How common are missing pieces?

[Joseph Barker]

Hello there. 

Recently I got the Lego Architecture sets: Venice, Berlin, the Capitol Building and Buckingham Palace. I started off on Venice and Berlin as they are much smaller sets and finished them without problem and then got to work on the Capitol Building but currently I've had to stop because of missing pieces meaning I can't build the front wall. Moved onto Buckingham Palace and I'm missing pieces yet again meaning I can't continue as it's preventing me from working on the actual building itself. Thought I'd start work on two other sets (The Kwik-E-Mart and and Palace Cinema) which I've had for a while now but just never got around to completing. On the Palace Cinema I got up to step four before discovering I had neither of the doors for the car or the steering wheel. Fortunately I had a spare steering wheel and not having the doors on isn't the end of the world so I'll just wait until they get replaced. Thought I'd just move on with the main building and I'd imagine they'd just turn up later. Got up to step 23 before discovering that I've now ran out out of 2 1x2 brick pieces or the main windows. Won't be continuing the Palace Cinema anytime soon. I've considered trying out the Kwick-E-Mart but with my luck that'll missing a good few pieces and I've got enough barely started models to begin with.

Rant over. But I thought I'd ask, how common is it to have missing pieces? And is it something you ever have to worry about or even think about? Because for me it's expected and it's rare to have a set without missing pieces.

Thanks in advance for your time too.

Edited December 27, 2016 by Joseph Barker

[Mr Greeble]

That is a very uncommon amount of missing pieces! Have you checked in all the bags and boxes for the pieces? It is possible to have them be stuck in a corner of a bag. 

 

Welcome to Eurobricks!

[MrHerofan]

Out of all the LEGO sets I have gotten over the years none of them have had missing pieces. Although I don't buy as much LEGO as some people on this forum do. 

[Joseph Barker]

5 minutes ago, Mr Greeble said:

That is a very uncommon amount of missing pieces! Have you checked in all the bags and boxes for the pieces? It is possible to have them be stuck in a corner of a bag. 

 

Welcome to Eurobricks!

Hello and thanks for the reply as well as the warm welcome. And yes it definitely is, even though I expect them to be missing I expect things like the 1x1 flat pieces or stuff like that. Things that can easily pass through the weight machine but in fairness to Lego, they put spares in which may not be the right colour but you're unlikely to notice. Checked through ever piece, the bags and the boxes. I did in fact find a few other pieces left over but not the ones I was looking for. And what's also weird is that I normally expect the pieces to be missing later on which is better because it's easier to work out they're. missing. When you're on step 5 of the Palace Cinema however it's a whole different story and you're forced to count through every individual one and you don't know what spares you can repurpose.

8 minutes ago, MrHerofan said:

Out of all the LEGO sets I have gotten over the years none of them have had missing pieces. Although I don't buy as much LEGO as some people on this forum do. 

Too be honest, I don't even buy that much myself, I get a few Architecture sets and a big one at Christmas and my birthday so not many. And on the other threads I looked at there was a handful of people who said they'd either never had a missing piece at all or something like 2 in total. The vast majority people say it happens occasionally and I expect pieces to be missing but Like Mr Greeble said it's an uncommon amount of pieces which it is even for me. 

[dr_spock]

Welcome to Eurobricks.  It is not very common for me.  I remember missing a piece with Fire Brigade.  Where in the world are you?  Where do you buy your LEGO?  Contact LEGO customer service.

[koalayummies]

In building off and on since the early 90s, I can't say I've ever had a missing piece but I have had a couple of damaged pieces and a couple of misprinted/messed up decorations. The damaged pieces are usually larger plates that are bent or warped. Lego always replaces very timely and there are no bad feelings about this. 

Every time that I couldn't find a piece a thorough search revealed its either stuck in one of the bags or I confused the piece with another similar piece and placed it on the set where its not supposed to go. 

[Megagan]

In my experience its rare to have happen. First time I have had it happen was with Benny's spaceship spaceship spaceship with 2 or 3 pieces missing. Was pretty upsetting cause I had never truly had pieces missing before that I had not just misplaced. Needless to say even after Lego having excellent customer service and getting those parts to me free of charge its something I have worried about happening again despite that it took 20 years for me to have it happen for the first time (and possibly only).

[Joseph Barker]

54 minutes ago, dr_spock said:

Welcome to Eurobricks.  It is not very common for me.  I remember missing a piece with Fire Brigade.  Where in the world are you?  Where do you buy your LEGO?  Contact LEGO customer service.

Thank for you dr_spock for the welcome. 

And it not being common is the usual reply I saw on the other threads. And I'm located in the UK. And because I'm way out in the sticks I have to get my stuff online. Nearest Lego store is Manchester. 

I've gone through the brick replacement thing, just waiting for a shipping conformation. 

17 minutes ago, koalayummies said:

In building off and on since the early 90s, I can't say I've ever had a missing piece but I have had a couple of damaged pieces and a couple of misprinted/messed up decorations. The damaged pieces are usually larger plates that are bent or warped. Lego always replaces very timely and there are no bad feelings about this. 

Every time that I couldn't find a piece a thorough search revealed its either stuck in one of the bags or I confused the piece with another similar piece and placed it on the set where its not supposed to go. 

Funny thing is though with me missing pieces are fairly common but I've never had a damaged piece or anything misprinted. Always missing.

11 minutes ago, Megagan said:

In my experience its rare to have happen. First time I have had it happen was with Benny's spaceship spaceship spaceship with 2 or 3 pieces missing. Was pretty upsetting cause I had never truly had pieces missing before that I had not just misplaced. Needless to say even after Lego having excellent customer service and getting those parts to me free of charge its something I have worried about happening again despite that it took 20 years for me to have it happen for the first time (and possibly only).

Back when I first started doing Lego I rarely had missing pieces but now it just gets ridiculously often. Sometimes I'll often get misplaced pieces but that's usually along side others that are already missing. And surprisingly I've never had to use their customer service or the brick replacement feature because I've always but the spare pieces to work. Sadly I won't be able to do in this case due to multiple reasons. Think I might make a habit of using it but hopefully I won't have to in the future.

[BubbaFit45531]

Luckily so far, rare. When I was building something big, I often assumed parts were missing, but it was just hard to locate in the piles.

It's common to have extras of tiny pieces though.

I saw a YouTube video where they said the bags are weighed 9 times to reduce chances of missing parts.

[samurai-turtle]

I only had two sets that I would say had missing peices. 6938 Scorpion Detector it is some of the "fossil" parts. And a more reasont set, 79103 Turtle Lair Attack I was missing a "lightsaber blade" peice. Luckily it only repesant "oozing slime" and I just got a replacement from the website. 

[Peppermint_M]

The only real time I had missing parts, it turned out that the box flap was loose and as the set had dual numbered bags (two bag 8 etc) I had not noticed one had slipped out where I stored the box.

Fortunately I found it quickly.

[Fox Womb]

I've been having the same problem lately, not with Lego but with T-shirts. I placed two different orders on two different sites, each of two T-shirts, and one T-shirt in each package was wrong. Pretty frustrating. But I've only had this problem with Lego once, and it was a long time ago (I was around 10 years old or so). I got a Creator set and it came with a few wrong bags, but I never returned it because the pieces I got extra of were better than the pieces I didn't get, and I'm not one to keep sets together anyway.

I hope this works out for you.

[Faefrost]

For Lego? Missing pieces are extremely rare. I think out of several hundred sets I have had 1 legitimately missing or miss packed piece. And 2 instances where a larger part was damaged during shipping and retail handling. In all three cases Lego quickly replaced the part. 

Compare that to Megabloks/Megabrands/MegaConstrux/ whatever their name will be next week, where I think sets with missing, wrong or damaged pieces easily exceeds 20-25% of my purchases. Their CS is always helpfull,but you simply need to use them far too often. 

For me QC problems with Lego sit somewhere south of 0.3% With Mega 20-25%. With Kree-O about 50%. And with the really low tier knock offs such as Best Lock, QC issues stand at 100% of anything I have ever opened (admittedly small sample size.) 

[Slegengr]

Out of hundreds of sets between me and my siblings, I have only seen one incorrect part.  In set 7090 Crossbow Attack from the fantasy era Castle, my brother got two of the dark bley scale-maille torsos with dark blue arms instead of one of each torso intended to be included in the set.  This is an issue that weight could not correct, as there were still two torsos.
I have found sets to be missing pieces many times, only to find that it was my own error.  Either I misplaced the piece, buried it in the carpet (never build on shag carpet!), the piece was hidden inside another piece, or I had put the wrong piece on earlier.

It still surprises me when others find missing pieces, especially when it seems to happen multiple times to the same person.

Edited December 28, 2016 by Slegengr
Added link

[AFOLguy1970]

No missing parts in my sets, and we have bought several dozen at least.  Sometimes it will appear that something is missing, but it is usually either confusion over the color of part needed from the instructions, or I failed to completely empty the bag.  

[Joseph Barker]

Thanks for your replies guys, didn't think I'd get this much of a response so quickly and I'm glad to see that I've sparked a discussion on the matter. Though with my recent experience I don't think I'm going to building again for a while. Thought I'd go along with the rest of the Palace Theatre and it was even more of a wreck. Projector doesn't have any reels, roof access doesn't have a door, two of the windows on the first floor don't have any glass (The curved windows are meant to be this way but the rectangular frames do) in them and the sign is missing some lights. The tiled roof is missing a few tiles. Still haven't even got a response back from Lego on the Capitol. Hope I get response soon.

[antp]

Missing parts were from several different bags then?

That's very weird, the usual problems are either a part missing, or a whole bag missing/replaced by another; but I wonder how it can happen to have randomly missing parts of different sizes from several bags...

In my case out of hundreds of sets I never had a missing part; I thought once it was the case, but I found the part in a supposedly empty bag that I got back from the trash. However I once had a wrong part: I got a part not supposed to be in the set instead of one that was then missing. The missing one was common so I got it from my stock, and the unexpected one was still a nice to have. I could have reported that to Lego just for their quality control statistics, but I wasn't sure how to report it "just for info", as I didn't want to generate the useless sending of a common part by mail.

[eliminator]

In my years of opening up hundreds of Lego sets, I've only ever been missing pieces on two sets...both from the Technic line.

Last year I was missing a common piece from 42043 Arocs (not a big deal), but recently I was missing a large critical piece from the 42056 Porsche 911 set.

For the Porsche, I emailed my displeasure and customer service deposited 200 VIP points into my account. But later, they contacted me to indicate that the part is on back order. Thankfully they gave me even more VIP points....but I'm still pretty disappointed given the price I paid for the set.

As well, I've had Lego send a replacement sticker sheet for the Yellow Cargo Train that got mangled (before they put instructions and stickers in cardboard).

[danth]

8 hours ago, Slegengr said:

I have found sets to be missing pieces many times, only to find that it was my own error.  Either I misplaced the piece, buried it in the carpet (never build on shag carpet!), the piece was hidden inside another piece, or I had put the wrong piece on earlier.

Same here. I've bought hundreds of sets through my lifetime and only had one missing piece ever (a largish fence piece from a house set).

If you have missing pieces from 4 different sets all at once it makes me suspicious that maybe you're doing something wrong.

[Slegengr]

Just now, danth said:

If you have missing pieces from 4 different sets all at once it makes me suspicious that maybe you're doing something wrong.

I wondered the same, but I did not want to seem accusing.  It would surprise me, though, that so many mistakes would be made when LEGO puts forth extensive efforts into quality assurance.  Maybe someone tampered with the sets before purchase?

@Joseph Barker Were these sets purchased directly from the LEGO stores or were they from a secondary source or merchandise outlet?

[fred67]

Most of the time the missing parts turn up somewhere... hiding in the carpet or elsewhere.  I have, however, experienced missing pieces a few times over the years (hundreds of sets), and I had one case of severely defective parts (which I've described elsewhere on this forum).

[Tariq j]

The amount of times I've thought a piece was missing only to find it was scrunched up in the corner of a bag is uncountable! But missing pieces are extremely rare as Lego have a precise weight system that makes sure missing pieces don't occur.

Be careful with the replacement system though. Since you have quite a few missing pieces, depending on what algorithm Lego have set up, they may flag you because they think you're simply trying to get free parts from them.

[Sven F]

Obviously we all make up opinions on this based on our own experience, and if you built hundreds of sets and never found a missing piece, It's just hard to believe someone would have this happen repeatedly.   I can believe it happens sometimes, but if you opened 5 sets and had multiple missing pieces in each, it's just hard not to think something else isn't at stake.

Usually it's either the piece is still stuck in the bags or the piece was put somewhere else instead.   I have friends who bought the VW Camper set because they are classic VW fans, not LEGO fans, they never assembled a LEGO set before, and all three of them reported multiple pieces missing.   When I looked at the models, they all put them together wrong in different ways, and of course, no pieces were missing, but it took a lot of persuasion to make them realize it's their own doing.

Even if you are an intelligent and observing person who isn't new to lego, I would still place my bets on this being in some way an error on your part or 3rd party.
 

Edited December 28, 2016 by Sven F

[BubbaFit45531]

Perhaps a dog, cat, or child likes to eat Lego pieces when no one's looking. I thought about buying Lego for someone with a young child, but decided not to since they have a dog and it might not be healthy for the dog if it eats the Lego.

[AFOLguy1970]

If multiple parts are missing from multiple sets, I would inventory each set with the parts list at the back of the instructions just to be sure.  It might be a little time consuming depending on the size of the set, but it indicate exactly which parts you have.