tilko

Poor bricks quality in set 70402

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I keep all my older parts (several hundred thousand, 1990s and before) segregated from the newer LEGO... and I have to say that NONE of my older LEGO has ever had this type of damage found here. Yes the "Y" markings are found even in older LEGO... but color issues and damaged parts are something that is generally unknown to unused older LEGO elements. Of the 1/4 million parts that I have prior to the new millenium... only about 5 have any noticeable issues... 3 of which were insufficient plastic in the mold to form a complete piece.

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Well, I suspect those tiny dinks and dents in the edges of some of the bricks are just the result of the bricks being somewhere in the middle or at the bottom of bins full of thousands upon thousands of bricks in the factory; if there's a huge mass resting on one tiny spot on the edge, it seems to me, the pressure is going to make a little dent in the edge. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems like something I'd just expect.

That said, as I noted earlier most of these "issues" seem really trivial to me, excepting the one brick with the marred corner that prevents it from sitting correctly atop the brick under it. Moreover, I'm not sure what could be done to prevent these sorts of issues - it seems like any possible solution would require inspecting the bricks far more closely and setting a tougher standard for what passes and what doesn't, but that would surely raise costs, and people already complain about LEGO prices as it is. I don't think many of us would be too happy to have to pay two or three or four times as much as we do now for a set of a given size.

It seems to me the best solution, then, might be for the original poster (and anyone else with what I'd consider much stricter-than-usual standards for what they consider "good," "acceptable," "poor," etc.) to just contact TLG's customer service, as suggested, and request replacements. If one does this a great deal, I'm sure TLG will eventually want to see these "defective" bricks one's getting, and when they see how little marked the bricks actually are they might no longer be willing to supply free replacements to that particular consumer; OTOH, if enough people do this, it may get them to reevaluate what they consider "good," "acceptable," "poor," etc. and impose the tougher requirements we'd be happy to see, if they're able to do it without raising prices above what the market will bear. But who knows?

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I completely agree Gary. I have to buy old (MISB) sets containing lots of yellow to get what I want (and very much expect!). Been in touch with CS so many times I'm sure they're somewhat tired of me .. but they'll allways send replacements .. that sucks equally. I don't even request replacement parts anymore and I'm about to give up on just letting them know how much the current quality sucks

I know the quality went down the drain with Flextronics deal and the new non coloured pellets, but surely TLG you must know by now it was a BAD move

Bad TLG, bad :thumbdown:

And yellow is my favourite colour :angry:

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I completely agree Gary. I have to buy old (MISB) sets containing lots of yellow to get what I want (and very much expect!). Been in touch with CS so many times I'm sure they're somewhat tired of me .. but they'll allways send replacements .. that sucks equally. I don't even request replacement parts anymore and I'm about to give up on just letting them know how much the current quality sucks

I know the quality went down the drain with Flextronics deal and the new non coloured pellets, but surely TLG you must know by now it was a BAD move

Bad TLG, bad :thumbdown:

And yellow is my favourite colour :angry:

Not sure what the Flextronics deal has to do with modern sets since the LEGO Group has "insourced" the majority of their production these days. I only learned the LEGO Group had partnered with Flextronics to produce parts from a press release several years back about their decision to buy the production facilities from Flextronics and end that partnership.

Edited by Aanchir

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I keep all my older parts (several hundred thousand, 1990s and before) segregated from the newer LEGO... and I have to say that NONE of my older LEGO has ever had this type of damage found here. Yes the "Y" markings are found even in older LEGO... but color issues and damaged parts are something that is generally unknown to unused older LEGO elements. Of the 1/4 million parts that I have prior to the new millenium... only about 5 have any noticeable issues... 3 of which were insufficient plastic in the mold to form a complete piece.

If you spend 10 sec investigating each brick, you need 28 days of 24 hour work to go through a quarter of a million bricks. To come up with a number like 5 bricks having issues is in my opinion ridiculous.

In the past LEGO produced a lot of bricks that had severe design failures, were prone to breaking etc. Where are your old discolored bricks in your calculation ?

In my opinion, you as many others live in a fantasy world where everything in the old days were better. The products LEGO sell today are by far of better quality than it was ever before. Is it faultless ? Surely not. But stating everything was better in the past is in my opinion completely wrong.

Erland

Part Design

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If you spend 10 sec investigating each brick, you need 28 days of 24 hour work to go through a quarter of a million bricks. To come up with a number like 5 bricks having issues is in my opinion ridiculous.

In the past LEGO produced a lot of bricks that had severe design failures, were prone to breaking etc. Where are your old discolored bricks in your calculation ?

In my opinion, you as many others live in a fantasy world where everything in the old days were better. The products LEGO sell today are by far of better quality than it was ever before. Is it faultless ? Surely not. But stating everything was better in the past is in my opinion completely wrong.

Erland

Part Design

Hehehe.... OK Erland, you think I'm dreaming... in a fantasy world... guess again... :wink:

http://www.brickwiki...wiki/Gary_Istok

I've been a LEGO collector for nearly 54 years... and have written a 2800 page Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide (1949-1990s)... with another massive collectors guide for the years 1990s-Present in the works...

I don't have time right now to give other credentials right now... but I am in monthly contact with the LEGO Archive/Collections. Kirsten Stadelhofer, the manager, is my contact there...and we discuss rare and current LEGO items monthly.

Whether it's the Cellulose Acetate, Polystyrene, ABS, or even Bakelite..... I do know a lot about LEGO...

Whether it's the first 24 colors that LEGO came in in Cellulose Acetate from 1949-56....

8133020093_4d707d0159_b_d.jpg

The 4 major LEGO font styles....

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(with the new font found in nearly a dozen variations)

The Bakelinte LEGO Automatic Binding Bricks made by Geas Konstharts of Gislaved Sweden from 1950-53.... of which TLG has no record of these...

9588941160_aa2b648ec1_b_d.jpg

The different types of trans-clear Cellulose Acetate and Polycarbonate plastic used over the last 50 years...

9112853595_cf39ee2d2a_b_d.jpg

Whether it's the test bricks of Bayer Corporation...

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The test bricks of Bädische Analin und Soda Fabrik (BASF)....

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Or bricks in colors people have never even seen before...

8549334712_3877f2094f_b_d.jpg

Or different 2x4 brick molds... here's only 17... but i'm up to 42 already....

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So with 54 years of collecting and 3/4 million bricks and 7 years of research.... I do know quite a bit about LEGO...

So no... I am not in a fantasy world when I say that quality has suffered. LEGO colorization has suffered since Bayer stopped pre-mixing the color pellets for TLG (anyone who has the original Harry Potter Knight Bus will attest to that)..

And then there's the minifigs made in China.... :hmpf_bad:

But I do know that LEGO production quality has suffered somewhat... maybe not the molding... but at least the brick handling processes... especially after seeing some of these damaged bricks.

From 1973-2003 total quality has remained constant. Before 1973 USA Samsonite LEGO quality was awful... almost factory seconds. And in continental Europe quality got better in 1958 with the new tube bottom bricks... it got better in 1962-63 with Cellulose Acetate replacing ABS plastic (although in the USA some Cellulose Acetate was found until 1970). Also in 1973 when TLG removed the cadmium from red and yellow bricks... quality remained the same... but the red and yellow colors got brighter.

But I never remember hearing as many complaints about LEGO back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as I do today. So somethings need fixing... I may not be able to identify the problem... but there is a problem.

Gary Istok

Edited by LEGO Historian

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Not sure what the Flextronics deal has to do with modern sets since the LEGO Group has "insourced" the majority of their production these days. I only learned the LEGO Group had partnered with Flextronics to produce parts from a press release several years back about their decision to buy the production facilities from Flextronics and end that partnership.

Quality suffered when production was outsourced to Flextronics, hence the mention. Then came the problem with the pellets that is still not solved. The solution seem pretty obvious as this experiement has been going on for years now and TLG cannot match the colour quality of old times

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Just to let you know, Flextronic is not producing bricks for LEGO anymore.

Colour quality may not only be related to using non-colored pellets. Replacing old with new and more enviromental friendly substances in ABS may also give different colours. ABS is not just ABS.

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I don't have anywhere near the number of vintage bricks as Gary, but the ones I do have certainly seem to be quite a bit stronger than today's bricks. I've bought most of my vintage bricks at rummage sales, and while I find plenty of bricks with chewed edges (some looking like they were used as chew toys!), I haven't seen any with cracks just from being connected to another brick. I'm sure there were some parts in the past that were prone to just that, but there are some parts today that seem to be equally bad. Just take a look at two threads here:

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=78740&st=0

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=53790&st=0

Cheese slopes are an obvious example, I've had so many of those crack it isn't funny. Even though LEGO always gives you a spare, I have almost no spares left because I have to swap them out so often. At some point I may need to buy more just to keep my sets intact.

However, Cheese slopes aren't the only instance. The last City Camper was notorius for cracked parts, I have 1x white bricks that cracked from that set, numerous different types of parts on that model cracked. I can't say I've ever seen that in vintage LEGO I've bought. Sand green parts seem to be another bad color, I've seen lots of cracked Sand Green parts mentioned and I've seen a few myself even though I don't have much of that color.

So there are definitely quality issues, and I've heard a lot of speculation as to why (too hot, too cold, too humid, too dry, butter??, chemical exposure...) but as of yet I've never seen a definitive answer that applies to all the cases. I live in Wisconsin, which isn't all that different from Denmark in climate. They're a bit further North and closer to the Ocean so if anything the climate here is a bit more mild. We air condition our house throughout the summer, and heat throughout the winter. In summer the A/C keeps the humidity at a reasonable level, in winter the air gets dry from the constant heating. The temperature is constant in the 65-75 degrees Fahrenheit range, so no extremes. Yet I've had bricks crack just from being connected to another brick. It's disturbing, and I continue to hope that all of the bricks that will eventually crack have already cracked, but it's a constant worry that the tens of thousands of dollars I've accumulated in LEGO won't be able to be passed on to my grandkids someday because they'll all be in the trash.

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There's always been some quality issues but I think part of it is that today's models tend to use more smaller bricks than those a few decades ago. Large bricks simply don't break as easily and the worst offenders - like cheese slopes - didn't even exist back then. I recently dug up my 20-25 year old Lego collection and found that quite a few bricks are cracked or otherwise damaged... something I never really noticed as a kid. Very few minifigs in particular seem to have survived my childhood... cracked arms, torsos, legs...

If people say they didn't have these issues 20 years ago, they may - like me - simply not have noticed or cared. Bricks bought from rummage sales and the like may just be what's left after they threw the damaged ones away. And so on.

Most bricks are still perfectly usable when cracked but the cheese slopes are a bit annoying, I hope they can improve those. Or put boxes with a few hundred spares on the shelves :p

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Tilko - please send me an e-mail at KimT@LEGO.com

I would like to talk to you about this set and the quality issues in it.

Thanks!

This is still valid, so if anyone knows Tilko - please ping him and ask him to get back to me - thanks.

No worries Lego Otaku - my spamfilter got an upgrade when I posted the open story brief call for submissions last year :laugh:

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Recently I bought more than 4000 bricks on Bricklink all from new Castle line, all bricks are perfect. So my problem with 70402 was perhaps I pick up the first box in line, witch was moved by many people before !

PS: Kim I cant send you more pictures from this bricks, because I used them in my new Castle project on places where cant be seen and are difficult to find again !

Edited by tilko

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I suspect that both Erland and LH are correct regarding historical and current Lego "Quality or QC" issues. Things do change over time.both good and bad. However we are incredibly fortunate that TLG generally manages to keep any quality changes within a very very narrow band. Let's be honest for most of our complaints the term "forensic" would legitimately need to be used to describe how they were discovered.

- color changes. Modern colors not being "as good". I think we all can agree that this one is more or less true. As LH points out when they were using Bayer precolored plastic pellets the colors seemed brighter and had a greater consistency from batch to batch. Newer production mechanisms such as the color injection systems that allow bulk neutral colored pellets to be colored as needed contribute largely to this. It is probably also severely impacted by changes in plastic dyes to make them more environmentally friendly and safer. The new mechanisms mean that it is easier and cheaper to have more parts in more colors. More colors in a given set, and overall for the plastics manufacture to be more environmentally friendly. A reasonable production trade off.

- part "quality" or rather plastic and molding quality. Honestly I think modern bricks are far more durable than old ones. They are as strong or stronger using less plastic. The newer ones I have seem far more wear and play resistant than old. They do not lose their sheen as easily. They don't seem to discolor as readily. Modern part breakage (outside of certain "cracking" issues on high stress 1xX cheese slopes) seems very rare, and requires much more force to achieve.

- non production damage. Bricks that sustained damage post production during the process of storage, packaging and shipping. I tend to suspect that there are increasing numbers of these sorts of things, while a decreasing % given the shear volumes of bricks shipped. Overall product handling has gotten more mechanical and automated at all stages. We all know the reasons and benefits to this. The downside is less of the process is being done by hand, and automated processes increase the risk of physical damage. Packaging methods have also changed over the years. The old school boxes with trays probably had less brick to brick contact than modern bags. Once again I hope we all understand that a faster more automated handling and packaging process is what allows us to see such an escalating array of variety in sets each year? Once again trade offs that ultimately benefit us.

The key measure of quality will come from not just forensically examining the parts for flaws, real or perceived, but the companies response to individual problems.

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Recently I bought more than 4000 bricks on Bricklink all from new Castle line, all bricks are perfect. So my problem with 70402 was perhaps I pick up the first box in line, witch was moved by many people before !

It's possible the sellers weeded out damaged parts from their inventory. Then again, as you hinted, maybe someone took the first box of the shelf and treated it like a maraca.

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Recently I bought more than 4000 bricks on Bricklink all from new Castle line, all bricks are perfect. So my problem with 70402 was perhaps I pick up the first box in line, witch was moved by many people before !

PS: Kim I cant send you more pictures from this bricks, because I used them in my new Castle project on places where cant be seen and are difficult to find again !

That's a shame.

I would have hoped you could send the entire set to me for further inspection.

Would you by any chance still have the box the set came in?

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Yes I have the box. It is in very good condition, because I always check the box, I collect them also !

p1010133.jpg

p1010137.jpg

Edited by tilko

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Cheese slopes crack just by looking at them. At least they do for me. Sucks when you build a mini scale Hogwarts and the sand green cheese slopes only come in one or two sets.

But I've noticed as lot of my 1x4 arches and 1x6 arches are cracked on the side. Keep in mind ALL of my pieces I build with are from 2011-now, so I wouldn't call any of them old and they all came from New sets. That is the frustrating thing.

Can you contact lego and request replacements for pieces that have broke while building? Even years after you bought the set?

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Cheese slopes crack just by looking at them. At least they do for me. Sucks when you build a mini scale Hogwarts and the sand green cheese slopes only come in one or two sets.

But I've noticed as lot of my 1x4 arches and 1x6 arches are cracked on the side. Keep in mind ALL of my pieces I build with are from 2011-now, so I wouldn't call any of them old and they all came from New sets. That is the frustrating thing.

I have the same issue with new sets that my son's have...well me too. Cheese slopes, 1x1 bricks crack a lot. Also, the nozzles on the fire hoses on the new fire trucks have come off. In all my years with Lego and having just about every fire set released I've never had hose breaks.

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Cheese slopes crack just by looking at them. At least they do for me. Sucks when you build a mini scale Hogwarts and the sand green cheese slopes only come in one or two sets.

They crack from the stress of being connected. I've never seen them crack while building, but when I check a few days later there's often a few that cracked.

Actually, most bricks crack sooner or later. It's just that the cheese slopes are so small it's actually a problem for those, for most bricks you'll never even notice unless you look carefully.

Hopefully someone can come up with an adjustment to its design that works better because right now it simply can't handle what it's supposed to.

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So no... I am not in a fantasy world when I say that quality has suffered. LEGO colorization has suffered since Bayer stopped pre-mixing the color pellets for TLG (anyone who has the original Harry Potter Knight Bus will attest to that)..

Phew. Glad I'm not the only person who had this problem. I got one in a lot of sets I bought and noticed all of the purple was either of 2 shades. I thought I had received a mish-mash of a couple sets made into 1 bus. Makes it look really bad, though, since the shades are so obviously different.

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They crack from the stress of being connected. I've never seen them crack while building, but when I check a few days later there's often a few that cracked.

Actually, most bricks crack sooner or later. It's just that the cheese slopes are so small it's actually a problem for those, for most bricks you'll never even notice unless you look carefully.

Hopefully someone can come up with an adjustment to its design that works better because right now it simply can't handle what it's supposed to.

The design of Cheese slope (1x1x2/3 slope) has actually been altered lately, but I can't promise that every piece in the future includes the improvement. But eventually they will. You should not be able to see the change made.

Erland

Part Design.

Edited by Front

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Yes I have the box. It is in very good condition, because I always check the box, I collect them also !

p1010133.jpg

p1010137.jpg

Could you please send me the box and any of the elements that you might be able to find?

Shoot me an email at KimT[at]LEGO.com for further planning.

Thanks

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You'd think they crack by being connected to one another, yet, they seem to crack the instant they get placed together, which would mean it is already broken by the time it is clutched for the first time OR that small force placed on the piece causes it to crack that quickly. I can understand that some pieces will crack eventually just because of age, but I've had multiple sets from the early 90s built since they came out and still aren't showing any signs of wear. Yet somehow seemingly ALL of my new pieces are cracked and very few of my old? I know everyone keeps saying they are of better quality now, but I'm not seeing it. Color discrepancies are one thing, they don't bother me as much as bricks cracking all of the time.It boils down to I can deal with a subtle color difference, I can't use a broken piece.

That is good to hear that the cheese slope issue might be fixed for the future. I still have lots of palisade bricks, arches, 1x1 headlight bricks, and 1x1 plates that seem to crack very quickly/easily. I keep referring to the Hogwarts build I built, so all of these pieces are reddish brown and/or tan (brick yellow I believe). But I don't know how the color would change the integrity of the plastic of the brick.

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