Is LEGO in trouble with quality?

[alex54]

I have bought on s@h:

Coin Bank,

4515 Straight Rails for 9v Trains,

7046 Fire Command Craft,

7900 Heavy Loader,

7902 Doctor's Car,

8666 TunerX 1,

7905 Building Crane

And I have some not very good surpises!

Fisrts, the 9V track are in the new dark grey >:-( ! I have bought an other box just jew month ago, and they were in the old dark grey!

Does a new yellow color will be? Because, in all of the yellow sets (Tuner X, the crane and the big truck), I see some different yellows, the traditional one and a orangier one! All the new 1x1 inclined pieces and technic pieces without stunds (sorry for my Lego english words, but I don't know the words of this pieces, a lexibook for trnaslation would be a good idea for the non english speakers!) are in the orangier yellow, and have a softy feeling >:-( .

The big pieces of the crane (yellow steal imitation parts) have some scaled corner like my very old pieces >:-( !

And last, with the doctor car's, the 1x4 traditional pieces in red and white are the same but in technics! a small lego paper shows the traditionnal piece barred and after the technical version! >:-( That makes the car not as good as with traditionnal parts! and the worst is that I have two others of this car without this problem!

And the error in the heavy loader building instruction that it has already seen by an other eurobrickers >:-( !

All that things make me *sing* !

The coin bank is a really wonderfull piece, and makes all the people who have seen it smiling!

[Berry Syedow]

Yikes, man, I'm sorry to hear that. Is it possible that you could photograph some of the parts?

[Kikuichimonji]

Most of the things you mention are not quality issues.

Please, don't get me started on oldgrey, but that happened 2 years ago or so. You must've found an old stock a month ago, but you have absolutely no right to complain on this matter.

The orangy pieces...I don't know. I have 2 Tuner X and both were fine. I'd like to see some pictures.

The big crane seem to be badly molded. A quality issue indeed, but most likely nothing a small knife can't fix. This is a known problem, especially with Technic pieces. I never got any badly molded pieces though.

For the doctor's car, you also have absolutely no right to complain. It's not a quality issue, and just because you think it doesn't look as good this way doesn't mean you need to mention it here. Lego provided an extra piece of paper with instructions, so they've actually done quite well on this one.

As for the instructions...I don't have the set you mention, but instructions can be a pain to read. Especially darkgrey and black seem to be pretty close to one another.

So basically, you have 1 single quality issue, the big crane pieces, and one possible quality issue, the orangy parts. The instructions might be, I don't know about them. Other then that, your stuff is fine and has no quality issues. That is, at least not the ones you mentioned.

[Hobbes]

As for the instructions...I don't have the set you mention, but instructions can be a pain to read. Especially darkgrey and black seem to be pretty close to one another.

I know what he mentioned, the instructions show a different piece than what's included. It's not a packaging mistake, either, cos I've read/heard the same thing from others who bought that set. Here's a picture:

(click me)

It's not really a quality issue but rather "quality control".

I can confirm the yellow parts, too. I noticed it with the 7344 Dump Truck: some pieces showed a hint of transparency (that's an issue I've noticed with a lot of new pieces) and thus looked "lighter" than those that didn't. In that case it was the fence around the cabin that looked darker. I do have a pic but you can't really see much of a difference, it's hard to photograph. You do see it "with your own eyes", though.

Although I can't confirm the other complaints made, in general I can understand Alex' disappointment...

[alex54]

Kikuichimonji, sorry but I disagree with you for all the points! When I speek about quality, I not only speak about pieces, but the feeling of general quality! I think it that Hobbes understand.

For the railways, I bought a box of them just 2-3 months before, and theey where in old gray! And th old gray were introduced 2-3 years ago (I'm not sure!), so I will think that TLC lets the railway in old grey.

Here a pic of the yellows:

It is not so clear on the pic, but like said Hobbes, you do see it "with your own eyes", but there is really a difference.

For the doctor's car, I recognize that TLC makes its job with the additional paper, but the final quality of the set is dammaged, and more when you have 2 normal ones!

And, for the instruction, is the first time of my life that I see such a mistake, and with additional paper to correct it! (Hobbes, I as not sure that it was you who has said this mistake firts ;-) !

[Hobbes]

Here's a brickshelf gallery by Ben, a 1000steine member, showing just a few quality issues with LEGO lately. Some of them I've come across, too.

Especially the "transparent-ish color" issue:

[snefroe]

outch...now that i've seen Ben's site, i recognise a few things that happened to me as well... the steps between plates, for instance... i've also noticed different shades of gray that's supposed to be one universal colour... :-X

the transparent thing... :-X

[ghoulrealm]

I was really dissapointed with the new silvery grey color used mostly for bionicle weapons. They have some extraordinary shapes but the plastic and color makes them seem cheap.

My biggest fear when buying sets is missing pieces, It only happened once, but happen, it did. :-(

[Norro]

Before 2003 I had only ever encountered one set missing one piece in all my lego accumulation to that date... since then (leaving aside the colour change) I've had at least 10 sets with missing/broken parts. I would also describe the difficulty in reading the new instructions (colour wise) as a quality issue...better printing would help..

God Bless,

Nathan

[WhiteHexagon]

I now have direct experience with quality of one of the new 2006 sets. Oh my goodness, I'm soo disapointed :(

Set 8823

The set was selling for 59EUR here in Germany and TRU had a 15% discount and not much stock variety, so thats the only reason I opted for knights kingdom.

First the highlight (singular), I've been wanting a skeleton minifig for a long time :)

The lows:

1. reaslising many parts of the castle are prefabricated, even when they could have been built from smaller bricks, that always anoys me. It wouldn't be soo bad but the quality of the plastic is soo poor! heavily dimpled from moulding, lighter material, thinner to almost translucent in places, and covered in some parts have a nasty air brush effect for grass on the rocks.

2. even the cute little gold bricks #4295174 feel cheap.

3. the instructions are not that clear even for a mature collector.

4. A broken part!! #4294706 Never had that before, but the handle from the shield wasn't even in the box, so I guess it was factory damaged.

5. A missing part!! 2x1 dark gray.

6. realising that some of the poorer quality bricks wern't even stamped with LEGO. I may as well have bought mega blocks... erm, ok, I'm not that angry ;)

7. skimping on bricks - there are some holes in the castle that you just don't expect to be empty (not blocking any hand access). It feels like they just wanted to make something as tall as possible with the least amount of real bricks :(

Well I'm going to write to LEGO about this. Such a shame the direction they are heading. It makes me want to win the lottery and buy out the company. Maybe we should open source the company, how many LEGO fans do you think we could find to buy 10 shares each and restle control from these idiots! </RANT>

Peter

Oh and don't get me started about color / colour variations!

[gylman]

Yikes! that sounds horrible. But, before we all pile on the Lego Company (of which I am not an employee)

I agree the instructions have become problematic with the different shades of gray and black being hard to tell some times. This to me is the biggest change from 5 years ago to now - instructions are CLEARLY far less readable. It is to the point where my kids need help with them. It is a major problem in my opinion

I find it hard to believe there are Lego bricks in a Lego set which do not have the Lego name on them. Regular bricks?? If true, that would be very disturbing.

As for the rest....

Parts breaking is hardly a new phenomenon - shield handles, clips on saddles, and bars on flags (the kind that are used to hide the cannons for pirate constructions) - have been routinely broken.

Much of the other criticism is a set design issue. Using excessive large pieces, same thing. That's a whole different problem. And yes, of course it is done to save money. That's the whole point. I don't like it, but somewhere someone at Lego has made this decision consciously, based on the target market of 7-12 year old boys. All else are just a distraction.

[ImperialJohn]

Adding to the story :-X

I got a 7703 for my son.

The "lightbrick" was broken.

Positive was that LEGO replaced it right away!! !! !! !!

BUT

QUALITY is a major issue for LEGO!

What will happen when Flextronics is the producer?

[Berry Syedow]

I now have direct experience with quality of one of the new 2006 sets. Oh my goodness, I'm soo disapointed :(

Oh and don't get me started about color / colour variations!

Terribly sorry about that. I can relate to the color variation. My reddish brown 2x2 round bricks (from 7018 Viking Ship) have distinct variations if properly examined.

QUALITY is a major issue for LEGO!

What will happen when Flextronics is the producer?

TLC will focus on producing quality Bionicle and Technic sets. :-P

[john cleese]

in my viking fortress the red 2x2 modified plates that hold the different modules together are all a shade thats between dark red and normal red, hardly recognizable but poor quality none the less...

[snefroe]

I now have direct experience with quality of one of the new 2006 sets. Oh my goodness, I'm soo disapointed :(

Set 8823

The set was selling for 59EUR here in Germany and TRU had a 15% discount and not much stock variety, so thats the only reason I opted for knights kingdom.

First the highlight (singular), I've been wanting a skeleton minifig for a long time :)

The lows:

6. realising that some of the poorer quality bricks wern't even stamped with LEGO. I may as well have bought mega blocks... erm, ok, I'm not that angry ;)

Peter

Oh and don't get me started about color / colour variations!

i wonder if you can provide us with a photo of this brick in question. it's not that don't believe you, cos I do after having heard so many complaints, i've just never seen that before and it would indeed be a serious problem. these lego markings distinguish lego parts from any other part, you'd think they'd never compromise on that...

[Jipay]

Just for the record some lego part don't have the lego marking and that's normal. If I remember correctly, that's the case of this new motorbike big white piece in the Police sets.

I think the problems with plastics being transparrents and colors not the same are coming from TLC suppliers. They might have been conducting sourcing researches in new countries (who said China ?) and therefore this might explain all those differences. It's all about chemical processes and a small difference in a sample can become a major issue when put at an industrial scale.

[alex54]

When I see my old sets with the bricks which wear the scare of my childhood, I can't stop thinking that the new sets wouldn't resiste so well in similar conditions! Now I take care of my bricks (not in my mouth, not too long trough the sun,...)!

With the soft feeling bricks, you can damage them just trying put them off with your nails!

[Jipay]

Well it was the same as a child, you are just stronger now ! (thanks god ! :-P ). I broke dozens of lego pieces as a child, and as an adult, maybe one two maximum so I think it's not really quality related ! And I'm pretty sure Lego have a lot a of quality controls regardins this aspect of the product since it's directly related to the safe toy thing !

[gylman]

Just for the record some lego part don't have the lego marking and that's normal. If I remember correctly, that's the case of this new motorbike big white piece in the Police sets.

But he said brick... I assume that meant a basic brick. I know some of the very specialized pieces may not have a Lego on them, but a basic brick?

[Jipay]

Well if so I'd be dead curious to see a "real" brick without lego on it !

[gylman]

Jipay > Well if so I'd be dead curious to see a "real" brick without lego on it !

Indeed!

However, I am currently building a set with my kids, and I have to say the ability to make out details on the new instructions (Tuner Garage.... my kids may post a review!) is appalling. Worse than I had realized. This is emerging as the major quality control issue these days for me.

[sam89]

Well if so I'd be dead curious to see a "real" brick without lego on it !

Here's a picture I found on Bricshelf a while ago:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=192150

Luckily, I haven't gotten any like this yet.

[JINZONINGEN73]

I buy Lego sets in 2's.

When I got 2 canisters of the white Piraka (Thok?), each one was different.

What was silver on one was undeniably darker on the other.

So much so, that mocing while combining the 2 sets produce some visibly uneven, slap-in-the-face differences.

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1951595

Then again, I remember around 1999 & 2000, I'd gotten the yellow Throwbot / Slizer called "Millenia" as well as the Roborider of the same color.

One's yellow was "burnt" looking, with very messy looking mold swirls going through it.

The other was brighter, more translucent.

These brick anomalies are nothing new.

I can personally attest that at least 1 Lego set I buy each year has a disfigured part, and even more have drastic color anomalies.

From the 2006 sets I've bought so far (not many), I haven't had any... ... ...wait.

I'm wrong.

The lime domeheads present in the Toa Inika. Those too are all different.

I have seven. Each is supposed to have a white area at the bottom where the mask meets the mouth, while above that is supposed to be green for the eyes.

Unfortunately, each one is different, one so off that the eyes and mouth are both white!

Some also have the white intruding as far on top of the piece that it goes straight to the center, further making it's usage in mocs awkward.

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1951611

[gylman]

Well if so I'd be dead curious to see a "real" brick without lego on it !

Here's a picture I found on Bricshelf a while ago:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=192150

Luckily, I haven't gotten any like this yet.

I don't think he is saying the one without Lego logo is an actual Lego product. It is the "lego-like" crap we seen on Ebay etc.

[SuvieD]

See though parts a concern and so are parts that don't work like they are supposed to. A big problem though? Not even close.

LEGO makes billions of plastic parts every year. If 1 out of 100 are noticably different then so be it. That means more than 10,000,000's of parts are not going to be perfect with I would say less than 1% of that being actually deformed or unusable. I am sure LEGO is well within quality limits.

Besides out of the few parts that are bad even in a small set 85% or more of them are nearly perfect. You can focus on the few little problems if you want to but out of the many thousands of bricks I own so few problem parts that I have no real reason to complain. In fact I have parts in great condition dating back to the 60's in nearly perfect condition. 40 year old toys that work as well as the day they were made. No toy company I know of can boast the same.