repair information needed on a toy riding pony

My cousin has a toy riding pony like the one found here:

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Recently, it has become partially dysfunctional and I was trying to find a repair facility. I contacted the manufacturer and they say it's no longer in production and therefore no place available offering repair. It's really to large to ship anywhere, so I'm left either with a broken toy or no choice but to try and repair it myself. I looked it over yesterday, but found it very UNuser friendly when trying to disassemble it. The pony "coat" for example, while it unzips from around the head, there are no other areas with zippers so the only way I saw to remove from the body would be scissor cutting which I really didn't want to do. There may be a special way of disassembly anyhow which is why the next step was to try to find a service manual.

Anyone have experience repairing these gadgets please chime in. What a waste to spend nearly $600 new and can no longer get support when something goes wrong.

Thanks in advance, Bill

Reply to
Bill Proms
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O

really

choice

with

something

From my limited experience of motor & clockwork driven automata the main failure, assuming fair wear and tear, is the first drive pinion, stripped teeth/shifting or split. If its been abused then it could be anything , of course

Reply to
N_Cook

You might want to point out to Hasbro that it's legally obliged to provide service parts (and by implication, service).

If Hasbro doesn't cooperate, contact your state Attorney General and file a complaint.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

My guess is that Hasbro would try & weasel out of it. The ad does state "Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes". Once certain makers discontinue manufacturing an item (particularly with imported electronics), you may be immediately left out in the cold - they might literally deny it's existence, sometimes refusing to supply parts or even service info (I had this happen recently with Kenwood). This appears to be on the increase as more & more manufacturing is outsourced to nameless Chinese factories.

Reply to
Sofa Slug

While these are great excuses, it still doesn't chang the 7 years of parts laws that still do exist in the US. Best case, the OP would get some money from habro to cut the loss on the thing junking out.

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

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Good Luck!

--Winston

Reply to
Winston

I could be wrong, but I have never seen written confirmation of any FEDERAL law requiring parts to be available for any specific amount of time (if this does exist, I would welcome a link to it). Maybe you are thinking of California state law (and similar laws in some other states). Here is the citation for California:

--
a) Every manufacturer making an express warranty with respect to an
electronic or appliance product described in subdivision (h), (i), (j),
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Sofa Slug

Thank you for the updated information.

Some manufacturers won't supply service parts for products currently in production!

There used to be such laws -- at least according to what I read in a "High Fidelity" article, and what the parts lady at Sony told me.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

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What doesn't it do that it is supposed to do, and what can it do? If you want help, we need more information.

Reply to
hrhofmann

Just a quick update here- the manufacturer no longer supports this type of pony. I emailed and later called them yesterday. They don't even have a service manual available either and also advised me that there were no user serviceable parts inside. I'll tell you one thing, if my cousin hadn't of bought this used at a yard sale (I think she paid $20), I would have been quite upset with the lack of cooperation especially considering the original pricetag of hundreds of dollars.

For now, they'll just use the pony as an unpowered toy. The kids can still get up on it and have plenty of fun.

Thanks again for the reponses here.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Proms

user

original

You know the old joke about the kid playing with the cardboard box and ignoring the toy.

It sounds like Butterscotch was a product with fundamental design problems, and Hasbro decided to just dump it. At least Tyco didn't gripe when people requested replacements for their defective N.S.E.C.T.

Regardless, I'd still contact the Attorney General in your state, or the state in which Hasbro is located. If people don't complain, businesses will continue to get away with this "we don't give a damn" crap.

I just forced La Crosse into replacing a clock/thermometer which was labeled (on its Website) as having an atomic clock, but did not, with one that did.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

wow, that thing is creepy:

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Reply to
Cydrome Leader

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