Fragile Pieces?

[fred67]

I got a bad batch of dark read in my palace cinema.

And before anyone who has never experienced says "oh my god!  What did you do?  Try to smash them into place with a hammer?!?"

I grabbed the same dark red 1x1 tiles from my own collection and had no problem.  Every single one that came with the set broke, none of the replacements from my own collection broke.  They were obviously too small - bad mold? Cooled to fast? Too slow?  I don't know, but something went wrong.

And TLG never made good on it - I complained, they said they'd send parts, I never got them, I sent email with the picture and called back; the operator I talked to was flabbergasted and promised me they were on the way.... and I never got them.

[Boettner Builds]

I have 6 Palace Cinemas and haven’t come across any tiles breaking. But I have had quite a few other dark red pieces break. 

[AFOLguy1970]

Speaking of a bad batch, 9 of the pictured parts are included in the Mountain Police Station.  One broke three months ago after the station was assembled.  It was later disassembled right before we moved.  Today, I decided to rebuild it.  Another one was found broken in the bag and the other three broke while trying to reattach the stick parts to them per the instructions.  I am about to send TLG a message on the website, but still am wondering when the other 4 will break and if the replacements will be any better   It is extremely frustrating when you buy what is supposed to be a premium product and this happens, even with being careful.  

Quality Control by Steven Wagner, on Flickr

[Pdaitabird]

I don't know which color is the most fragile, but I remember from one of my college courses that black ABS is tougher than other colors because it contains more butadiene. So I would expect black pieces to be the "springiest."

Perhaps the dyes in dark red and reddish brown contribute to the breaking?

[BubbaFit45531]

I had a red transparent 1x1 plate break in two. No idea if they were polycarbonate back in the day.