately, lead-free & safe copies of the popular trains (like James) are currently in stores (Target, Toys R Us), but as most parents of Thomas fans know, it's the oldest, most beat up train that is the most special and really can't be replaced... For my youngest son it is "the one that has the great big scratch of his face from when we went down the slide on vacation" In the grand scheme of things it is just a toy train, but while my sons waited for their trains to come, I held my breath waiting to hear from the lab that yes, their blood tests were below threshold for lead poisoning.

[shburks]

We got Toad today! DS just thought a new train car came. Fortunately, he wasn't extremely attached to the ones we sent back.

[caheinz]

We got S. C. Ruffey yesterday. DS was unimpressed (we have him already -- Toad, too...), until we pointed out that he was a Troublesome Truck, and couldn't he use more of those?

Sigh. DS has enough other trains that he hasn't *really* noticed yet, but I'll still be happier when we get them all back. (10ish trains + Scrap Yard, I think it was...)

[emschwar]

We got Oliver in the mail today. Of course, we already had him.

Anyone know if I can return it to Michaels for store credit and buy him a different one we don't already have?

[eb1]

We got Diesel. Ick. Wish I hadn't opened it, but DS wanted me to.

[Percycat]

I don't have much to offer... but I wanted to subscribe to this post. We mailed our package about a week after the recall. We sent back 14 cars. We received an e-mail a couple weeks ago, but haven't received any merchandise. I really hope they are true to their word and replace the cars. One of our cars was the 2006 Day out with Thomas. I can't imagine RC2 really wants to remake all of these cars, particularly if there is no current market. The day after I mailed my package, my dad suggested I take that car and make a shadow box display with pictures and trinkets from our trip.... I regret sending back the 2006 car because I don't believe I will get it back. I sure hope they are true to their word. I have had great exerience with RC2 in the past.... I hope this exerience is positive too.

angela

[megv]

We sent back 3 trains plus 2 traffic signs and received our entire replacement order plus Toad 2 days ago. I sent in DS trains 3-4 days after the recall was announced.

[Melanie]

I'm glad you received yours already!

This leads me to wonder if the hold up, for some of us, maybe due to a specific item or items they are remaking.

[KBecks]

Our free one was Fergus and my son likes him a lot. Still waiting on the others. I originally told DS that James went on summer vacation. I hope he's back before Christmas!

[leslieu]

Surprisingly we received our free one today, "Bertie", I didn't think we'd get anything for a long, long time. Still waiting for our beloved "James" and all the rest of the trains to return.

I'm not holding my breath.

Leslie

[Percycat]

We received our free car today: Butch. We don't have any trucks and I don't know this character. I hope my son likes it.

angela

[Alys the Cat]

We got "Butch" yesterday -- which we already had. :P

I'm thinking, as part of their recall form, they should have had about 10 trains to choose from as your free gift. It's not much of a bonus if you already have it. Called customer service, but of course they won't send me a different train.

Maybe we should set up a train swap. ;)

[caheinz]

>We got "Butch" yesterday -- which we already had. :P
>
>I'm thinking, as part of their recall form, they should have
>had about 10 trains to choose from as your free gift. It's not
>much of a bonus if you already have it. Called customer
>service, but of course they won't send me a different train.
>
>Maybe we should set up a train swap. ;)


Great idea! They definitely should have asked for requests. I mean, we sent like 10 trains back -- you'd think they'd realize we would most likely have any randomly chosen engine?

I'm not sure I could swap, though. I don't think I've heard any freebies that we don't have.

[BaileyBea]

We got an SC Ruffy last week sometime.

We also sent 7 other items and haven't received those yet.

Nancy

[kochh2]

we got oliver the other day... only sent back one train, but i'd be pissed if i sent in a bunch and only got one free gift!! I told DS James was at the doctor cause he had icky sicky paint... he still asks every few days for him!! :(

[stefani]

We received Oliver last week but we have not received the replacement trains yet.

[Oregonmother]

I contemplated sending each of our 5 trains seperatley so we would get 5 free gifts, but didn't. I think it stinks that they are only giving one free train per order regardless of how many trains you returned. I sent ours and received the e-mail that it arrived, but nothing has been returned yet. I just found another unopened train the other day that is part of the recall, so i guess I need to package that one up to send back too.