So I took my old LW 5.6 model that was a college project. Imported it into 3ds max and used the new applink. Using the Collada presets I recieved a very nice smooth mesh, with no materials. So I tried every setting and recieved the same result each time.
But then I used the exporter and took the input.obj file and imported it into blender. Poof! works great!
So I exported without launching 3d coat and imported into blender. Now I just need to export into collada and import into 3d coat and everything works great!
Just a few more steps but at least I have my models.