IJ 7622 Race for the Stolen Treasure: Missing Pieces

[WesternOutlaw]

I opened Indiana Jones set 7622, Race for the Hidden Treasure eagerly this morning. I loved building the smaller jeep (what a great vehicle). To my surprise, when I went to open Bag B or 2 containing the parts for the truck, the bag was already opened slightly. No pieces were loose in the box and I started building.

To my surprise, I discovered a missing wheel axis and a wheel. I searched my building area to not find the missing parts. I thought I would do a soft build (my word for constructing without building, by placing the parts from each step in a small pile). I had discovered that six pieces (mostly standard bricks and plates) were missing from the set. I sent a message to Lego a little bit ago. The set was not listed in their database and I'm hoping since these most of the parts are standard bricks/pieces, I can get replacements without having to take the entire set back (I hate the return/exchange line this time of year). I had purchased at TRU.

Well, I ended up using pieces from my old Adventurers sets as replacements (mostly red, so I can tell what was missing). What a disappointment on Christmas day though! I don't think this was done at the store. The set was sealed with pieces of tape that looked untouched. Also, TRU had just got them in when I purchased the set. I can't be sure, but I think this is another Lego quality issue.

It's still a great set and goes well with the motorcycle chase. Happy Holidays!

[Siegfried]

You have got me worried now; mine is arriving any day now. I hope that I have better luck. 8-|

[iamded]

Bad news! :-( I guess you'll just have to wait unitl the sets are 'officially' out, so TLC has them listed on their database. I guess the pieces fell out before the bag was sealed, or the bag wasn't sealed properly and the pieces fell out before it was put in the box. *wacko* I hope no one else has an issue like this, and I hope you get your pieces.

~Peace

[Batbrick]

Wow! That sucks, a lot. You should be able to get those peices for free right?

Anyway, I'm sure its probably just a one-off bad luck thing, hopefully. Goodluck getting those replacement parts! :-)

Nothing to Say, but Batbrick Away! >:-)

Edited December 26, 2007 by Batbrick

[ExoBuilder]

If it makes you feel better Brickster, I was missing a pieces from my 10173 Holiday Train, though it was a wheel that I already have plenty of, but I was missing one.

[Brickmaster]

I had a scary occurance building my imperial shuttle today, I was missing a very important technic peice, and I ended up using another color replacement from my own collection. I thought it was missing, no biggy. Then as I put the last wall peice on the top wing.. thing.. I hear the peice klink out of the large hollow 1x6x6.

:-|

Goodluck with your set though, Id hate to have that happen, I can happily say Ive never had to experience it, and hopefully am not about to *looks at 4 unopened lego gifts*

[ExoBuilder]

I had a scary occurance building my imperial shuttle today, I was missing a very important technic peice, and I ended up using another color replacement from my own collection. I thought it was missing, no biggy. Then as I put the last wall peice on the top wing.. thing.. I hear the peice klink out of the large hollow 1x6x6.

:-|

Goodluck with your set though, Id hate to have that happen, I can happily say Ive never had to experience it, and hopefully am not about to *looks at 4 unopened lego gifts*

Oh, you got the Imperial Shuttle? Which one did you get?

I hope I don't run into anymore problems as well, I still have 3 more to go, including the 8654 Ferrari.

This is torture, I can't open it until Thursday night! *sing*

[Brickmaster]

I got the new one with the 4 stormies and the black pilot one, I got it on sale for 37 bucks at k-mart, instead of 50, so we just added it to the gifts, and mum just pretended I didnt see it :-P

Ok. So we did that with all my presents. But still..

Edited December 26, 2007 by Brickmaster

[WesternOutlaw]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. It is rather disappointing. I received an auto-reply from Lego a little bit ago. I should hear from them in the next few days. I have heard of people opening sets and stealing figs, but not standard pieces (like a regular 1x4 brick, and other pretty simple pieces to get). That's also why I think this was a Lego packaging issue. Perhaps the bag dropped and broke during packaging, and a lazy employee just picked up the bag and put it in the box? Who knows, but if the box was weighted like Lego says they do, six pieces should of definately been identified.

In any case, I hope to get the missing pieces soon. If they give me any issue, I'll just take the set back to TRU (if they have any to exchange). It is a really neat set .

[ExoBuilder]

I got the new one with the 4 stormies and the black pilot one, I got it on sale for 37 bucks at k-mart, instead of 50, so we just added it to the gifts, and mum just pretended I didnt see it :-P

Ok. So we did that with all my presents. But still..

Nice! I did that with all of my presents as well, though my brothers all objected to it, we still did it and none of my Christmas presents were surprises!

[Shadows]

Who knows, but if the box was weighted like Lego says they do, six pieces should of definately been identified.

A myth they perpetrate to convince people that errors are few and it must be your fault if a single piece is missing. They make a point of mentioning it in every email concerning missing parts and on the website itself. It's simply not possible to be that precise weighing something like this.

Think about it. Weigh an entire set, with and without 1 part. Even a somewhat large part. It's very unlikely that you'll even see a difference. Now try doing that to thousands of sets in which small variances could occur due to the amount of glue used in box assembly or even very slight differences in the parts themselves.

Now expand the idea. Let's say you can tell that there is a .01% difference. Do you, as a company looking to make a profit, toss that box, or just let it go out the door anyway? You let it go, of course. Compare the cost of trying to either restock those parts, toss them completely, or just sell them and replace the missing part IF the recipient even realises it and requests it. The smart decision is to just sell it.

Taking the current situation into account... if you weighed every set and didn't ship those that went beyond a reasonable variance, 6 parts would be far too many to pass through (unless they were all 1x1 plates or something equally light). Yet the package shipped. I've received a perfectly sealed box (the old glued kind even) that was missing an entire bag. You can't honestly tell me that passed any kind of weight based inspection process.

The simple truth is that they try, and they have surprisingly accurate machines filling those bags, but things happen and they expect it. It would just be bad for public image to make that widely known.

I just wish I had a good explanation for what changed in the past couple of years to throw quality control so far off. I went decades before receiving a set with a missing piece. Now it's probably 1 in 20 (of the ones I even build immediately).

[Siegfried]

A myth they perpetrate to convince people that errors are few and it must be your fault if a single piece is missing.

Call me a mindless fanboy, but I actually believe them. :-$ If they weighed them in the bags it would be quite accurate. I have weighed sets before using kitchen scales and found the variance is extreamely low. Even so, I do agree that it is odd that in the 80s this used to never happen, but today it is relatively common. I still have never had a missing piece myself and I have bought around 200 sets in recent times. (Several times I thought I was missing a piece, but every time so far it has come down to incorrect assembly or not checking the box, bag or floor well enough.) I have however had wrong colours (2 black train wheels in my 7897) and broken parts (motor in 8421). Both replaced with extras.

[Shadows]

Call me a mindless fanboy, but I actually believe them. :-$ If they weighed them in the bags it would be quite accurate. I have weighed sets before using kitchen scales and found the variance is extreamely low. Even so, I do agree that it is odd that in the 80s this used to never happen, but today it is relatively common. I still have never had a missing piece myself and I have bought around 200 sets in recent times. (Several times I thought I was missing a piece, but every time so far it has come down to incorrect assembly or not checking the box, bag or floor well enough.) I have however had wrong colours (2 black train wheels in my 7897) and broken parts (motor in 8421). Both replaced with extras.

Mindless fanboy! :-P

That said, I pretty much believe that they weigh the sets, I just don't think the standards for rejection are very tight, so a lot of sets make it out with problems. Conversely, I've never received a set with a wrong coloured or broken part. I've always sort of hoped for some swirled bricks, but the only ones I have I had to buy on eBay. I didn't even get the wrong head in the Republic Cruiser.

I don't even request the common parts that are missing anymore. Basically, it has to be a minifig part or something unusual. Sometimes I think that replacing the common ones myself is doing LEGO a disservice, not letting them know that there are problems, but I just can't imagine having them send .12 worth of parts. Oh well, guess I'm a fanboy too. :-$

[Doctor Sinister]

They weigh the bags, not the full sets, hence it is possible at some LEGO events to purchase rejected bags that failed the weight test.

I've only ever had one set with a missing or wrong piece, out of the 500 of so I've bought in the last ten years, that ain't bad at all. And LEGO supplied them for free, of course.

Dr. S.

Edited December 26, 2007 by Doctor Sinister

[androodeetoo]

my brother bought me the Lost Tomb set for Christmas...and Marion's head is missing! To say we were mad would be an understatement. We pulled the room apart, thinking it might've rolled away or something...drove us nuts for about 2 hours until we gave up. I am using a spare Hermione head until Lego sends me a new one...anyone have experience getting missing parts form them through the service portion of the Lego website? I put in a request this morning...wondering how long it'll take.

[Ricecracker]

well ive never had a missing piece (and hopefully never will) but ive had 2 broken pieces in different sets. one was the large discs in the mosaic set (the hole was too small to attach to bricks |-/ ) and the second was a technic beam where one of the hole was too small for a pin.i got replacements for both

[WesternOutlaw]

A myth they perpetrate to convince people that errors are few and it must be your fault if a single piece is missing. They make a point of mentioning it in every email concerning missing parts and on the website itself. It's simply not possible to be that precise weighing something like this.

Yes, definately the making of a Lego conspiracy theory. Interesting points you make. You may be right.

Call me a mindless fanboy, but I actually believe them.

Mindless Fanboy: I always believed this as well. It seemed to be a logical quality check/step. After reading Imperial Shadows' opinion on the subject, I tend to agree. I think this is the 3rd time I opened a box and found missing pieces. The other experience was a small Spiderman set I purchased in Walmart. It was missing a lot of pieces. I figured someone had opened the box and returned the set with missing pieces (included figs/torsos, faces, and windows). The other experience was the Batcave that had one missing brick. Within the box was an extra plate which made me believe that the set was in fact weighted, and the substituted piece had not triggered a weight issue.

my brother bought me the Lost Tomb set for Christmas...and Marion's head is missing! I put in a request this morning...wondering how long it'll take.

I have not heard back from them, other than receiving the auto-reply message yesterday. I had cotacted them about a piece I lost a few years ago and because of the holiday, it took over a few weeks to get a response. I had to send the message over and over again to trigger a response, before finally receiving an apology message.

Missing head! That's pretty disappointing. At least you didn't need the piece to build the set (like the truck). I had to replace pieces as I built it.

[androodeetoo]

I have not heard back from them, other than receiving the auto-reply message yesterday. I had cotacted them about a piece I lost a few years ago and because of the holiday, it took over a few weeks to get a response. I had to send the message over and over again to trigger a response, before finally receiving an apology message.

Missing head! That's pretty disappointing. At least you didn't need the piece to build the set (like the truck). I had to replace pieces as I built it.

I got a response pretty quickly today...said the part will be at my apartment in three weeks...fingers crossed!

[adik_sa_lego]

three weeks?!?!?! sheeesh... the only good thing about that one is that they actually responded.

[androodeetoo]

three weeks?!?!?! sheeesh... the only good thing about that one is that they actually responded.

i know...seems like a crazy long time to mail a minifig head, but i'm not going to complain...i've bought tons of lego sets over the last 4 years and this is the first time i've ever been missing a piece, so i'll see how well they hold to their word before getting angry...besides, i've already wasted enough energy and anger when i realized the piece was missing.

[Siegfried]

You have got me worried now; mine is arriving any day now. I hope that I have better luck. 8-|

Mine arrived today from the US and was perfect! *wub*

[Scouty]

Mine arrived today from the US and was perfect! *wub*

I got mine and it was fine, too *sweet* .

Though, Indie's whip did have an odd ending (just below where Indy holds it. I'll get pictures later!)

[WesternOutlaw]

Does anyone know if Lego sends another notice/message as a follow-up after the auto-reply about filling your missing piece(s)? I'm still patiently waiting for mine.

[Siegfried]

Does anyone know if Lego sends another notice/message as a follow-up after the auto-reply about filling your missing piece(s)? I'm still patiently waiting for mine.

I have never recieved one, and I have dealt with them three times over missed/broken/wrong pieces. That's why I ended up with two motors; I got impatient and nagged them some more... :-$

[Looking for a display name]

in 7623 i got a 1x6 that was serverally bent almost at a right angle

i just heated it with a hair dryer and did the best i could