Ever miss a piece?

[bitbang]

So I have bought quite a few sets over the last few years and I have never gotten a set that had a missing piece, or several for that matter.

A buddy of mine got a set for his son the other day and was complaining that 5 pieces were missing, I happened to have them so I gave them to him to finish his set but it had me thinking... Have any of you ever had sets that were new, sealed/brand new and they were missing pieces? I think his son may have accidentally lost them or the cat got a hold of them. I have never gotten a brand new set with anything missing.

[Meiko]

I've seen it happen before. Even had a drastically incorrect piece once (a LEGO brick in a Bionicle set instead of a shoulder armour). The good thing is you can get replacement pieces for free from LEGO Customer Service. Go to http://service.lego.com and select Replacement Parts.

[fred67]

I can only think of two times where I was actually missing a piece, and one time where I had an extra of one color while missing the color I needed (and I went through the instructions three times, convinced I must have used the wrong piece somewhere... but it also, the way it was being used, would have been really obvious).

Five pieces? I have a real hard time with that. I'm so sure when I can't find a piece that it's my fault, I've even crawled on hands and knees around my coffee table to double check; I take all the bags out of the box, and put them back in the box after opening and putting them on the table so that I can pull them back out again to see if a piece got stuck.... and it's almost always the case that I find it somewhere.

[jodawill]

I've bought MANY Lego sets throughout the years, and I've never found one missing any parts. I did find some damaged parts, though, when I bought Benny's Spaceship. One of the tiles looked like it had been chewed up by a machine. One of the rubber missiles looked like it had been chewed by a dog. It was really weird. The box was damaged, but I don't think there's any way the damage could have happened while the pieces were in the bags. Lego replaced them, of course, but it really puzzles me. The missile was damaged before the rubber and plastic were connected.

[Robert8]

On Christmas Day, a woman posted in the LEGO facebook page that she got a set missing 3 BAGS of pieces

[ocifant]

I've had to contact Customer Services twice in the past year for missing pieces. And I had the 'substitute ' piece dilemma on Palace Cinema for one of the counter tiles in the wrong colour, which I dealt with from spares.

Took about three weeks for the pieces to come through in both Instances. 2 from one set, and 4 from another. No questions asked, so can't complain really apart from the frustration of not being able to complete until the parts arrived.

I always open a bag at a time into sorting containers, and build from them to reduce the chance of losing anything.

[bjorkan]

Never happened to me, some real problems with some pieces (two tilted base plates for blue cargo train and one non functional train switch) yes, but none missing ever... and always replaced promptly...

[Tariq j]

I've never had a missing piece in any of the sets I've brought.

[1974]

This should change in the future though. In 2012 they started a pilot project where they mold an entire bag's worth parts in the same colour and bag right at the machine, so no more logistical nightmare of picking stored parts and weighing them at the end

That should give zero errors

Has anyone seen bags like that? I don't buy new sets so I haven't seen them

[dr_spock]

I haven't had any missing pieces before. I thought I had a missing piece with Fire Brigade. It might have been I used that piece in the wrong place due to misreading the color in the instruction manual.

[klinton]

I've had occasions where I was certain that I was missing a piece, even plucking it from another set to finish the build...only to find it still in one of the bags, in a crumpled corner. Or off to the side of the space I was building on, having bounced away when I opened the bag. Hahaha.

I've never once actually had any missing parts though. Which is actually kind of amazing really, when you consider the odds. Thousands and thousands of parts, and not a stud is missing.

[owlbearsforall]

I've had occasions where I was certain that I was missing a piece, even plucking it from another set to finish the build...only to find it still in one of the bags, in a crumpled corner. Or off to the side of the space I was building on, having bounced away when I opened the bag. Hahaha.

This happens to me all the time. For some reason, moreso with the cheese wedge bricks than anything else.

[talos]

I got one of the infamous Fire Brigade sets that was missing an entire bag. Lego sent me the replacement group of parts, and this was well after the set was retired and not available anymore to purchase.

[Gongoro73]

I've had a missing piece only once, in the Fire Brigade set. It was a 1x4 dark red plate. TLG shipped to me the piece with no questions asked after a few days.

[mpfirnhaber]

Happened to me once, many many years ago. This was before the internet, so I remember writing a letter to TLG explaining the situation. I even included a little drawing of the part (white 1x2x1 panel). They sent me a whole bag full of them :)

[Mr Meleca]

I have more than 87000 pieces, all of them counted by brickset's inventory of new sets.

Never had 1 missing piece ( but I did not build my fire brigade yet...)

[Stefaneris]

I never had a missing piece in a set, however I once got the wrong part in a PaB order but I got a replacement very soon after contacting the customer service.

[torso]

I don't build sets, but only buy them for their parts. After finishing parting out a 42009 Mobile Crane Mk II I realized that the string was missing. I'll never know if anything else was missing.

[Lankygit]

I built the Modular Pet Shop over the Christmas holidays and it was missing a few bricks and the lamppost. replacement parts sent by LGT without question.

[ficbot]

I have never been missing one, but I did just get the grocery store/toy shop set and one of the little white hook pieces was a little malformed and the colour was grey and dirty-looking. I am not sure if it's worth the bother of calling Lego to replace such a tiny piece, but it was clearly defective, not just me imagining things. My fiance noticed it right away when I showed him and was quite upset that such an expensive set was not complete and perfect.

[DrJB]

in all instances where I thought I was missing a piece, it was actually found in the crumbled bags after I looked again carefully. though, on only ONE occasion, I was missing a small piece, a blue flag from a basketball set.

[ElCrab]

Every time I think I'm missing a piece, it's in the fold or corner of an opened, "empty" bag. ;)

[Jared]

I think we've had a thread like this before, but it's probably buried way too far down to go dig it up again.

Once, and it wasn't really a missing piece, more a mistake in the instructions. The first batch of Exo Force Jungle sets had hit the shelves and my dad had taken me to Toysrus to completely burn through my allowance on one of these bad boys. I got home, and then on page 3 I noticed I was missing a piece. Completely unsatisfied and in complete disbelief that a piece was missing, I spent half an hour yelling and screaming and searching frantically around the living room for the piece that supposedly was "missing". In a final desperate attempt, I shook the box upside down one more time to challenge my disbelief, and sure enough, a piece of thin white paper came shooting out the box and landed on the living room floor. Turns out it was a correction to a slight mistake made in the instructions, and the piece I "thought" I was missing was never even there in the first place! ;D

[Andy D]

Usually it is only because I used the wrong color someplace else. I either disassemble to get the correct color or use a spare of the correct color.

One time it was a small piece still in the bag, once because I dropped one on the floor.

I don't think I have actually been shorted a piece (yet). For me, the only time it would actually matter would be if it were a special, unique piece or a unique color, otherwise I can just get a piece from my spares.

Andy D

[Lady_Scarlett]

Once, on one of the Christmas set, a complete set of bags was missing. Like "no bags number three in the box".

And last christmas (yes, again), I made quite a big order and one of the boxes was missing.

But they replace everything without any problem if you ask.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Lady_Scarlett