Which Pirates sets have (or may have) problem with brittle brown bricks?

[zinnn]

A couple of years ago I had the 4182 set from the Pirates of the Caribbean line and the brown plates snapped. Has it happened with other sets? Do you think POBB set may be problematic with brown pieces?

[eldiano]

Just bricks in general, All colors including brown pieces are prone to breaking, you can order the replacement pieces from lego from free or purchase it from another site but you can still find the majority of the bricks through lego. 

[_R_R_]

I have built the same set about 3 times or so and luckily none of the bricks snapped, I keep my sets in cabinets away from the sun as I'm sure direct sunlight degrades bricks faster.

[Jack Sassy]

15 hours ago, zinnn said:

A couple of years ago I had the 4182 set from the Pirates of the Caribbean line and the brown plates snapped.

Did the bricks snap recently or not too long after ye obtained the set?

14 hours ago, eldiano said:

All colors including brown pieces are prone to breaking,

Aye, but from what I heard, they changed the formula around 2018 so at this point all brown/dark red pieces should be more durable.

14 hours ago, _R_R_ said:

direct sunlight degrades bricks faster.

That and colour fades the bricks. 

[TalonCard]

I've had this happen with Metalbeard's ship and the new Imperial Flagship. :( Both about 3-5 years after original assembly.

[F1stzz]

1 hour ago, TalonCard said:

I've had this happen with Metalbeard's ship and the new Imperial Flagship.

What parts exactly? I've heard people had cracks on dark brown hulls, which I'd consider a nightmare scenario given their aftermarket price 

[eldiano]

18 hours ago, Jack Sassy said:

Did the bricks snap recently or not too long after ye obtained the set?

Aye, but from what I heard, they changed the formula around 2018 so at this point all brown/dark red pieces should be more durable.

That and colour fades the bricks. 

Nahh, toys in general are not made to last as of recent, recent minifigures have broken and shattered, even some bricks in some Harry Potter sets have broken and snapped, I’m still processing all of this! 

[Yperio_Bricks]

From what i've heared, few years ago reddish brown pieces (especially tiles?) were prone to breaking. But since then Lego changed the formula and reddish brown got more robust. Don't know if this is the whole story though. I started bying sets in 2019 and so far i experienced no breaking. But i always fear it will happen

In a german forum a guy was reporting that basically 90% of his minifigures are damaged. And it sounded like there were also some rather new ones. I don't know how they play with them and how often they rip out the arms, but when it comes to minifigs my fear is even bigger. Imagine your only copy of a minifigure breaking

[Alexandrina]

4 hours ago, eldiano said:

Nahh, toys in general are not made to last as of recent, recent minifigures have broken and shattered, even some bricks in some Harry Potter sets have broken and snapped, I’m still processing all of this! 

Are you saying you've had a lot of new pieces breaking in recent years? That's incredibly unfortunate but certainly not the norm.

[PxChris]

The worst years for brittle brown seem to be roughly 2009-2016.

So, the PotC sets are absolutely in that realm. I also have had some really bad luck with the 2010 Imperial Flagship. My Brickbeard's Bounty and Brick Bounty both have faired pretty well however with only a couple broken pieces.

[eldiano]

3 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

Are you saying you've had a lot of new pieces breaking in recent years? That's incredibly unfortunate but certainly not the norm.

Just the quality of plastic in recent years from any brand, I have had shfiguarts, Bandai, hasbro, Lego, figures in general, I’m a collector I barely touch or adjust my figures but I had two buy two autoart models car to fix only one car, Lego is on the same

route, some of my figures have gotten tight around the arms and last I moved it, the arm snapped and broke off easily.  

i buy Lego because the company is one of the few that still offer replacement parts but I personally have moved away from buying every single figure that comes out, what destroyed my confidence was hot toys and some Star Wars figures, where the clothing disintegrated on me, faux leather sucks! 
I’m at that point in my collection where even my die cast model cara have gotten paint rash 😭, it is what it is, but my original experience with Lego breaking came from the kingdoms sets, some recent Star Wars sets and recent Harry Potter sets have snapped on me, but it is something to consider.  
 

Edited June 28, 2023 by eldiano

[zinnn]

7 hours ago, PxChris said:

The worst years for brittle brown seem to be roughly 2009-2016.

Yes, that’s what I heard and what made me start this thread 

[Pirate_King_1982]

Brown, historically, is colour that is more prone to breaking. Every brown cannon I had as a kid had broken clips, and not a single red cannon broke. 

Edited June 29, 2023 by Pirate_King_1982

[Jack Sassy]

On 6/28/2023 at 12:05 PM, eldiano said:

Nahh, toys in general are not made to last as of recent, recent minifigures have broken and shattered, even some bricks in some Harry Potter sets have broken and snapped, I’m still processing all of this! 

That is crazy. 

 

Somehow, I have had a reddish brown piece break apart only once, despite having quite a lot of sets that fall in the 2009 - 2016 category. I have been collecting LEGO for some 15 years or so and I guess my luck with brown parts hasn't ran out yet. 

[Sebbl]

On 6/28/2023 at 3:10 PM, Alexandrina said:

Are you saying you've had a lot of new pieces breaking in recent years? That's incredibly unfortunate but certainly not the norm.

Not exactly breaking but ~50% of my 1x_ bricks from any recent set get cracks after just building one or two alternate models. I started to encounter this with a Ninjago set from 2020. Of course, the customer service sent replacement parts but these aren't any better.
It is not as bad as the reddish brown issue though that I encountered in some of the Kingdoms sets from 2010. The pallisade bricks, plates and tiles from 7947 just disintegrated into pieces 😄
Still, I see the bricks now more as a wearing material and will certainly not buy any collector's sets.

BTW: So far I didn't break a single brick from gobricks. Perhaps, I should buy replacement parts there 😊

Edited June 30, 2023 by Sebbl

[Horation]

I have encountered the issue on 2014-2015 minecraft sets (from parents' friends, so the parts were used), so expect the whole 2015 pirates wave to have the issue

[eldiano]

What terrified me was minifigures, bricks i can swap out easily but the other day I was adjusting my collection and moved around some figures to my horror a couple of them had stiff arms around the joints, but I thought they were just stuck because they were new, i hardly use my figs and nope, the torso and arm snapped and broke off in pieces. I noticed that if the arm is super tight, if you force it more it will break, so far I did the dumb thing to apply some wd-40 and it kind of helped since it's smoother but plastic in general is not as strong because of complaints about it's lifecycle.  As of late gorilla glue is my best friend. 

 

[Yperio_Bricks]

Which minifigure is that?

[Murdoch17]

On 7/4/2023 at 3:49 AM, Yperio_Bricks said:

Which minifigure is that?

Supreme Leader Snoke (from Star Wars EP 8's Star Destroyer, I think)

[Yperio_Bricks]

11 hours ago, Murdoch17 said:

Supreme Leader Snoke (from Star Wars EP 8's Star Destroyer, I think)

Thank ye

[Doddsino]

On 7/4/2023 at 1:32 AM, eldiano said:

 

 

Man, Kylo Ren really did a number on him.

[CAESARBLACK]

for me it was almost all of the Pirates of the Caribbean sets. I purchased a few new sealed sets in Christmas 2021 (Paid a handsome penny) and every set was "useless" because multiple pieces just broke. The seller from bricklink basically told me this was an ongoing issue with brown bricks. Ironically none of my 1980's pirate sets had broken brown pieces...

[eldiano]

On 7/9/2023 at 6:54 PM, Doddsino said:

Man, Kylo Ren really did a number on him.

Snoke had no Idea hahaha, dude, my "Old" TFA Han Solo figure started to cracked as well, Kylo's out of control!!!

7 hours ago, CAESARBLACK said:

for me it was almost all of the Pirates of the Caribbean sets. I purchased a few new sealed sets in Christmas 2021 (Paid a handsome penny) and every set was "useless" because multiple pieces just broke. The seller from bricklink basically told me this was an ongoing issue with brown bricks. Ironically none of my 1980's pirate sets had broken brown pieces...

I pulled out my Kingdoms and pirate sets from the last decade to do some inventory on bricks, I started to build some sets like 7947 Prison Tower escape and kings carriage, every single time i inserted a brown brick in a stud I heard some sort of crack, some were visible. I don't know what to do, I am taking inventory of all the broken bricks I need to order but I don't know if LEGO will raise a red flag because i'm legit ordering almost every single brown brick from sets that I own from that time period. For everyone here, take apart your old sets and put them back together and see how many bricks will break on you, this is what I am currently doing right now! But I agree, I am currently selling my old simpsons sets and other huge sets but I don't know how many brown bricks are already broken because I haven't built them in more than 5 years! 

I was also taking apart my ghostbusters firehouse and only like 4 bricks were completely broken, a few red bricks and just a few brown ones, but this is what i'm running into hahaha:

Look at the cracked plate behind under the stairs:

Edited July 11, 2023 by eldiano

[CAESARBLACK]

13 hours ago, eldiano said:

I pulled out my Kingdoms and pirate sets from the last decade to do some inventory on bricks, I started to build some sets like 7947 Prison Tower escape and kings carriage, every single time i inserted a brown brick in a stud I heard some sort of crack, some were visible.

 

Lego 4194 was a write off for me. Every single brown piece broke...

[Alexandrina]

Is there a known regional factor in the brittle brown prevalence? I see people from America and Canada posting photos with dozens of broken bricks, and I've never encountered any brittle brown damage myself (I do have a red slope from the 70s that's broken in the same manner but no brown) - am I just riding a wave of good fortune or is it known to be worse in some places than others?