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How often are pieces missing from sets?


cobi

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I've had missing pieces here and there over the years. My most major missing piece was a tower piece for one of the two main towers on the 7094 King's Castle Siege. I had to wait 3 weeks to get the part, but I'm assuming that was only because I got the set about 1 month after it came out. (They didn't have many extras on hand is my guess.) It was awhile ago so I don't remember them sending any extra condolence pieces or anything like that. They did send a nice apology about it so it turned out well. :)
I've had some missing licensed pieces. Majority of the time they asked for the number on the back of instruction book, but I had a time when they didn't. I wonder if they base that off of how many times you have contacted them about missing pieces and what pieces you request? (Minifigure(s), 2X2, etc.)

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I bought a Winter Village Toy Shoppe that was missing 33 pieces. I was able to replace all but 1 thru Lego's customer service. Included in the lot were the 2 large Christmas trees. Cost to me was about $12. That plus the $100 for the set still makes it pretty reasonable.

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Never had any pieces missing, but in the past few years, have had a couple of warped/mangled pieces which Lego replaced for me.  When I THINK there is a piece missing during a build, what most often has happened is I accidentally substitued a dark grey piece for a black one, or vice versa.  That is one thing I think Lego needs to remedy.  The dark grey and black are very similar in most instruction books.  I'm not sure why they don't change it somehow to give the two colors more contrast.  anyhoo...

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You know, with a lot of people here hoarding their sets for years to be sold at a later date what should happen should; say your sealed 10182 Cafe Corner that you have sold for $700-900, be short of a bag or two when your buyer opens it.

 

You have sold it sealed in good faith. Should you give a refund, then you lose $100s, go to Lego yourself, or send the buyer to Lego?

I guess you can always get an x-ray before you ship the set off to be sure all the bags are there!

If you advertise in good faith MISB and it turns out there are some bags missing inside, but it was MISB when you shipped the set and when it arrived to the customer, legally you would have no liability because you could not possibly foresee that those bags would be missing due to the box being sealed. They would need to take the issue up with Lego as they would be responsible for the missing pieces in a sealed set produced by their company.

Now if you wanted to provide good customer service you could contact Lego in their behalf and deal with the hassle of obtaining the missing bags or you could offer a refund, get the bag, and resell. (Or use secondary markets to obtain the pieces, or whatever other means necessary to make the set complete.)

This scenario really boils down to your approach to customer service.

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I have never had the issue of missing pieces - yet. Whenever I come up missing, I usually find the piece(s) still in the bag sitting on the floor or in the trash (There have been some close calls).

 

My biggest gripe is the instruction booklets using various shades of colors for the same part and color types throughout the book. Makes it hard to distinguish between the (for example) light browns and dark browns.

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That is one thing I think Lego needs to remedy.  The dark grey and black are very similar in most instruction books.  I'm not sure why they don't change it somehow to give the two colors more contrast.  anyhoo...

My biggest gripe is the instruction booklets using various shades of colors for the same part and color types throughout the book. Makes it hard to distinguish between the (for example) light browns and dark browns.

That one does annoy the crud out of me. It really does throw you off your train of thought when looking at an image and two differently colored pieces look like the same thing. The shades are slightly darker or lighter and even when I have direct light on the instruction manual, I still cannot tell for the life of me just what the heck color is it?! Is it dark gray, really dark gray, or just plain black?! The dark shades of blue tick me off as well.
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I have never had the issue of missing pieces - yet. Whenever I come up missing, I usually find the piece(s) still in the bag sitting on the floor or in the trash (There have been some close calls).

 

My biggest gripe is the instruction booklets using various shades of colors for the same part and color types throughout the book. Makes it hard to distinguish between the (for example) light browns and dark browns.

 

Same here mostly.  I did have one sand color 1x1 with a side lug on it missing from our Winter Village Cottage.  It is 1/2 of the desk in the child's room on the upper level of the cottage.  I haven't taken the time to have it replaced by LEGO yet because it seemed so trivial.  I did pay full MSRP for the set though...

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That one does annoy the crud out of me. It really does throw you off your train of thought when looking at an image and two differently colored pieces look like the same thing. The shades are slightly darker or lighter and even when I have direct light on the instruction manual, I still cannot tell for the life of me just what the heck color is it?! Is it dark gray, really dark gray, or just plain black?! The dark shades of blue tick me off as well.

Agreed. Especially when you realize it towards the end that you put the wrong shade of grey in the beginning of a build.  It is always fun to carefully dismantle your construction just to swap 2 1x1 dark grey tiles that noone can see with 2 1x1 black tiles just because it turns out the surface needs to have 4 1x1 dark grey tiles to complete the build..

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Agreed. Especially when you realize it towards the end that you put the wrong shade of grey in the beginning of a build.  It is always fun to carefully dismantle your construction just to swap 2 1x1 dark grey tiles that noone can see with 2 1x1 black tiles just because it turns out the surface needs to have 4 1x1 dark grey tiles to complete the build..

It's particularly annoying when you are building a set from a bulk lot of bricks. You do not realize ou have gone wrong, you just think they right colored bricks are not in there.

Unfortunately this has been a problem since they have been doing instructions. I ended up trying to build a 6950 in grey when I was supposed to be using blue!

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  • 1 month later...

A friend of mine was building Tower Bridge and says he came up four (4) pieces short, Lego quickly shipping them.  He said w/ the larger set it just happens occasionally.  Not a super significant question, but just wondering if that has ever burned anyone (investors) after holding a set for a few years post EOL of the model?  can you still get Lego to provide those lost pieces?

 

Thanks!

Umai

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I have built perhaps a couple of dozen large sets and I have never had a missing piece.  The 79008 Pirate Ambush I built in the weekend was the first issue I have ever had and that was a broken piece not a missing one.  The sets get weighed in the factory and it's sensitive right down to the piece, it's pretty rare one is missed.

 

More likely is that the person building it has lost it themselves when opening the bag or something.  I've thought a few bits have been missing before but a decent search has turned them up.  Found some in the rubbish outside once as they were stuck in the plastic bags still :) 

 

Lego will usually replace no questions asked though, very good service.

 

In regards to older sets it is a little trickier.  I believe they will replace pieces if they still have them in stock.  Not much hope of asking for a replacement radar dish on the 10179 MF for example. 

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Out of my entire life, only two sets with a few missing pieces (I can recall). The first was a tiny Race set from so many years ago (when the Race theme was a subtheme of City), and the other was for the last version of the Sith Infiltrator with a handful of missing parts including Obi-wan's cape. Considering how many sets I have built over time and the Lego company produces per minute, that is hardly enough for me to remotely consider worrying about.

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I was missing 3 plates from the Millennium Falcon set, but I had similar gray plates to take their place.  I also had 2 wheels missing from a Techniq car set, which was pretty awful considering that a car missing 2 wheels isn't going to be played with anytime soon.  And the wheels were big ones, and I had nothing to replace them with.  Sadly, by the time they came, the fun of building the car had passed, and we were none too excited to watch it zoom across the floor.

 

I had no problem getting the replacement wheels, but they did take a long time to get here.  I should have checked the pieces before starting, but missing pieces has been pretty rare for us.  I think in my Minecraft set I was missing some flat green plates, but I had some from a house set.  The Minecraft set really needs to come with a lot more of those flat plates.  All of the exposed top bricks should be flat, in my opinion.   

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