Quality control slipping?

[polarscribe]

I've had an epidemic of quality-control issues with LEGO sets lately. They've arrived missing pieces, with misprinted stickers and my 60026 Town Square even arrived missing an instruction manual - I got two copies of the bike shop manual and zero copies of the pizza shop manual.

Now, LEGO customer service has been very prompt about delivering replacements with no issues... but mailing out replacement parts individually has got to be a pretty labor-intensive, expensive way to do things. Is it just me, or is anyone else noticing more problems of late?

[Saint]

For years now.... sadly .. even discoloration in parts ( same part in a set ) , .. never had a instruction mishap though . Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it's getting worse..

For LEGO it's cheaper to replace the parts trough customer service aparently .. I guess for every 10 parts they do wrong they replace about 5 parts, so the margin of error keeps small...

The only way to change this is to start complaining about jut about everything everytime .

grtz Saint

[Faefrost]

I have seen more issues with missing parts in recent times. Normally stuff like 1 missing 1x2 etc. Just enough to be annoying. I chalk it up to more of the packaging being done via automation and weight controls and less human contact at that end invariably leads to someone having to go find a part and stick it in an envelope at the back end. I would be curious to know what the actual error rates are as they go to more and more automation?

[BrickG]

You know I've still literally never gotten a set with a missing piece. At this point in my life I can safely say my collection is in no way small (but I haven't opened everything). Maybe I'm just lucky. I seem to only get extra pieces that I'm not supposed to get like extra capes in the same cape holder thingy.

[BimmerBoy]

I've gotten my fair share of sets, never had a problem. My complaint with Shop@Home is the packing. Expensive sets where I want to keep the box, sometimes show up crushed or otherwise marred. The 41999 Technic 4x4 Crawler is a prime example. I ordered that and got a free polybag. The polybag was placed on top of the crawler box, then the packing material was placed on that, and the whole thing was tightly taped up. Problem was the polybag pieces put pock marks all over the crawler box. 41999 is a limited edition set, and it comes in a very nice, high quality and display-worthy box (the box has printed signatures from the set designers and is made of a thicker cardboard than normal LEGO set boxes).

I should note my father-in-law recently got the Space Needle from the Architecture line and it was missing a 2x12 black plate (or 2x10, can't remember).

[TheLegoDr]

^That is a downside of packaging products. They are going to throw things in a box to get them out the door quicker. I assume a lot of "normal" people don't keep the boxes, just us crazy collectors. It is frustrating to have a damaged box. I've had a few from Shop @ Home that were damaged. Not much you can do about it, other than mail it back I guess? Which sounds costly/annoying.

I always have missing pieces or damaged pieces right out of the box. Unfortunate, but obviously I'm still buying the product. I guess if enough people got fed up to hurt the bottom line, they may wake up and do something drastic, but I don't ever see that happening.

[pcvando]

I have noticed this too… Sadly. And don't even get me started on the new plastic china bad material pieces. It is absolutely shocking.

I don't buy new sets anymore. Only pre-2009 sets for me. I love the old 1989-1990's solid pieces and solid heads, but now everything is getting cut back even further. For me, the changing point was; "the hollow studs allow air to pass through" so if I eat one… I won't choke? (works in theory) More like a quack of you know what. Anything to cut back on costs.

[BricksMcgee]

Had no real problems with missing pieces/booklets, but piece quality on mini figure series is getting very poor: figures I got in Lego Movie series had malformed hands and couldn't grip their accessories!

[Daedalus304]

I've had maybe 2 sets that were missing a single part, and I haven't really had any notable colour problems aside from some reddish brown bricks having slightly varying shades - which I actually appreciate, personally.

It's more than evened out for me, though, as the modular pet shop I bought at LEGOLAND California a year or so back had an extra bag of parts for the top of the townhouse. No bags or pieces missing, just.... a whole extra bag of parts. I wouldn't mind their Quality Control missing that a couple more times!

[Master_Data]

Had no real problems with missing pieces/booklets, but piece quality on mini figure series is getting very poor: figures I got in Lego Movie series had malformed hands and couldn't grip their accessories!

That happened with my Series 10 figs and some hairs from Series 11. Lego just sent another Series 10 fig instead of replacing the part.

It's more than evened out for me, though, as the modular pet shop I bought at LEGOLAND California a year or so back had an extra bag of parts for the top of the townhouse. No bags or pieces missing, just.... a whole extra bag of parts. I wouldn't mind their Quality Control missing that a couple more times!

I wish that happened to me...the last time anything similar to that happened to me was when Lego sent out the free Chi Battles sets with all Shop at Home orders and I ended up with three of them plus my actual set and promotional item!

[Paul B Technic]

I have had a couple of pieces missing at times and also a couple of faulty parts such as a battery box and a wheel.

[BrickG]

I haven't really noticed.

After dozens of sets and years of this I still haven't gotten a set that was missing a piece. Maybe I'm lucky.

The only issues I have had in recent times are the following:

-Printing on some pieces is sometimes a bit sloppy. Basically on those non-standard pieces. My Flash has a bit of extra yellow and my LotR Troll has a random paint streak on his back which is annoying.

-I had one instructions which had a miscolored couple pages which really confused me and make me piece a few pieces wrong and assume they were missing for a while. It made some blue pieces look purple and stuff.

That is basically it. I've actually gotten extra pieces a lot (capes and stuff).

[Master_Data]

The only issues I have had in recent times are the following:

-Printing on some pieces is sometimes a bit sloppy. Basically on those non-standard pieces. My Flash has a bit of extra yellow and my LotR Troll has a random paint streak on his back which is annoying.

-I had one instructions which had a miscolored couple pages which really confused me and make me piece a few pieces wrong and assume they were missing for a while. It made some blue pieces look purple and stuff.

That is basically it. I've actually gotten extra pieces a lot (capes and stuff).

I've had problems with the coloring in the instruction manuals for years now. And the extra paint streaks on certain parts can be really annoying! I don't think that it has really been a big problem for me, though.

[sithewok]

Opened three new sets in the last three days and each one was missing 1-3 pieces. Haven't had many issues with this in the past but I thought it was strange (and more than a little annoying...).

[Calanon]

I noticed a bit of a slip a few years ago, but for sets I'm buying it seems to have gone up again. Best thing to do is just file a complaint - if Lego gets enough complaints about a certain set they'll look at the machines to see if there's a fault there.

[andyscouse]

I too have never, ever had any missing pieces in sets!

[mangotshihtzu]

Sometimes there are issues

Edited September 4, 2023 by mangotshihtzu
reformatting

[Hypernova888]

While I think that the quality control is slipping a bit, I think that LEGO is still substantially better quality-wise than most toy brands.

Also, I've only had problems with my LEGO heads. Sometimes the eyebrows are a bit off from the eyes, and just recently, I got The LEGO Movie Getaway glider, and the mouth of sheriff Not-a-robot has a nick in it.

[Drizzt]

I must be lucky as I cannot recall a quality control issue in any of the sets i've opened in the last 3 years. Course i Have many unopened boxes too...

[talos]

I must admit, I look on the boxes of the sets I buy and look for the country of origin for the parts, more and more have China included...I am always suspect of those parts.

I've had more sets have extra pieces than missing parts, not including the usual extras. I think they just assume the customer will lose some of the smallest parts. Outside of my Fire Brigade missing an entire bag, I can't complain.

I think, at least for the USA customer service, they might not have enough training. I have gotten a lot of misinformation from them. From telling me to create a new ID when my VIP card was lost in the mail, to saying they cancelled an unneeded replacement part order, and then having it sent anyway. They are generous with giving perks for inconveniences though, I must say.

[LegoSjaak]

After buying and opening almost 200 sets, i had only 2 bricks that missed some material in a corner and a missing stickersheet......

[TheLegoDr]

It varies. I have tons of missing/broken pieces right out of the box, and others from my LUG claim they have never had any broken or missing pieces. We live in the same town! So who knows.

I don't think you can fairly judge the quality of everything based on the country it came from. I've had plenty of pieces that didn't list China on the box that were broken. China gets a bad rap. And yes, it does have a different scale of quality there, that doesn't mean LEGO's involvement is also in the lower quality too. Just by having China on the box doesn't mean any pieces were made there. Maybe the box printing was done there. They list where everything is involved -- pieces, printing, instruction manual, stickers....

[SweetiePie88]

According to one person I was talking to, QC has been slipping for at least a few years now. I've definatly noticed and heard of more issues of post assembly cracking bricks happening. Like about 3 months ago, I picked up a friends lemonade stand. I assembled it then a short time later put it in a plastic trading card holder box, the ones advertised as being able to hold upwards of 1100 cards, that i got. Well, recently i went back into the box to add in 2 little jet ski things i got from a couple polybags and check the ziploc that holds the lemons/limes, helmet, and the juicer to make sure there weren't any spare parts that needed to be saved. I discovered that the juicer that was only assembled once has a crack up one of the flat sides! i just submitted the report to lego for a replacement.

I also have a second stand i got, but haven't opened yet, for the parts. I am now really worried that that set will contain another damaged part.‭ I really hate this. one of the reasons i used to be a lego purist is for the high quality of the parts but now that's really not the case anymore since lego quality is down yet prices are either up and/or part padding happening a lot more but some of the clone brands are climbing higher and higher while maintaining fair prices and part sizes

[paul_delahaye]

I agree, I had a 1 x 6 white tile missing from the fairground mixer set and now the instruction manual from my Ecto 1 set has fallen apart during the initial built, only about 20 pages in, and that was with me being careful as I'd read i can fall apart. Not impressed, it's not like we are buying cheap and cheerful Megablocks here, we have all chosen to pay a premium for a premium product.

Paul

[Lady K]

Just opened my Super Secreet Police Drop Ship that I picked up at the same time as Benny's Spaceship and I must say I am terribly disappointed. Benny' s Spaceship was a real treat to put together, the pieces were great as were the stickers!

Not so for the Police Drop Ship! The stickers are nowhere near as nice as all the other sets I've gotten. The printing looks cheaper and the paper feels cheaper than I'm use to. I made it as far as putting on the first side door and decided it felt like I was assembling megablocks. I even asked my two TFOL's what they thought and they agreed with me.

So I have decided to just part it out as it will not have a place of honor on my shelves! Anyone else have this problem with this set?

I just read the side of the box: Contents made in Denmark, Hungry, Mexico, China, and the Czech Republic. I guess it takes five different countries to make one set now. How do I know which country made which parts?

Edited June 29, 2014 by adventurer1