Is Lego’s quality deteriorating?

[NathanR]

Lego building used to be a real joy for me, but I’m starting to feel that the quality of Lego bricks has fallen in recent years.  Not the sets, which are pretty much always high quality and interesting designs, but the plastic bricks themselves.  I've been finding that new bricks feel tacky, old bricks feel sticky and/or are losing clutch, yet bricks from over ten years ago feel fine (even better than modern bricks).

For example, whenever I get out a Lego set that was bought in the last 4 or 5 years, the bricks always come out feeling a little funny.  Some of my older winter village sets and the Star Wars Rebels “Ghost” immediately spring to mind as being a bit unpleasant to build, though the sticky feeling would usually “go off” the model once it had been in the open air for a few days.  Now, I’ve been storing the sets in resealable plastic bags - food bags at first, then museum-quality archival storage bags once I learnt the food bags might break down with age. I don’t know what damage, if any, has already been done by the food bags.  But the annoying thing is, a few weeks ago I bought my first BrickHeadz figures and after spending 30 minutes building one of them, my fingers felt tacky.  It was like a residue had built up on them, and it was the same uncomfortable sensation I get from my “old” Lego sets.  

Now when I say Lego bricks used to be better, I’m not viewing the past with rose-tinted specs.  I actually dug out a train set I bricklinked as all new parts about ten years ago.  It’s been built a few times over the years.  For a start, the bricks felt chunkier (I know that the walls of bricks have been thinned out over the years) and seemed to grip each other a little more tightly than modern bricks do. I can’t do any exact measurements, but it seemed those ten year old bricks needed just a tiny more force to pull apart than the new versions.  I also noticed that the walls of older bricks were a little more rigid.  A couple hours building left my hands felt a little moist, but not sticky.

 

But the real reason behind this post is that yesterday, I sat down to build my 21309 Saturn V again.  I don’t have much display space, so I keep dismantling models and rebuilding them at a later date.  The larger plates (2x14, 2x8…) felt sticky, slimy even, and seemed to flex more than they should.  It was as though they had gone a little rubbery in storage, though they still had good rigidity, good clutch and did their job well.  The smaller parts hadn’t fared much better though.  Loads of the 1x2 grille tiles felt like they had a soft grip, some of the 1x1 bricks felt a little loose, many of the 1x2 jumper plates were barely holding on.  Large chunks of the side panels feel rubbery rather than a solid plastic. Anything mounted on an offset stud is a vey weak connection now.   I’ve had this set 14 months and this is only the fourth time it’s been built… I honestly don’t know what’s happened here.  The rocket was a lot more solid the first time I built it. I’m thinking something in the plastic must have been changed over the last few years, but what?   ABS is ABS, and it's supposed to be pretty tough, is there any way it could be being attacked or broken down?   Is it just me, or has anyone else seen this kind of behaviour in modern Lego bricks?

 

I apologise for the lengthy rant, but I’ve been getting so frustrated and upset with the Lego bricks that I’m about ready to give up on this as a hobby.  Am I the only one who feels that Lego bricks are not as good as they used to be, does anyone else have examples of old vs new bricks they could share?

[Peppermint_M]

I'm not sure I can agree... 

I have been sorting out my bricks again, a number of older MOCs and new sets are ready to be recycled into new builds. I have also had a few fleamarket finds to add in. This means I have got a swath of bricks that date from the 1970's until this year.

The older brick have discoloured, some plates have even warped or have snapped when I am taking them apart or taking bricks off them. There are old bricks missing chunks, which may be a result of misuse, but at the same time one or two broke as I carefully separated the parts.

The 90's bricks are okay, bar the discolouring issue from UV damage and the fact that a lot of 90's parts are not my true cup of tea (lots of very big windows and large panels. Alright I guess and they have their uses, but still not the greatest). Less damage to the bricks of that era and nothing so far has broken from being used.

The main problem in the 2000's bricks are the colour issues that have been well documented. Dark Red was always inconsistent. The plastic is fine and my own bricks were stored in a decent way, so they have not had a chance to discolour (if it is still an issue). Nothing has snapped, but some of the used plates are deformed due to misuse and abuse.

The current production bricks are wonderful. Vibrant and still perfectly formed. I had been gifted one of the Create boxes, and opening it up to sort the parts fresh from the bag was a joy. They felt different, but they felt nice, not bad. Like a crisp and fresh brand new book.

Of course, I adore second hand books too. But therein lies the true face - Old bricks are loved and cherished, there is a nostalgia to them and an acceptance of their condition. Many agree that the 2000's bricks had problems that are now resolved, but still some are stuck on the loss of the old greys and brown. 

I have not experienced any "stickiness" to bricks, true the tyres can at times fell a little off, but not always.

Truly my main bugbear is the sticker sheets getting crumpled in the box! 

[fred67]

Honestly, I feel like the "sticky" feeling is just from use - people have oily hands, no matter how much you wash them.  You use bricks, you touch bricks, you get them dirty.  Taking them apart, I find, is often worse, because you may need to grip harder.

When I build a set, I keep a damp washcloth nearby to keep cleaning my hands.

I agree with @Peppermint_M, there have been a few quality control mishaps (notably with brown and dark red, but also other colors) from time to time, but by and large the quality is as good as it's ever been, IMO.

 

[BrickJagger]

I do think the quality is deteriorating, and it's happened within the last few years. Sets I've bought recently have discolored pieces, pieces that don't fit as well as they used to, broken pieces, missing sticker sheets, and figures with arms that crack easily. I've gotten replacement parts for some of them but it's a troubling trend that I hope stops soon. 

[deraven]

I've not seen any problems with stickiness, including the with specific sets you noted.  I wonder if it has something to do with environmental factors in your home/area or more specifically the storage bags?  I think newer bricks in general have less texture than old ones, and I think that primarily comes from the molds being better maintained and replaced/refurbished much more frequently.  Remember when folks used to talk about how expensive the mold were and how that affected the types of parts produced, etc.?  Now we get new molds for all kinds of stuff all the time, and from what I've seen behind-the-scenes it appears they're much more liberal with replacing molds/components and/or the technology has advanced to a point where they're simply more durable in general.  With smoother surfaces, things like oil from skin might be the much more prominent when handling parts.

The only quality issue I've had (besides color consistency as others have noted - and that's MUCH better now) is hairline cracks in new parts.  Things like cheese slopes are notorious for it, but plenty of other parts as well.  This also seems to have gotten better recently, so I truly wonder if it was simply a matter of them dialing-in the hundredths-of-a-millimeter differences in wall thickness as they optimize plastic usage and cost savings and having made impossibly minute adjustments that help that, or if it's still luck of the draw with parts that are made from sometimes lower-quality plastic sources around the world.  Regardless, it's not been bad enough for me to think about it much, and I personally haven't had issues like BrickJagger mentioned.

I do notice the slightly lighter feel to the newer parts, especially since my collection also spans many decades - I can tell a 70s brick from a '00s brick with my eyes closed.  I do notice that I can flex larger pieces more easily than before with the changes in wall thickness, but other than those increasingly less common tiny cracks I don't have any issues or notice a problem with clutch power.  Now, older bricks feel like they have more clutch sometimes, but to me that always seems like the ABS has just become more brittle and less flexible and thus holds harder, until you get a break (like Peppermint_M noted).

The worse quality out of Lego I've seen in recent years seems to be with the CMF lines.  Seems like those often "feel" cheaper and lighter than they should be (certainly for the high individual cost), and that's where I will see some torso cracking or hands that don't seem to be fully seated into arms, etc..

[NathanR]

4 hours ago, deraven said:

I've not seen any problems with stickiness, including the with specific sets you noted.

10 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

I have not experienced any "stickiness" to bricks, true the tyres can at times fell a little off, but not always.

10 hours ago, fred67 said:

Honestly, I feel like the "sticky" feeling is just from use - people have oily hands, no matter how much you wash them.  You use bricks, you touch bricks, you get them dirty. 

Interesting... I know the rubber elements can go a bit funny with age, so I try and keep them separate.  But it seems the "sticky" feeling is just me?  I'm a bit surprised, I've always had hot hands, I wouldn't have thought I'd have only just started noticing it with the bricks.  I will have to try @fred67's idea of a damp washcloth

5 hours ago, deraven said:

I wonder if it has something to do with environmental factors in your home/area or more specifically the storage bags?

The Saturn V model spent 6 months in the resealable food bags, before being swapped out to the archival bags.  The food bags felt pretty much like new at the time of replacement, but they never said what type of plastic they were - it felt like polythene, but I've read that PVC bags break down and release an acidic gas.  I have noticed that all used bricks lack the high-gloss sheen of factory-fresh bricks, but I assumed that was due to grease from thumbprints.  The bags are airtight, and have been stored in cardboard boxes in a rarely opened cupboard, well away from direct sunlight.  It's been a hot summer this year (highs of around 38 degrees C), but I'd be very surprised if temperatures in the bags got to the point that the ABS could soften and lose clutch.

 

The other quality issues you mentioned are things I've rarely seen.  I've been lucky with sets from the mid-90s, they don't seem to have discoloured at all. I don't see much in terms of colour variations, except in white bricks.  These always seem to have a red, blue or yellow colour cast to them (I believe due to the colour used previously in the mould), but it's only noticeable if you have lots of white bricks from different sources sitting next to each other.  One jarring example was the Lego Ideas Yellow Submarine.  On the tail fin, the 1x1 brick with clip for the rudder was a very solid white, while the other yellow bricks around it seemed a little darker, almost as though they were very slightly translucent.

In the last 10-12 years I think I have only seen two mismoulded parts, one misprinted part, and one mis-printed sticker sheet.  Lego's customer service was at least quick to replace them.  I've rarely seen cracked parts, never in the cheese slopes (I must have just been lucky), and broken bricks have usually been my own fault (once due to sitting on a model I stuffed in my pocket, once due to stuffing a 1x2 tile in the new-style 1x1 vertical clip).  Old, large plates could crack a little but these days I think the plastic is a little different and would go a bit like chewing gum, stretching instead of cracking and giving a hard fracture.

 

4 hours ago, deraven said:

The worse quality out of Lego I've seen in recent years seems to be with the CMF lines.  Seems like those often "feel" cheaper and lighter than they should be (certainly for the high individual cost), and that's where I will see some torso cracking or hands that don't seem to be fully seated into arms, etc..

Oh yes.  What they call "the China plastic".  No idea where it's really from, but the CMF line has often felt different to "proper" Lego figures, the plastic is a bit translucent (or used to be).  

[SpiderSpaceman]

What’s the climate where you live, and how good is your air control where you keep your collection?

Could that be a factor?

i have some unfortunate things happen with some of my parts that don’t happen to everyone’s. On some of my minifigures for instance - when they reach a certain age (minifigures series 1-5, ninjago spinners figures (Chinese batch) but also the Indiana Jones figures last I really looked over them) the gold print used breaks down and vanishes in my climate. 

I found a replacement torso for Nightclub Willie Scott from someone on brickset, when mine was bumming me out from losing all the gold pattern - popped it open looking all good as the day it was printed, 5 days later in my room it was just as bad as the one I’d replaced - so the  ink degrading just in the passage of time is happening everywhere - but the vanishing is only when that is introduced to a particular environment.

i guess that’s from a movie scene that takes place in China, but that shoooouuldnt make it the same as the minifigures from Chinese factories... 

some people will have those figures still looking pristine. Those people should not bring them on a trip to Southern Louisiana. 

And then some parts being assembled and hitting thermal expansion and contraction promotes  some bad cracking up from the points of clutch. The cheeses like someone mentioned, and certain other interfaces, especially with different plastics connected to each other. Had a bunch of the tiny LEGO dimensions models going bad at the clips, and I don’t think I had them all leaning into each other - though that is also a thing - if you have models in a pile, you can have something fairly light bumping against a bar and it will destroy the clips that bar is connected to.

 

Anyway, I mean i can’t give you studies on the particular chemicals in Lego products and particular climate factors - but don’t think your bricks are just slimy because you’re a singularly slimy fellow 

 

In general materials science environmental factors are big. For instance, you can be further inland from the ocean than you’d think with that salt in the air still contributing significantly to steel structures rusting. 

And like I mention with ac, particularly intense cycles of temperature and humidity can be pretty detrimental, and not all homes had the ac planned out by people who should be licensed engineers. 

Edited September 4, 2018 by SpiderSpaceman

[NathanR]

@SpiderSpaceman I'm in the south of France due to my work, I don't have any air conditioning.  My apartment stays cosy in the winter but is unbearably hot during the summer (and as I mentioned, it did hit highs of around 38 degrees C last month). It's not been humid enough to damage any of the prints on my pieces, and the manufacturer claims the plastic bags I use act as "a barrier to moisture", so not fully waterproof but should be reasonably ok.

20 hours ago, SpiderSpaceman said:

And then some parts being assembled and hitting thermal expansion and contraction promotes  some bad cracking up from the points of clutch.

I always store models disassembled, I even started keeping minifigures in separate pieces once I read that keeping them assembled could cause the torsos to crack.

The Saturn V really has me bothered, I reckon I only have 2-3 months to buy a replacement, but I really don't see any way to stop it going the same way.  The plastic just feels like it's gone a little soft.