Brittle brown and blue Duplo parts

[jodawill]

Has anyone else had issues with brittle brown and blue Duplo parts? We've had about a dozen bricks either break or completely shatter from normal use. I've contacted TLG several times over the past year and they kept ignoring me. I finally got a response from someone higher up after a few months and she sent out an envelope for me to ship them back to be inspected. But it's been about a year now and they don't seem to be doing anything about it. These products should be recalled for being a choking hazard. I don't think they're taking this issue seriously at all.

I just found another broken part (the wheel brick) in my daughter's bedroom this morning. Thankfully, my kids are past the choking stage now. If they weren't, I don't know what else I could do but throw out of put away every brown and blue brick we own.

Here are some pictures of a few of them. I think most of the parts came from the 2014 castle sets, 10577 and 10569. The blue one shattered one day when I picked it off the floor. (I'm not exaggerating.)

 

[Agent Kallus]

Not heard of brittle blue, but browns being brittle was wide spread, Lego supposedly fixed the issue in 2018, with no more old brittle brown bricks in sets as of 2020.

Here's a press statement TLG made at the time.

“The LEGO Group has been working hard to address reported issues with reddish-brown bricks becoming brittle and breaking under use. The issues have been identified and we are happy to announce that they have been fixed. The fixes were put in place earlier this year for the LEGO colors #154 (new-dark-red), #192 (reddish-brown) and #308 (dark-brown). We waited until now to make the announcement, as we wanted to be 100% certain all issues had been addressed and fixed. If you, at any time, have a LEGO element which doesn’t live up to the standard you’d expect from us – then please don’t hesitate to contact LEGO Customer Service and we will send you replacement parts. We are terribly sorry for the inconveniences this has caused our loyal LEGO Fans across the World.”

[jodawill]

12 minutes ago, Agent Kallus said:

Not heard of brittle blue, but browns being brittle was wide spread, Lego supposedly fixed the issue in 2018, with no more old brittle brown bricks in sets as of 2020.

Here's a press statement TLG made at the time.

“The LEGO Group has been working hard to address reported issues with reddish-brown bricks becoming brittle and breaking under use. The issues have been identified and we are happy to announce that they have been fixed. The fixes were put in place earlier this year for the LEGO colors #154 (new-dark-red), #192 (reddish-brown) and #308 (dark-brown). We waited until now to make the announcement, as we wanted to be 100% certain all issues had been addressed and fixed. If you, at any time, have a LEGO element which doesn’t live up to the standard you’d expect from us – then please don’t hesitate to contact LEGO Customer Service and we will send you replacement parts. We are terribly sorry for the inconveniences this has caused our loyal LEGO Fans across the World.”

Brittle blue is definitely a thing. I think people just talk about it less frequently. It might have been fixed to a shorter time frame. Here's a relevant Reddit post. I'm not sure what set our blue parts came from because they're all generic 2x2s and 2x4s. It's possible that they're from an older lot we got second hand. The brown ones are definitely from the castle sets.

Edit: What's really weird about this piece though is that it isn't darker like other brittle blue pieces I've seen. Some of the ones that broke were darker, but not this one for some reason.

Edited June 5, 2024 by jodawill

[JaBaCaDaBra]

just order new ones at their website

https://www.lego.com/nl-nl/service/replacement-parts/broken