Lego Quality is Slipping

[Starwars4J]

Lego guality is slipping.I recently bought KK Battle at the Pass set.It was great except the pieces didn't fit all to well.Also it required stickers. P.S. How do add faces?

Well, stickers have been around since the early days of Lego...so we can't really fault them for that :-P Also, what do you mean by "adding faces"?

If you mean like the knight, in mine, that's called an Avatar, and you can add one in your Control Panel

[Capn Frank]

Lego guality is slipping.I recently bought KK Battle at the Pass set.It was great except the pieces didn't fit all to well.Also it required stickers. P.S. How do add faces?

I was going to purchase B@tP but i then decided not to for fear of having some of the figs with plain torso under their armor :-X

I also don't like stickers, i know they've been around forever, but that doesn't mean i have to like them :-/

I think a lot of the star wars sets do really well, except for all the colors *wacko*

It seems they get more colorful every year.

P

[phoinix]

i just finished building the new house creator set and there is dicoloration even on the white pieces!!

some are more yellow-ish than others! *wacko*

i might understand discoloration on new colors such as tan but come on people even on white?

this is so wrong!! >:-(

and it looks so bad to have a solid white wall with different types of white.... *n*

[Brainbox]

I also don't like stickers, i know they've been around forever, but that doesn't mean i have to like them :-/

But there's a good reason for stickers. They keep the price we pay down. Too many printed pieces would cause a rise in production prices and thus a rise in retail prices. That's why, for example, Exo-Force sets can't have printed pieces because the

[Capn Frank]

i just finished building the new house creator set and there is dicoloration even on the white pieces!!

some are more yellow-ish than others! *wacko*

i might understand discoloration on new colors such as tan but come on people even on white?

this is so wrong!! >:-(

and it looks so bad to have a solid white wall with different types of white.... *n*

I know what you mean.

I've got all my new dark bley plates in one drawer and put the same type of plates together.

And i see variations of each dark bley brick :'-(

But i would have no idea if that was a problem in the past cause many of my bricks are 15 to 20 years old |-/

But there's a good reason for stickers. They keep the price we pay down. Too many printed pieces would cause a rise in production prices and thus a rise in retail prices. That's why, for example, Exo-Force sets can't have printed pieces because the

[Optikal Illushun]

When i was a kid (90-96) and sets came with stickers it used to be small ones like for Octane gas stations or hologram panels for the space sets...so those i used. now at days, i dont use any stickers because there are so many |-/

i havent noticed any color differences but its kind of a shame, most of my pieces from the early 90s arent even dis-colored!

[xenologer]

But there's a good reason for stickers. They keep the price we pay down. Too many printed pieces would cause a rise in production prices and thus a rise in retail prices. That's why, for example, Exo-Force sets can't have printed pieces because the

[BearHeart]

I'd also pay more money for printed bricks with no stickers.

[Mr Hobbles]

I'd rather pay less for bricks with seperate stickers. It gives you the choice; either complete the model and keep it assembled with stickers, or build it without the stickers then disassemble it and use the pieces.

Printed pieces mean that you have no choice but to use that piece in the setting it was intended; ie. if you have a 1x2 smooth plate with a keyboard print on it, it would be silly to use it in a situation other than as a keyboard for a computer. It would look just silly on the side of a building. However stickers mean that if you ever need to use the piece, then you can just take off the sticker and wash away any residue (Although I've taken stickers off 10 year old pieces and never had any residue).

Oh, and there's the upside that it's also cheaper. :)

[Brainbox]

Printed pieces mean that you have no choice but to use that piece in the setting it was intended

Exo-Force is a classic example of this. The slopes and such might prove useful elsewhere, but printing may well defeat the point. Parts packs and sets picked up on discount also work in a similar way. These sets may not be as easy to scavenge if parts are printed because they have to be used for their purpose, as Mr Hobbles said.

[alex54]

i just finished building the new house creator set and there is dicoloration even on the white pieces!!

some are more yellow-ish than others! *wacko*

i might understand discoloration on new colors such as tan but come on people even on white?

this is so wrong!! >:-(

and it looks so bad to have a solid white wall with different types of white.... *n*

I've got the same problem, and it's horrible :-X

[xenologer]

Regarding stickers:

Lets put it this way,

What makes M-Tron or Classic Space a unified theme as opposed to say an ExoForce parts pack?

-yeah sure, design, marketing- But! Stickers!

The old Printed bricks with the Classic Space Planet Logo on them; really gave the sets character, recognition.

ExoForce stickers: -well that sticker is going to get dusty and peel off in a week anyway... I might as well not use it Oh! but the set is all ugly without the decals; I guess I'd better just take it apart and use it as a parts pack.

See my point? stickers vs printing is about how much dedication and thought gets put into a theme. How long TLG expects it to last, and how much effort they'll put into design.

So maybe its more like stickers are a symptom of a larger problem here....

[lifirefighter]

Just to add my own story: i bought and received the cafe corner from s@h, and yes while I did notice that there were some brick discolorations, my bigger problem came when I could not finish the set. I was missing a whole bag. (and one piece from another bag, but it was easy to hide the missing piece).

now on TLC's s@h behalf we were able to narrow down which bag is missing, and in a few weeks they should get the bag to me--apparently it has to come from Denmark.

That being said, I pay $150 for something, I expect it to work, and have all the parts. Needless to say I was a bit disappointed.

What if I had bought it from a Toys R Us? TRU wouldn't accept a return of an open package. Would TLC have covered the error in that case?

[Hinckley]

What if I had bought it from a Toys R Us? TRU wouldn't accept a return of an open package. Would TLC have covered the error in that case?

yes, they would have.

Speaking of which, though, when I bought Aquabase Invasion from TRU they tried to upsell a warranty. The guy was like "If there's a piece missing, we'll replace it." I didn't say anything, but that's crazy! LEGO will replace it no matter where you buy it.

That being said, I've been playing with LEGO since I was five and I've never had a missing piece until the last couple of years (I'm now thirty). A whole bag was missing from a Dino Attack set and two of the huge tiles were missing from my ferrari truck. My nephew was missing two pieces from a tiny racers set! I know the feeling lifirefighter. It's kind of a buzz kill. I never did finish the Dino Attack helicopter, because it was several weeks before they got that bag of parts to me. LEGO quality is slipping...

[Brainbox]

That being said, I've been playing with LEGO since I was five and I've never had a missing piece until the last couple of years (I'm now thirty). A whole bag was missing from a Dino Attack set and two of the huge tiles were missing from my ferrari truck. My nephew was missing two pieces from a tiny racers set! I know the feeling lifirefighter. It's kind of a buzz kill. I never did finish the Dino Attack helicopter, because it was several weeks before they got that bag of parts to me. LEGO quality is slipping...

The most I've ever been missing is the sticker sheet from the Batboat. I emailed Lego about it, and got a very strange reply: it said that there wasn't supposed to be a sticker sheet in the Batboat set *wacko* . I emailed back and said "yes there is, I'm looking at the instruction booklet and I can see stickers." No reply, and a few days later, my stickers turned up...

[Hobbes]

I was missing a whole bag. (and one piece from another bag, but it was easy to hide the missing piece).

I was missing pieces in almost all my Technic sets I bought within the last year and a half. And my 8284 Tractor was missing an entire bag, too, one of the bags with all the pins in it at that. With Technic sets that means a lot of pieces. "System" sets never had anything missing.

What if I had bought it from a Toys R Us? TRU wouldn't accept a return of an open package. Would TLC have covered the error in that case?

I can second hinckley's answer, I've had to use TLC's Customer Service quite often in the past 18 months...

No reply, and a few days later, my stickers turned up...

Yep, that's what they do: no confirmation or anything, but suddenly the piece(s) do(es) arrive...

[Asuka]

There

[BearHeart]

I've started collecting LEGO exactly a year ago and Ive never had a missing piece in any of the 40+ sets that Ive bought this year. However, I remember I had a few missing piece incidents back in the early 90s. So personally, I think TLC has made improvements in that area. The brick quality is another issue though which I already discussed earlier in this thread.

[M'Kyuun]

I've been collecting for 30+ years as well. I never had missing parts in any sets as a kid. Within the last four years, I've had two parts that were incompletely molded(looked like the machine ran out of plastic beads halfway through the molding process), a wrong leg piece in my Aquaraiders Lobster Strike, missing and wrong pieces in several other sets. Personally, I think it sad that TLG have moved away from their traditional centralized manufacturing processes in favor of cost-cutting and relocation of factories, as the quality of their materials, colors, etc lack the consistency of the pre-milennial days. Consistency was always a Lego benchmark. Sadly, tis not the case anymore.

On the positive side, I've had great experience dealing with their service dept, and I haven't detected any difference in the "gripping" quality of the brick. I still keep my brick separator handy.

[Hinckley]

Yep, that's what they do: no confirmation or anything, but suddenly the piece(s) do(es) arrive...

Odd. I've always gotten a confirmation.

I will say again that if they are trying to cut costs to stay in business/keep themselves from going under and continue to create wonderful sets like the Cafe Corner and the Vikings line, and the new castle and the UCS, etc then okay, I could live with these problems, if they start to improve from now. However, if they're just being obsesses with their bottom line and making more profit, then they need to realize that the quality slipping is highly noticeable and dissapointing.

Is it possible we are all paying the price for bad licesnse endeavors such as Mickey Mouse and (dare I swear?) Galidor?

[WhiteHexagon]

Just finnished Cafe Corner. Wow what a great set!! 16+ is a good label though, my fingers are almost falling off from clicking all those bricks :) and the gf was even helping!

But... I have to say, besides having some really great bricks in this set, it does suffer from color consistency problems! Dark blues and dark reds were most noticable. But also the gray smooth plates seemed to be of cheaper plastic and look a different color from other sets, although it's too dark to check now. But many of the bricks also looked to be of a cheaper plastic. Bit disapointing for such an expensive set!

But overall its an incredible build! and we can only hope Lego have more of these ideas in stock for the future. My only hope is that the quality starts to improve soon, although at this rate I'll have so many shades of every color, moc'ing in single colors just won't be possible and if every brick is a slightly different shade, then maybe it's not as bad as having just a few. Shame though, makes me relluctant to buy new sets until I know the quality. Although I'm looking forward to Villa.

Peter

[Zaktan of the Shadows]

I guess it saves money... but man, that sucks.

-ZotS

[xenologer]

Well... Ive just recieved a Sealed AlphaTeam Navigator ROV set today from ebay.

Looks like there was a misprint on TeeVee's control panel brick.

Not that its that vital, you just can't make out the corney 'mission deep sea' text.

What you guys think, would Customer Service send a replacement for a Printed piece this old? I mean, even if they were willing, prints are Hard to get and this ones ancient...

[Holodoc]

Nowadays I get some bricks that look and feel a little.... cheap and different

sometimes, with sharper edges and grates or even slots near the studs! *sing* And now and

then the colors

[Paradosis]

Though this is only anecdotal, I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in. I've also noticed many of the problems that people have mentioned. Just from purchases this year, the slopes on my creator house (4956) have different textures, I had two pieces missing (actually they were exchanged for two similar pieces) in a fire station (7945), and the pieces just seem less able to maintain a firm grasp on other bricks.