I thought the plus figures were designated to the Vietnam factories. + Wheeljack I know for sure was. Did the figure have a made in China description?

 

Sorry, mp12+ lambor is made in china, prowl+, wheeljack+ and shockwave+ are made in vietnam

 

That’s what I thought. It fits with some of the quality issues people have been saying.

 

I received my MP17+ Prowl earlier this week (along with the plus versions of Sideswipe and Red Alert).

In general, I am not sure if I really like those Plus versions. While the colors looks really nice, they fit together much worse in car mode than the original releases. I attribute this to thick and sometimes visibly uneven layers of paint.

Of the three, Prowl definitely had the worst quality control.
Getting the feet out was very tight with some paint that stuck them together. Most annoyingly, the joint of one door to swing it out seems to not working correctly (the light blue thingy with the teeth always stays at the same click position, just moving up and down, while on the other door the teeth can move one click to the left/right). What's worse the other joint on that door to angle it upwards was fused to to the body -- again probably due to thick layers of paint. I saw that someone worked on one of the screws on the door as it was shaved off a bit (probably someone at the factory trying to get the door moving?). I tried my best to get the door again moving, in turn cracked it off  .

 

The only + versions that have minor imperfections are lambor and wheeljack for me. WJ has some dirt under the paint on the feet, lambor has a splotch of white paint on the thigh. But they are barely visible so I am ok with that.
Shockwave, Prowl and Red Alert are 99% perfect QC wise

 

Oh okay. I guess I should just buy them and see. I’m only getting wheeljack and prowl probably.

 

Sadly, welcome to the wondeful world of MP quality control issues. It's great A3Up tried to make it right. Still, kinda a bummer. I have finally just come to accept the warts. Sometimes you get lucky, but eventually your luck runs out. Better to just reframe expectations because it's just a matter of time and MPs are not immune from issues.

 

Oh this ain’t my first rodeo! I’ve had insanely bad luck with MP QC issues. As well as third party stuff. Overall it’s been better for me lately but I almost quit the hobby because of all the issues. I have a watch repair kit among other tools to fix all my figures. I buy from Amazon Japan whenever I can now because of their return policy. Thankfully I’ve never had to use it because I’ve had a great run with my AJ orders (knocks on wood).

As an example I have quite a few Fans Toys figures and almost every one of them had broken fingers right out of the box from misfired pins. Thankfully FT are pretty good about sending out replacement parts. My FT Swoop had two left arms!

But back to A3U, yes I think it’s awesome that they sent me spare parts but the head is in such bad shape on the replacement unit I’m convinced it was a return from another customer. They really shouldn’t have sent it to me.

 

My Prowl is inbound from A3U. I can't wait to unbox him. I hope it's a perfect copy, because my earlier Hasbro MP Prowl wasn't.

 

Found this picture of a real Datsun Police car. Proof that this car is somewhat real world accurate with having blue windows and a grey bumper.

 

The light on top is extraordinarily cute. Prowl should have come with it.

 

Scowly prowl said cute. Heh. Dunno. Just found that funny. Carry on.

 

It’d be great if Prowl’s light bar was removable like Alert’s.

 

Good find, although I think you may find the blue windows are the tint having faded over time. The older tints used to go bluey/ purpley as they aged. Modern tint doesn't do this I believe.

 

Well sure but these MP cars are all from the 80s, what do you expect  

 

I first typed "adorbs" to annoy my daughter, then thought better of it. Glad it made you laugh.

 

Goddammit. Despite this thread being here for ages, somehow my eyes glanced over it and my brain saw "Masterpiece Animated Prowl" and I went "!!!" before I had to reality-check myself.

 

Fascinating. I guess he just scanned an old car lol.

Hah that totally makes sense!

Oh I thought he was talking about actual Prowl, but your name is actually Scowly Prowl. Heh.

 

Anyone want to sell me the black mailer box that MP-17+ Prowl came with?

 

Prowl being my favorite character, I really really wanted him, but after seeing what TT did for BS and SS, I feel like Prowl's toon+ was just plain laziness. Hard to support that, maybe the inevitable version 2.