I need a bus for my City!

[Heppeng]

So I have a dilemma!

I do not have much in the way of modern bricks, (most of my spares consist of lego from the '70's and early 80's when I was a kid), so I will need to buy bricks or a complete bus.

The current lego one comes as part of a set so is a very expensive option, and also has train doors which look poor on a modern bus.

Previous lego versions also come as part of a set and command high prices second hand.

So for inspiration I did a google image search for lego bus, which inevitably also brought up clone brands.

And here is the main dilemma. There are a good variety clone brand buses, that are smartly designed, available as a single item and of course cheap.

I thought that perhaps I could even things up a bit by downloading the instructions and then building it out of lego - almost doing to the clones what they do to lego!

I would really like something like this:

Trouble is that bricklinking this would probably be rather expensive once postage is added, and I would loose its best feature - the rather cool plug style opening doors, since lego don't make a door that can do this, and even if I tried to be inventive with the bits lego do make it is unlikely the result would be anywhere near as good.

And lets face it, this is an original design which had it been made from lego would probably have had every lego fan singing its praises...

So I have a choice of a compromised expensive bus made from lego, or buy this....

[LAKAbricks]

I can easily understand your wish to have a bus like this, Heppeng. The doors are cool, I wish LEGO would make doors like this. But it is possible to make doors working the same way, though they might not be quite as elegant as these. Wooootles, amongst others, has made a good solution, I think. - As I never would buy a clone brand, I would go for the solution Wooootles provides. I am considering changing the doors on my trams and bus to this technique (by time).

And boy, it's a poor design, the gas station has. The exact same colours as Octan, though reversed couldn't they be just a tad more original with that, now they manage to make a good looking bus with smart doors?

[ER0L]

I don't see a point here. When searching for lego bus Google shows a lot of nice Lego buses - there are so many great inspirations that you don't even get to the clone brands. Plus there is the nice Eurobricks Town Vehicle MOC Index with a special department for buses, see http://www.eurobrick...60#entry1053682

There's absolutely no need to even think of any third party stuff.

[Heppeng]

Thanks for that ER0l, I had not thought about the MOC index, there is food for thought there.

There are a lot of lego buses on google search, but am particularly interested in a short wheelbase 6 wide double decker suitable for city use.

Once you have filtered out all the Knight buses, single deckers, VW micro buses, luxury coaches, 8 wide etc. there is not a lot left.

Then of course there is the hassle/cost of bricklinking.

For comparison, the bus above costs just less than £15, including free shipping, which means that it even falls under the £15 threshold above which import duty becomes due - so no hidden surprises there either.

[Karimix]

Maybe you can build an old school bus with your bricks. http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=89691&hl=

[HandofBobb]

I may be in a minority here, but I say hey, if that's the bus you really want, go for it!

[Heppeng]

Well I hate to say it.... but I caved in and ordered it. If its not up to scratch I have not lost much. I will also look at motorising it, I won't be quite so worried over hacking a clone brand about compared to lego if required!

[jonwil]

One option is to try and copy the bus from set 7641 City Corner. Its a great design and doesn't require a lot of expensive-to-get parts.

[TheBear]

No, don't do it!.... too late :)

[Heppeng]

One option is to try and copy the bus from set 7641 City Corner. Its a great design and doesn't require a lot of expensive-to-get parts.

I was tempted to! But I must also confess a little curiosity about this set by Sluban, if for no other reason just to see how well it stacks up against lego. I do have some Enlighten train stuff, which whilst not as good quality as lego, does not fall apart in use like some would have you believe. Top place for falling apart in my train fleet is the Emerald Night...

[meyerc13]

You might want to take a look at this article: http://www.1000steine.com/brickset/miscellaneous/clonebrands_v1.3.pdf

Sluban is toward the bottom of the pack in quality. Enlighten scored much higher, but isn't perfect. The clone band to beat seems to be Star Diamond.

[lifeinplastic]

Perhaps a bus will join some of the Lego City 'Great Vehicles' in future? Not as part of a larger set but on its own, perhaps with a driver and 2 or passengers (preferably with new torsos and either elderly or children).

[ER0L]

To be honest, I had a feeling that this will happen from the beginning ... If you're happy with that kind of stuff I've got no problem with that. It's just completely uninteresting here.

[Heppeng]

Well contrary to the above post it appears that it is in fact very interesting, as I have received PM's asking about it. I have now built the bus, so I will do my best at an unbiased review.

It has turned out much better than expected. My expectations were based on views and opinions expressed on this thread as well as other internet sources. This is not the first time this has happened. Now of course one would expect a bit of pro lego bias, but it does seem that a lot of clone brands are being unfairly slated. Now of course as said earlier I would have preferred this bus to be lego, but I will try and put any prejudices aside and be fair. So this is what we have:

Now do bear in mind I have never reviewed anything before, so here goes!

First of all the price. A grand total of £14.97, which includes P&P (No customs charge as total is less than £15). This means that it is vastly cheaper than buying a new lego bus, as lego buses are only available as part of a set. It is also substantially cheaper than bricklinking a bus, which would probably be getting somewhere near £10 in postage alone unless I got lucky!

The next item lego does badly on is colour consistency. Many of my recent lego purchases have had particularly noticeable variation in colour. Now as this bus is mostly white, to be fair there is not so much opportunity for mismatched colours. However, the coloured parts do not show any variation, even under harsh flash photography. So another area where it appears to be superior to lego. However it is going to be a long time before I will know whether or not the white yellows as much as lego does, but it certainly is a good bright white to begin with. The only disappointment colour wise is the red, which is not as deep as the lego and seems a bit wishy washy. Thankfully the red is mostly on the Gas Station rather than the bus.

Stickers - I was kind of hoping that the bricks would be printed like Enlighten does, but alas not. Still at least on the bus there are no STAMPS, and the stickers seem to be of good quality. The background colours are not a perfect match for the bricks, but neither are they very far out. So I guess about even with lego on that one.

So what about detail? Again it stacks up well. There is a neat little staircase to the upper deck, which includes a safety rail at the top to stop drunk minifigs falling down it on a saturday night. The driver is well equipped with gear lever and dashboard. The gear lever is however a very loose fit and flops about. It might also have been nice to have a little speedometer decal to stick to the dashboard, but it is just left blank. there is a proper raised floor at the back, under which in real life would be the engine of course. There are also grille bricks on the back to represent the required engine ventilation at the back. There are turn signals front and rear, together with headlights/tail lights and also back up lights. There are high level amber lights on the side of the bus too. I guess they are to represent some kind of warning lights - I will have to look at some pictures of real buses to see what they may be for. And then of course there are the doors! They really are a very good representation of the swing plug type of door and work in a very prototypical manner. Not only that but they sit nice and flush when closed. I also cannot help but think that these doors could be extremely versatile. Not only do they have the pins on the back to which the arms are attached, but a couple of studs on the front, in this case covered up by a 1x2 tile.

So what about quality? Well whilst better than expected, it is still behind lego. Having read some reviews which imply Sluban needs a mallet to construct it, I found the clutch power on all bricks to be very similar to lego - with one exception. The 1x1 snot bricks used to attach the front bumper/grill/lights assembly were rather poor, meaning that they could fall off with only a fairly gentle knock. They might have got away with it, but it is all to easy to do when opening or closing the front door.

The amount of moulding flash is greater than on lego, but it is not too bad. There is also a bigger gap between assembled bricks – possibly to allow a more coarse manufacturing tolerance? It does not help much that the doors are suspended on a stack of 1x1 bricks. Opening/closing the doors can cause them to twist. But the single worst problem is the wheels, which are kind of important. Oh dear. The fit of the tyres on to the rims is far too tight, requiring excessive force to push the rims in. This is unfortunate as the rims are not that strong, I managed to crush one when trying to assemble it. It also means that a child will struggle trying to put this together. Once together they are not particularly round, so the bus tends to waddle like a lame duck, which somewhat detracts from it to say the least.

So does it hold its own against lego? I say it does, as long as you don’t want to move it....

[SearchFunction]

The reason its so cheap, is because its made in China. When I buy stuff in general, I dont mind paying a higher price for locally produced goods, because I know the money goes back into the local community, and so it helps support my way of living.

Now I don´t know about Sluban, but there are plenty of stories about companies operating in China, that has no problems using dangerous chemicals banned decades ago and dosnt give a damn about labour rights or decent wages and no local company I know of can compete with that and neither should they.

Dont get me wrong, you wanted that bus bad enough to buy it, so you satisfied your curiosity. I do that too sometimes. We must to remain sane .

[ER0L]

Well contrary to the above post it appears that it is in fact very interesting, as I have received PM's asking about it. I have now built the bus, so I will do my best at an unbiased review.

Sounds rather unintentionally funny. Why PMs? Because they are ashamed to show their concern publicly? Come on ... Since you're not allowed to publish them here, you can't prove anything by saying that. After seeing it built I'd say it's still more uninteresting than before ... if that's possible.

[HandofBobb]

Well, I'm not afraid to admit, I was one of the folks who PM'd him about it- shouldn't be a surprise as I was in the minority that said "go ahead". I was curious to see how the actual product compared to the promotional images, but didn't really want to start a fight about it on the boards.

Overall, I think it turned out fairly well- a shame about the wheels, but if you're like me, you've got a pile of working wheels you could put on this thing- unless you're one of those people who gets hives at the idea of letting clone bricks touch your actual LEGO.

On the other hand, since it's not real LEGO, I'd have far less issue with Kragle-ing the front fender on...

[Rick]

As this is turning into a discussion about a particular clone brand, I'll move this to the Community forum.

[jfbat]

The reason its so cheap, is because its made in China.

I just looked at the back of my iPhone and you know what?

I understand what you're saying, but buying Lego also means that money doesn't go back in my local community. And most Lego factories outside of Denmark are there because of lower cost of labour. The rest boils down to quality control (spanning from meeting tolerances to ethical and environmetnal standards) and that indeed is a serious concern when you buy something from a "non-western" brand.

The set looks better than I would imagine, but there are quite a few things that put me off too. A bit too plasticy a look and things like that. I already have a bus (the one from 7641 City Corner) and if I want to add another one to my city, it's going to be a copy of that, Pick-a-Bricked if needed.