42083 - Bugatti Chiron

[allanp]

Nope, LAs will NEVER be acceptable 

Colour coding rant follows, feel free to skip 

@AVCampos by not having very much colour coding on the outside, except a few pins and axles, are they admitting its not really needed and looks like knex?! . I know the unicorn barf is there when I build it, just like I know the mechanics are there when I build it so no real need for removable body. I also know it spoils the illusion of building a real gearbox and replaces it with a constant reminder that I'm an adult playing with a child's toy, not nice or even appropriate when it's a £330 set recommended for 16+ . But they don't have to colour everything black either. Look inside a gearbox and you'll see black, dark grey and light grey. I could also live with dark brown and tan as they could look like oil and grease, and for the surrounding beams/structure you can also have the colour of the vehicle itself. So there's six colours already. Blue 3M pins also don't stick out too badly as blue is kind of a dark colour (would be better in dark blue or dark grey) and you can only see the ends anyway. Just not bright red, bright orange, bright yellow, lime, bright blue gears and so on all mixed together. There's enough far more tasteful colours (black, dark grey, like grey, vehicle main body colour, limited amounts of blue, dark brown an tan) they could use instead that need not make afols feel like they just spent £330 on nothing more than a child's toy.

[Bublehead]

I think what people are getting at is not that the complaints are unwarranted, but that we keep hearing them over and over, and not that “we” want people to not express their opinions, but that “we” get it, it has flaws, TLG has let “us” down, and “we” should all pick up torches and rakes and implements of destruction and march on the gates of Billund.  Tensions are high, expectations were higher, and the disappointment and let down has made many people more vocal about what direction the hobby is taking, that Pretty trumps Working, Sexy is better than gaps, Coke is better than Pepsi, and on and on we circle through this messy leak ridden release.

Here is the list of complaints as I have heard so far:

Poor front suspension 

Poor steering

Poor integration of rear spoiler with key to operate (some like this, most don’t)

Flimsy doors

Three crankshafts

16 gears to get 8 continually cycling gearbox

Stickers (especially to complete C on door)

Poor color choices

Bad paddle shifter design

Non opening rear deck

Too wide

Panel styling too patchworked to fill gaps

Not enough gaps to see working functions

Too many system parts

Not enough flawlessly working functions

No Power Functions

Horseshoe sticks out too far

Front hood doesn’t match real contours

No working brakes

New brake disk hub unusable due to reversed pin connector

Too expensive 

Have I missed any?

Can we just say see the list now and talk about what we are doing to fix all these flaws (that “we” can?) because just constantly ratcheting “our” jaws on what is wrong will do nothing for “us”.

 

Edited June 5, 2018 by Bublehead
Typo

[896gerard]

51 minutes ago, Bublehead said:

 

You are so saying what I think about this! The ranting goes on and on and on and on.. It becomes boring, really..

Edited June 5, 2018 by Milan
Removed quoted block of text.

[agrof]

So, are You saying, once a thing is told, than noone should agree or disagree any more? Is there too much talk in a community board? - Funny. 

There is many members here, each is rightful to tell an opinion. If many people complains about the same thing, does it make the issue boring, or does it make the complaint established? I feel rather the second, a critical mass reached - and this is good, this is something what LEGO shall listen.

Edited June 5, 2018 by agrof

[aol000xw]

51 minutes ago, Bublehead said:

 

Thank you this will be really helpful on following this discussion about Chiron merits. It is a pretty coherent list that highlights the different interests of different people. Fidelity and playability for example.

There is a specific thread for Chiron mods and improvements to focus on how to improve on that long list.

 

Edited June 5, 2018 by Milan
Removed quoted block of text.

[Meatman]

13 minutes ago, 896gerard said:

You are so saying what I think about this! The ranting goes on and on and on and on.. It becomes boring, really..

When people pay $350(and more than that around the world) for an "Ultimate Technic" set, the suspension should at least work. There is no way that TLG didn't know there wasn't a problem with it before release. In fact, they tried to compensate for it with friction pins in both the front and back.

Edited June 5, 2018 by Meatman

[LvdH]

8 minutes ago, Meatman said:

When people pay $350(and more than that around the world) for an "Ultimate Technic" set, the suspension should at least work. There is no way that TLG didn't know there wasn't a problem with it before release. In fact, they tried to compensate for it with friction pins in both the front and back.

They had friction pins in 42039 (I believe the Porsche also) as well and that had no issues with suspension. I don't think it's supposed to generate friction to keep the car up.

[J_C]

sell it for same price as BWE (same part count) (minus for PF in BWE plus license = 0) and I am OK with all the shortcomings. 

___________________

I think we are missing big picture.

I think most of UC car customers are not Technic people, those are car people, maybe not even lego fans, just guys who loves cars, cannot afford real 911 (real Bugatti either) and their wife buys this as a gift. This is the typical purchase story, IMO. These people do not give a .... anything...about functions, comparison with other technic models, they will build it, put on the shelf/coffee table and that is it. 

you who are going to modify it, improve it, looking for imperfections, build derived versions etc. you are minority (IMO)

 

Edited June 5, 2018 by J_C

[Meatman]

15 minutes ago, LvdH said:

They had friction pins in 42039 (I believe the Porsche also) as well and that had no issues with suspension. I don't think it's supposed to generate friction to keep the car up.

Neither set had friction pins being used at the base of the suspension arms. They both used axles. So why do you suppose that this set has friction pins being used at the base of the suspension arms in both the front and the back?

Edited June 5, 2018 by Meatman

[Lipko]

I think the friction pins are there simply to reduce slack (sideways motion). It may improve building quality too a tiny bit (it can be frustrating that the partially assembled suspension flips-flaps as you hanndle the front unit). Two springs should be enough to downplay the friction.

So yeah, it may not be that easy to fix. The biggest problem is the too much weight and it's caused by (in my opinion) the unoptimized chassis. Too many stacked liftarms in the chassis and hacky junctions. Even the non functional areas seem to be too dense (look at the front part of the chassis, okay, there's a differential there too...). As we can see in the MOD thread (though I'm still waiting for real testing) the gearbox could be optimized too.

Edited June 5, 2018 by Lipko

[LvdH]

8 minutes ago, Meatman said:

Neither set had friction pins used at the base of the suspension arms. They both used axles. So why do you suppose that this set has friction pins being used at the base of the suspension arms in both the front and the back?

Oh I meant at the hubs.

https://bricksafe.com/files/nathan/lego-reviews/42039-24-hrs-race-car/IMG_8921a.jpg

Edited June 5, 2018 by LvdH
Picture too big

[agrof]

5 minutes ago, J_C said:

I think we are missing big picture.

I think most of UC car customers are not Technic people, those are car people, maybe not even lego fans, just guys who loves cars, cannot afford real 911 (real Bugatti either) and their wife buys this as a gift. This is the typical purchase story, IMO. These people do not give a .... anything...about functions, comparison with other technic models, they will build it, put on the shelf/coffee table and that is it. 

I am not trying to underestimate those car people, so I am confident to say: they will also notice, if the suspension doesn't work.

[Milan]

Guys, don't quote whole block of text when replying.
@LvdH your pic is way too big.

[dforce]

I'm just going to say that regardless of the issues, I'm excited to get this set!  Hopefully next week if I find the time.

And yes, I'm hoping some of these issues find solutions here in the forum, but even if not I can't wait to have it in my hands!

[J_C]

Just now, agrof said:

I am not trying to underestimate those car people, so I am confident to say: they will also notice, if the suspension doesn't work.

that is probably true, because they might not be lego people, but they are car people who wrench real cars perhaps. will it stop them from buying next UC technic car? my point is (probably i said it clumsy way) that these listed "issues" people complaint here about will not harm the sales. IMO.

[Erik Leppen]

32 minutes ago, 896gerard said:

You are so saying what I think about this! The ranting goes on and on and on and on.. It becomes boring, really..

What tires me is the discussion-about-the-discussion here. If I open this topic, I wnt to read about the Chiron and things relating to that. If you want to talk about the forum mentality of members or whatever, go ahead and open up a new topic. The big difference between the criticisms on the Chiron and this meta-discussion is that the former is on-topic (yes, I know, my post is double-meta, so double off-topic, but I leave it to the moderators to decide what to do). This is the Chiron topic - let's talk about the set and things related to it.

 

6 hours ago, nerdsforprez said:

Even if there are flaws in the set, the ire with such seems to depend on one central assumption - and that is that one will build the set, leave it for ages, and never touch it again. That is seeing something from a static perspective.  And I know some to that - which is fine, but odd for Lego IMO.

Yet, I always have the feeling that that's exactly how Technic (or any other theme, for that matter) sets are marketed. It's a rare thing to see official Lego communication suggest that sets can be modified, expanded upon, combined, or totally transformed into one's own imagined stuff. Almost the only call to creativity we see TLC utter nowadays is the suggestion to join sets together (like modular buildings) - except maybe for lines like Classic, but I'm not really into that. The recent Make your own Brickheadz and the somewhat-older Architecture Studio are very welcome deviations from this norm. Almost all other sets are presented as finished models.

And if Lego markets a set as an as-is, complete-out-of-the-box model, then it's fair to review it as such. And if you do that, then sagging front suspension with only 4 mm of travel remaining and a front that hits the ground (even if not for everyone) is, to me, a design fault. (I'm normally not as critical to these things in other sets, but let's not forget it's TLC themselves who presented 42083 to be as-good-as-it-gets, which, clearly, it isn't. I believe 8070's B-model also had a front that touched the ground when fully pressed, but at least bounced back normally (from what I have seen - I don't own the set), and this is the B model of a regular everyday set. We all accept cut corners in a B-model. With Chiron, we're talking about a self-proclaimed cream of the crop with seemingly no compromises.

If a model is meant as a base for modding, then marketing/communication should reflect that.

[aol000xw]

16 minutes ago, J_C said:

I think most of UC car customers are not Technic people, those are car people, maybe not even lego fans, just guys who loves cars...

 

Who buys what or why is hard to tell, but I guess it is reasonable to think people will expect what they pay for to work as intended.

If there was an honest explanation of what is going on with it, would be way easier to left it behind, the problem is companies don't like accountability, so they never recognize a mistake unless forced into it. That makes communication and feedback pretty hard. 

I like the Porsche more than the Chiron but the Chiron is a better Technic set than the Porsche. So I was planing on improving the Porsche with some Chiron parts -quite annoying that the new brake discs aren't backwards compatible-..

So the new rims can't fit old hubs, but can old rims be used on new disc brake hubs using pins?

Edited June 5, 2018 by aol000xw

[suffocation]

The Chiron has cool new parts. I like cool new parts. MOCing is fun. The cool new parts came thanks to the Chiron. The end.

[Musikfreak]

27 minutes ago, aol000xw said:

Who buys what or why is hard to tell, but I guess it is reasonable to think people will expect what they pay for to work as intended.

The thing is that non lego people don't know what to expect. The Bugatti designer said in one of the videos he was just amazed that the pistons all move. So it could be quite possible that the average person not familiar with technic (even those who know non technic lego quite well) will think it's cool that a suspension is there and reproduced in lego and does not question the performance due to not having seen it better. I think in this regard kids are actually more demanding and would question why front and back do not behave similarly.

Edited June 5, 2018 by Musikfreak

[efferman]

14 hours ago, Bublehead said:

I am sure @efferman can whip up a W16 with custom elements to fit the Chiron so people can stop talking about it and all the friction

something like this? actually with a length of 3studs between axle center an ball center.four of them would need only a stud on a axle

[Bublehead]

Has Lego put the instructions up anywhere yet? They are not available on the customer service instructions page or via the Technic theme instructions link...

I guess they want people to use the real instructions for now, and not the pdf’s which lets me keep the originals more pristine. Bad TLG... No need to keep them secret unless you are trying to get people to buy the set and not just build it from parts, but that really can’t be done because of the new parts being integral to the sets functions. And we are not worried about keeping the IP from the Chinese knockoffs anymore because they only have to walk into a Lego store and buy one now. 

Anybody else second the motion to make TLG put the instructions online?

 

[valenciaeric]

Instructions usually take a few weeks/months to go online.

[HoodRacer]

6 minutes ago, Bublehead said:

Has Lego put the instructions up anywhere yet? They are not available on the customer service instructions page or via the Technic theme instructions link...

I guess they want people to use the real instructions for now, and not the pdf’s which lets me keep the originals more pristine. Bad TLG... No need to keep them secret unless you are trying to get people to buy the set and not just build it from parts, but that really can’t be done because of the new parts being integral to the sets functions. And we are not worried about keeping the IP from the Chinese knockoffs anymore because they only have to walk into a Lego store and buy one now. 

Anybody else second the motion to make TLG put the instructions online?

 

While I can understand people wanting to keep their instructions in good condition, I think that posting instructions this early is practically a guarantee that a knock-off company will try to copy the Chiron. 

I do realize that they can still go out and buy one to do same thing, but by posting the PDF TLG makes it considerably easier to copy their design.

[Vectormatic]

2 minutes ago, HoodRacer said:

While I can understand people wanting to keep their instructions in good condition, I think that posting instructions this early is practically a guarantee that a knock-off company will try to copy the Chiron. 

I do realize that they can still go out and buy one to do same thing, but by posting the PDF TLG makes it considerably easier to copy their design.

afaik knock-off were already listed on various sites before the official lego unveiling.

 

Do remember that lego has factories in china, once lego sends those any new designs/part moulds itll probably is a matter of hours before the folks at lepin HQ have their hands on them. I dont condone those practices, but in china it is a fact of life, and it makes lego's policing of the community all the more frustrating, given that they are apparently fine with leaving the back door unlocked with a bloody big sign "big new TV inside, door unlocked" next to it.

[Void_S]

Sorry if it may help anybody illegal one, but I'd prefer to ask beforehand. Am I allowed to publish here the LDD model of this set? I finished it by ~50% already and strongly believe that it may help in the further mods.