Hey everyone,
please read these answers from LEGO's Quality Control department to some of the issues that fans reported the most.
If you have any other quality issues you would like TLG to be aware of, or feedback to the below quality report, please post them here and I'll make sure they reach the right person/people.
QUALITY ISSUES & COMPLAINTS FROM LEGO FANS
1. Instruction booklets come loose in the boxes. They sometimes get damaged during transit. If they were tightly packed in polybags, it could prevent such damages. Stickers also get wrinkled, they could be packed with instructions.
a. Yes we know and we have started to package building instructions, labels and textiles in all sets with more than 1000 prices in a poly bag. The current solution is a quick and dirty one. Version 2 will be ready with-in the first 3 month of 2011.
2. Fans are having hard time choosing colors from instruction booklets. Black and dark grey are especially very hard to distinguish.
a. It is not only fans that have the issue. All of us have. The last 4 years we have tried to optimize this 2 or 3 times by adjusting the printing technique with no luck. For 2012 second half products we will introduce an out-line for black elements – cross fingers that it will help.
3. Injection marks on transparent parts are ugly, fans don't find them suitable for building. Especially window/glass pieces require more attention about molding.
a. There have been made some changes but give us an overview of the elements and we can verify/show if they have been corrected
4. Slopes come with different surface textures. Some are completely smooth while others have grain on them. It would be better if they were standardized.
a. 2 - 3 years ago we ensured that all roof tails’ have the same surface. By an unknown reason back in 2003 the surface of roof tails was changed from rough to smooth. All set manufactured the last 2 years should have uniform roof tails
5. Studs on certain parts are sometimes solid and sometimes hollow. This should be standardized too.
a. Sorry no. A hollow stud are there either because we need that building function (a tool for the minifigure fits on to the hole) or because we for technical reasons cannot make the stud hollow from the back. Look at the studs from the back on a plate. The studs is hollow otherwise we cannot control the dimensions.
6. Small tires are covered with some greasy material. Dust sticks on them and it's hard to clean it.
a. We need the grease in order to remove the part from the mould. Yes it tend to be sticky and we are constantly trying to improve the materials used for tiers as they give other technically challenges.
7. There is a major tone difference in same colors. Dark red, red and yellow are the most troublesome colors about this issue.
a. We are constantly improving our coolers and many improvements have been made the last 3 – 4 years. Please judge the current quality based on set packaged the last 6 months and feedback on that as we want the right quality.
8. Some pieces are translucent, especially red ones. They look too bright next to other parts in same color.
a. We are constantly improving our coolers and many improvements have been made the last 3 – 4 years. Please judge the current quality based on set packaged the last 6 months and feedback on that as we want the right quality.
9. Figure heads or torsos are problematic. Some heads don't fit on some torsos, they stay too loose.
a. We need some examples, and please do so in order for us to correct the moulds.
Nice to know there is a legitimate reason for some of the issues (i.e. the sticky nasty tire goo) and even nicer to know they are trying to fix and have fixed some of the issues.
I'm really happy to see that LEGO is both listening to fans, acting on the requests that come out of this, and communicating the results.
I'm not sure if the colour tone difference has actually been solved, but based on the remarks here I'll cross my fingers that things have indeed improved in the last six months.
It's also great to see LEGO asking for specific followup information on certain complaints. Hopefully those who see this will get a feel for the information LEGO wants--i.e., examples of specific pieces--and thereby be able to give even stronger feedback in the future.
All in all, this is a very positive piece of customer relations, and I would like to offer my thanks to LEGO for taking the time to do this.
I like that Lego is listening and responding, even attempting to fix the issues. However, there are some issues that need to be addressed (IMO).
My friend and I have compared some recent sets with older sets, and we're fairly disappointed in quality. For instance, older swords are firm, the newer ones are easily bent back and forth. Cheaper plastic? Some of the new parts in the sets, such as tridents, are more rubber than plastic, or a cheap chunk of plastic that is very easily bent. We prefer Lego to be rigid, hard, and well made. Not cheap, easily bent/broken, and worthless.
I'm guessing Lego went with cheaper stuff to increase production, decrease cost, and increase profits.
Gakusei wrote:
My friend and I... (are) disappointed in quality.... tridents, are more rubber than plastic, or a cheap chunk of plastic that is very easily bent. We prefer Lego to be rigid, hard, and well made. Not cheap, easily bent/broken, and worthless.
I'm guessing Lego went with cheaper stuff to increase production, decrease cost, and increase profits.
I don't know about that. Some of my older, more rigid swords/spears/armor pieces show stress marks from years of jostling around with other LEGO pieces or have even snapped in 2. I actually prefer the more malleable plastic as it prevents or at least mitigates this issue.
Childhood: The flame that burns its brightest when we are least cognisant of it.
The tridents from the Atlantis series for example, are not made of ABS, the material that regular bricks (and the much older weapons) are made of. The reason this was done is to prevent the weapons from showing stress marks like many of the older weapons do if they are played with.
The issue with the white bricks changing yellowish do to exposure to the sun or touching cardboard. I don't know if this can be or has been fixed, but I'd like it if this were possible to remedy. I only bring this up because I just took an old MOC with white parts on it that were not exposed to the sun and they had turned yellowish due to being in a cardboard box. It seems only the parts touching the cardboard were effected. I know this has been an issue in the past and just wanted to send a reminder.
Chief Smithy of Brick Forge I buy LEGO, I play with LEGO, therefore LEGO are not for children, they are for me!
I think the issue with the white has been around forever. I don't know if white ABS can be UV stabilized. White PVC can be.
I think it's great that the black bricks will be outlined in instruction books. And I'm also glad that this was an issue with a lot of people, not just the old folks. Maybe I'm not going blind after all.
White outlines will definitely help in instructions.
I think I appreciate the larger minifig tools being of a flexible plastic. Many items (such as bows and quivers) have always been more flexible. I suspect the softer plastic also causes a little less stress on minifig hands and other clips when put in which may extend the life of heavily played with minifigs. Also, while modelers may have some desire for these items to be firm plastic, the bulk of LEGO customers are kids who will play with the sets. There may also be a safely reason to make pokey things like swords and tridents softer plastic...
As to color consistency - I realize that's a really hard thing to achieve. Glad LEGO takes it seriously, but there are going to be variations, and I'm sure there are some less used parts that have a warehouse lifetime of months or even possibly years (it may be worth keeping a bin of some rarely used 1x1 part around for years rather than keep making a tiny molding run...
Handar wrote:
I'm not sure if the colour tone difference has actually been solved, but based on the remarks here I'll cross my fingers that things have indeed improved in the last six months.
I just purchased a couple copies of the new 'Angler Attack,' and I was very impressed. There are two dard red 1x4 tiles in each set, and all of them were of excellent quality. There were no problems with translucence or colour disparity. As I said, I'm very impressed, and I'm hopeful that this means the problem has been solved.
