LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issues

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kbsig106
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LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issues

Post by kbsig106 » Wed Sep 25, 2013 12:59 pm

LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - we've had the set since Christmas and the bricks are showing signs of cracking, about 21 in all.


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What is going on here? Bad batch? Bad/Poor quality PE pellets? My wife, the pastics engineer in the house, thinks it has something to do with the latter. I have some of the new light grey in the Alien Conquest series that are showing the same signs of cracking. Sombody get Lego on the hotline... :mad:

I have 30+ year old Classic Space sets that are showing no signs of this type of wear except maybe in the translucent yellow bricks. Sad....

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by dr_spock » Wed Sep 25, 2013 2:46 pm

You could contact Lego customer service and see if they can send you some replacement bricks.

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by kbsig106 » Wed Sep 25, 2013 2:59 pm

dr_spock wrote:You could contact Lego customer service and see if they can send you some replacement bricks.

I did, just pointing it out to the forum - I was just surprised when my daughter brought the RV to me.


Thanks!

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by Luciant » Wed Sep 25, 2013 8:33 pm

Yea, I've noticed this happening more and more often myself too. Especially with cheese slopes.
I have mixed feelings about new releases: I can't wait to see and get the new sets... but I can't figure out where I'm gonna put them or store them.

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by darbee » Wed Sep 25, 2013 8:58 pm

I've had this happen as well with the fire hose nozzle piece that cracked where it met the string, it was like this when I opened the package. Contacted Lego customer service and they sent a new one right away. Unfortunately, the one they sent also got cracked somehow while in transit.

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by legohunter » Wed Sep 25, 2013 10:33 pm

What have you done to your camper? Stress Test?

The plastic that TLG using is supposed to be durable for lots of years. Obviously, TLG should be paying more attention to the use of material instead of foucing on cut-back to their cost.

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by krayzie » Thu Sep 26, 2013 6:28 am

Yeah, the new legos don't seem to hold up very well. I had a ton of cracked lego tiles, slopes, plates. I even had a few 1x1's with cracks...

I also noticed that the minifig accessory packs from lego seem to have QC issues as well. The Halloween set I bought has a very loose witch dress, hat and ghost "leg".

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by kbsig106 » Thu Sep 26, 2013 7:26 am

My son also brought me some bricks from his Alien Conquest sets after he saw me looking at the camper.

Same issue with the "new light grey" bricks, the 1x1 slopes are cracked the base and some of modified bricks as well.

But I go an pull my 30+ year old light grey box to compare. Texture is different, not as soft either.

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by stevebuscemi » Thu Sep 26, 2013 9:23 pm

Sounds like the bottom line is becoming the most important thing to TLG. Not so cool.

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by Neo » Fri Sep 27, 2013 2:00 am

So far I haven't had any tiles or bricks crack on me yet - but I have only built one Lego Friends set so far.. However, I have had several Lego Technic grey bushings recently break in half but then again I'm pretty hard on my Lego Technic parts. My guess is that some of the plastic pellets used to create your Lego Friends set might have been bad.

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by dr_spock » Fri Sep 27, 2013 8:26 am

I have some old 1x1 white bricks that have cracked. I don't know which set they came from. I turn them around so the crack is not showing if I have to use them in a MOC. My cracks look like stress fractures from sitting on a stud. Bad plastic feed stock or molding process?

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by brickarmor » Fri Sep 27, 2013 9:41 am

WOW that's bad. Sure, Lego will send you replacements, but they need to get their QC in gear. They seem to be taking their reputation for granted now that accolades are mindlessly repeated.

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by kbsig106 » Sun Sep 29, 2013 7:27 am

brickarmor wrote:WOW that's bad. Sure, Lego will send you replacements, but they need to get their QC in gear. They seem to be taking their reputation for granted now that accolades are mindlessly repeated.


Could the automated production follor have anything to do with it? Nothing beats the trusty set of human eyes and hands to feel...

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by Brick & Blue » Sun Sep 29, 2013 1:48 pm

They crack real quick now-a-days, but that's an amazing number, and notice it's mainly 1x1 right? I've noticed that too.

Call / email LEGO and if you can send the pictures and tell them of the issue so they can look into it and they will gladly send you new ones.

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by kbsig106 » Tue Oct 01, 2013 4:04 am

Received from LEGO this morning:

"Good news!
Your LEGO® pieces are on their way and will be there in the next 7-10 working days. If your parts haven’t arrived in this time, check LEGO.com/service for updates."

So I'm happy they're sending out the replacement bricks but I will report back on what my wife finds out. She has a degree in Material Science Engineering: Polymers and is going to run some chemical analysis on old light grey vs. the new bluish light grey as well as some stress tests. She specializes in of all things, plastic and is looking for a job. :-)

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by ncbarrett » Tue Oct 01, 2013 5:30 am

interesting thing happened this weekend.
due to an accident we needed to wash some lego bricks and minifigs.
So we put them in a bucket of water as I was quite surprised to see most of them floated. The floating pieces were all from Friends and other new sets, including CMF.
However all the older pieces sunk (as they should).
I remember in old days the way to determine real vs. fake legos was put them in water and the floating pieces were not real LEGO.
It is a sad day when all the new pieces are junk.
I have definitely curbed my buying of new sets due to this issue.
I have inoperable cancer and am unable to work. Any gifts would be appreciated. Thank you!

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by dr_spock » Tue Oct 01, 2013 6:37 pm

kbsig106 wrote:Received from LEGO this morning:

"Good news!
Your LEGO® pieces are on their way and will be there in the next 7-10 working days. If your parts haven’t arrived in this time, check LEGO.com/service for updates."

So I'm happy they're sending out the replacement bricks but I will report back on what my wife finds out. She has a degree in Material Science Engineering: Polymers and is going to run some chemical analysis on old light grey vs. the new bluish light grey as well as some stress tests. She specializes in of all things, plastic and is looking for a job. :-)
That would be great if your wife can do an analysis. Curious to see the results.

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by kbsig106 » Wed Oct 09, 2013 9:41 am

The replacement bricks from LEGO arrived today, I'm going to let my daughter swap them out on her camper tonight. Quick response LEGO - A+!


Also, my wife is going to do a viscosity test this weekend between a pre 1987 brick and a current brick from Alien Conquest. We first had to get two burners, now both bricks will be melted and log the viscosity results. It's only one test, but a start. The second test she wants to do is a compression test, but we'll need to aquire some additional supplies.

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by Brick & Blue » Wed Oct 09, 2013 10:36 am

I would do the test on a 1x1 from before the change over in 2003 and to one now.

I'm sure it's different. My grandfather worked at Monsanto (Yes the evil company) and they were trying to get their plastic approved for the bricks because we live near Enfield CT USA where LEGO used to be. The company had some of the best people working for them, they had the guy who made fiberglass insulation and a whole team trying to win LEGO's approval. They didn't get the contract, not good enough.

Now-a-days LEGO seems to use whatever crap is on the floor and can't even get the colors to match (Dark Red, red, purple, yellow I have had issues with) and it's rather sad.

The great thing is that if their is an issue they send you replacements right away.

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Re: LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper - brick quality issue

Post by stevebuscemi » Wed Oct 09, 2013 1:59 pm

kbsig106 wrote:The replacement bricks from LEGO arrived today, I'm going to let my daughter swap them out on her camper tonight. Quick response LEGO - A+!


Also, my wife is going to do a viscosity test this weekend between a pre 1987 brick and a current brick from Alien Conquest. We first had to get two burners, now both bricks will be melted and log the viscosity results. It's only one test, but a start. The second test she wants to do is a compression test, but we'll need to aquire some additional supplies.
Please share your findings....thank you. I'm very curious!

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