Head courtesy of TFW2005 member hondasaint14 via ebay:





Looks pretty damn good if you ask me.

 

I'll chip in here as one of the people who really likes this guy, at least on first impressions. I just picked him up at Target, and out of the box, he's a lot beefier and heavier than I was expecting and the plastic isn't rubbery or bendy like I feared. Yes, his chest is very hollow, but kitted out with his weapons, he's about the same weight as Soundwave or Animated Grimlock sans flaming sword. So he's not that flimsy. The biggest problems are the bizarre shoulder joints and how stiff the knee and elbow ratchets are compared to the hips and shoulders. It makes posing him difficult. But other than that, he's hefty, he looks really good in both modes, and he's a lot of fun. And that LED is bright! Holy crap. It's a great gimmick.

Maybe it's just because I've heard so much bad about him that I was expecting to hate it, but I'm pleasantly surprised. He could use a decent paint job, though; the silver and gold (read: gray and tan) really are dull.

 

Just wanna know, has someone actually broken the shoulders? Most of the time with transformers, common breakage parts are things that nobody expected to break. Those "I feel like it's gonna snap" parts often are a lot stronger than everyone gave them credit for.

 

Mine's got a weird non-locking left-shoulder issue in bot-mode. It'll swing out on its own, so the already obvious limited arm-posability has gotten even more limited.

This figure has really been quite disappointing and very meh at its current $22.96 price-point. It totally ain't worth it at that price-point.

 

Everything has a breaking point but Hasbro released are based on 3 decade on knowing what will hold up to ham handedness and so on.

The terms 'hollow' and 'cheap plastic' have been tossed around this community like Peter cried wolf but still I don't believe third parties could engineer that level of tolerances at the same price point.

 

This guy looks awesome with FoC Sideswipes rifle. Have to find a replacement weapon for Sideswipe now...

 

As a collector I can critique clear errors with the design of the toy. That said however, my toddler daughter loves him. She loves the snapping jaw and lights and growls and moves him around, its adorable. He is a complete winner from a small childs point of view.

As a collector I like him enough to want the metallic takara repaint. I think he is a much better toy than he is getting credit for.

 

I saw this at Kmart yesterday, I would have bought it had I had the money. But am gonna wait for the megatron redeco

 

is this a good toy for a 7 year old? i might get this for my niece's birthday...

 

Does anyone else's sword not stay put? I can't sell mine because the sword fell out of his hand and got lost.

 

I think so. My two year old loves it as a dinosaur (played with under adult supervision).

 

Seriously?? Once I put it in his hand it's a minor fight to get it back out again! Yeah, my sword fits nice and tight.

 

The sword and shield on mine are both loose-ish. Not bad to the point of falling out, but definitely not tight, either.

Guess it's one of those QC things, like the sometimes loose, sometimes tight t-Rex arms.

 

I just got mine. I'm loving it a lot, even the dino mode. The tiny rex arms are super firm on mine so they don't pop off, which is a plus. I guess being well informed about the negatives before getting him made me enjoy the positives way more, like many have said before me.

Overall, it's already one of my favorite Grimlock toys, although I have to say holy shit are those knee ratchets tight.

 

As stated earlier by another poster, just work the knee ratchets (or any other ratchets on him) back and forth 5-6 times. They loosen up to being "just right" quite quickly.

 

This solved the tight ratchets on mine as well.

 

Yes sir, this toy is a... crap ball.

 

Yeha, they really have. The only thing that worries me now is the highest ratchet on its shoulders, the one that allows it to raise the arms to the sides. It's super tight and it rests on a small piece connected to a small swivel. It must be far sturdier than I think if it hasn't snapped yet, and it doesn't seem to be happening on other people's grimlocks too, so that calms me a bit.

 

Got mine today, Suuuuper-floppy shoulders (the inward-outward tilt). Me no likey  

 

Was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this Grimlock. Was expecting the worst after all of the heavily negative comments and reviews.

There is no rubbery plastic, it's just a new type of plastic that is new to Hasbro, but feels similar to the type of plastic Yamato has been using on their Valkaries. It's lighter, but is sturdy and firm.

Dino mode has lots of poseability in the legs even though others say he is a brick. It makes me wonder sometimes. The tiny Dino arms have tremendous poseability. The ball joint range of motion is so open that there are only two positions were the arms push themselves out of the socket. It's completely natural, and it perplexes me how folks can complain about the arms so much.

The switch to light up the head is really stiff on mine, so will have to open the head up and stretch the return spring a bit. The bright light up feature is awesome, and love the Autobot symbol that on top of the Dino head.

The hallow underside is there, but I feel this Grimlock T-Rex mode is not the tail dragging type, but the parallel to the ground type instead. Modern anthropology theory on T-Rex.

I really like the great range of motion in the robot mode shoulders. The shoulder range of motion is enough to make Masterpiece Grimlock jealous.