MISB Lego with missing parts

[lego_fan]

Hi, mods, if this is something that is addressed somewhere else, please move this.

I got a 42009 MK II Crane last year, which I opened at Christmas and attempted to build. However it appears to be missing a significant number of parts, so building it was impossible. The main part missing appeared to be medium stone 13M beams. I am now in the process of separating and counting all the pieces to cross reference to the inventory on Brickset, which is tedious and time consuming and not a lot of fun.

How frequently do people come across brand new unopened sets with missing parts? What sort of percentage of all sets are missing pieces? I was thinking this could be a bit of a nightmare if you held a set MISB for a few years, sold it, and the person you sold it to discovered it was short a few pieces - has this happened to anyone?

[Scatterbug]

Can you quantify 'significant'? Are they missing from the same bag? Was this purchased from a reseller or retailer? Sets can occasionally be missing the odd part or two.

[Huskers1236]

There are instances of sealed sets having missing pieces.  Sometimes an entire bag will have not made it into the box, sometimes just a piece or two.  My Fire Brigade was missing a couple pieces and if I remember right was missing on an entire batch of them.  It was an easy piece to come across, however, so not a big deal.  I would figure out what is missing and contact Lego via the website.  They'll get you hooked up if they still have the pieces, especially if they've had this issue before or it seems there is a pattern to what is missing.

[dcdfan]

IIRC, 10225 R2-D2 was reported as missing an entire bag and 10197 Fire Brigade was missing a bag or so occasionally.

[jdmpartz]

1 hour ago, lego_fan said:

Hi, mods, if this is something that is addressed somewhere else, please move this.

I got a 42009 MK II Crane last year, which I opened at Christmas and attempted to build. However it appears to be missing a significant number of parts, so building it was impossible. The main part missing appeared to be medium stone 13M beams. I am now in the process of separating and counting all the pieces to cross reference to the inventory on Brickset, which is tedious and time consuming and not a lot of fun.

How frequently do people come across brand new unopened sets with missing parts? What sort of percentage of all sets are missing pieces? I was thinking this could be a bit of a nightmare if you held a set MISB for a few years, sold it, and the person you sold it to discovered it was short a few pieces - has this happened to anyone?

Happened to me on the EXACT same set. and yes, I sold it to a customer, and they stated pieces were missing. No bags were missing, but the treads and some actuators.

It is hard to see the seal code, i think it says : 26 R 3

 

 

[Phil B]

Wasn't there a fellow reporting a missing bag 9 and a double bag 13 in one of his builds just the other day here? When a company runs their production lines at full capacity, issues pop up. Luckily LEGO is pretty good about making it right. 

[Alpinemaps]

6 minutes ago, Phil B said:

Wasn't there a fellow reporting a missing bag 9 and a double bag 13 in one of his builds just the other day here? When a company runs their production lines at full capacity, issues pop up. Luckily LEGO is pretty good about making it right. 

Yes, it was Ghostbusters Firehouse HQ that it happened with.

I've had it happen to me.  I bought a Darkseid Invasion that was missing Bag 4.  Email to LEGO CS and they sent me the parts.

[Stud-Flipper]

I bought a Lego Racers truck years ago and it came with 2 of the same side door instead of 1 for each side.

[gregpj]

Some Grand Emporium sets are missing an entire floor, it happens.

Personally, we have never been short a bag or even a part but we did lose one while building 10228 (Haunted House) and LEGO replaced it .. I found it a month later in the corner. I wouldn't have bothered but it was a clear globe that we didn't have an extras of at the time.

[Armor]

I opened up a clone turbo 8098 a year ago to find bag 1 (the minfigures) was gone and 2 of bag 3 we're gone. I thought it was a stolen but Instead I had 3 extra bags with 2 on them. 

Since the set was long retired, Tlg could not send me replacement figures but they did send me a lot of extra parts. 

Just call TLG and tell them.

Edited July 26, 2016 by Armor

[lego_fan]

8 hours ago, Scatterbug said:

Can you quantify 'significant'? Are they missing from the same bag? Was this purchased from a reseller or retailer? Sets can occasionally be missing the odd part or two.

It was enough pieces that it was impossible to get very far in creation of the Crane Arm/Boom. I got to about step 53 in book 4 of the manual, and then found i had no more light grey 13 hole beams remaining. If i look at the inventory at http://cache.lego.com/bigdownloads/buildinginstructions/6143639.pdf page 7 I see 32 of these listed; there were 17 in my set. There are 11 black 13 hole beams which don't appear on this version of the inventory, but altogether that still only comes to 28 rather than 32. I also found i had to open bags earlier than expected in the sequence because I was short on parts. So not a missing or duplicated bag problem, as far as I can tell.

8 hours ago, Scatterbug said:

Can you quantify 'significant'? Are they missing from the same bag? Was this purchased from a reseller or retailer? Sets can occasionally be missing the odd part or two.

This was purchased direct from Lego UK.

[lego_fan]

6 hours ago, Armor said:

I opened up a clone turbo 8098 a year ago to find bag 1 (the minfigures) was gone and 2 of bag 3 we're gone. I thought it was a stolen but Instead I had 3 extra bags with 2 on them. 

Since the set was long retired, Tlg could not send me replacement figures but they did send me a lot of extra parts. 

Just call TLG and tell them.

I've spent more time cataloging the parts at this point than I spent building the crane in the first place; i was wondering how frequently this happens. I've got the build sorted into a couple of tool boxes at this point, so that it is relatively straightforward to identify how many of a particular piece I have, and if this matches the inventory. It just never happened me before, I was interested in the frequency of occurrence? Would you say it happens with less than 5% of sets?