Holy crap, even Black Arachnia has now been discounted by 55%. I am so PISSED.

Yeah Hound will meet the same fate. They are probably shutting down this thing after MP-49.

 

That huge discount is still not enough to make me buy that turd!

 

Anyhow......the infamous hairline fracture has appeared on the armature on my Hound as well after the second transformation only, wow. Frankly I don't like this figure or care about the character that much to sink another 20 pounds into it and also go through the hassle of shipping and what not with AE. So I'll leave as is if it gets broken sell it to someone at a super low price or chuck it in the bin. Man, how the mighty have fallen, indeed!

 

 

The QC on MP47 has largely been non-existent, and some people didn't like MP44 and 45, but myself and many others really like all 3 of those releases, and have been fortunate to receive figures that are largely issue-free. I think it's a bit early to conclude Takara will give up on the MP line based on some bad QC and negative feedback. For starters there's too much of a market for it. I really doubt Takara will turn over all their MP customers to 3P companies. Hopefully they learn some QC lessons from these releases, and slow down on the rate of price increases. Maybe they'll factor in some feedback and alter design complexity/paint/costs. But I dont see the line ending anytime soon.

 

Yeah I am not going to buy Bee 2.0 at that price either. 80% off is the number I am looking for.

I am scratching my head. No one's saying TT is giving up, but AJP might.

 

Derp, well I misread that!   I thought you were saying Takara would shut it down, not AJP  

 

Was it a rushed job? Iirc MP09 had near same issues with exploding shoulders and knees. Trypticon too had similar issues. Was it the choice of cheaper plastic materials?

What I said above, rushed job? But again iirc in JP toy mags, Hound already had a completed toy sample first than Bumble together with Convoy. Did they subcontract to another company? Factory? Newer greenhorn personnel?

Do they not learn from their mistakes? I'm posting the most fatal issues

MP09 (exploding shoulder and knees)
Encore Fireconvoy (lots of scrap)
Legends Trypticon ( exploding thighs due to the springs)
MP34 (I know there's an issue on the joints)
MP41 (shoulder ratchets)
MP43 (misassembly on the groin causing cracking )
MP44( well, this one is more of an over complicated design of the knees )
MP45( internal knee design and some paint QC)

I wonder how long before the domestic customer complaints reach maximum velocity?

Is it a language issue with the Vietnamese staff?
Penny pinching on the materials?
Green horn QC supervisors?
Impossible corporate deadlines?

Or all of the above?

 

Customers should not have to care.

 

Damn, I had my heart set on picking this one up as he was one of the last bots I needed to finish up my season 1 crew. I've had good luck so far with BW Megs, Dinobot, Prime, bee and Blackarachnia, but I don't know if I want to take a chance with this guy.

 

I love TT and have been an avid supporter but I feel a bit of poetic justice for their price hiking. I feel bad for everyone that went in on these new G1 molds this year.

 

Nope. It's a give and take.

 

My (long-winded, sorry, bummed) account from the Hound QC poll thread:

Been busy, so Hound's been sitting around here since 12/27 from Amazon Japan. Wasn't aware the issues were so widespread (really busy lately) until I finally went to check him out and change him to bot mode just a bit ago. There were no apparent issues in vehicle mode at all. So I moved on to transforming him.

While working at the feet, the tailgate door that the spare tire attaches to simply fell off half way through step 14 of the instructions (while pushing the door up at a 90 degree turn to position it where it stays inside the foot for bot mode). With just the lightest of pressure to push it up into place it simply sheared right off in a clean break on its hinge while making the 90 degree turn. For a second, I thought it fell out of place, and I could squeeze it back in where it belongs, but that lasted all of a second, before I realized it was sheared and broken... I'd say it appears to be another case of a fairly small part made of weaker-than-should-be plastic on a tighter-than-should-be joint not requiring much effort at all to simply snap apart...

Going back to MP-1, Hound is my 43rd MP, with the upcoming Smokescreen+ as my 44th. I have never had a breakage in all this time! Minor issues here and there, sure. But breakage? No. I knew about Optimus 3.0's knees, and some of the other things over the years, and took precautions as needed, but I've always avoided a major problem so far. Maybe I was due a bad turn.

Still, to say this has soured me is an understatement... Being unaware of the issues with this release, I was in disbelief for about 15 seconds just staring at the little green plastic piece lying there... The disbelief quickly turned to disappointment. I came here for help. Reading through the threads here makes me relieved to not be alone, but even more disappointed in the overall situation of this release. I've really been anticipating Hound, so this has kinda bummed me out.

Not sure what I'm gonna do. Guess I'll finish transforming him to see if there are any other problems. The broken part doesn't affect bot mode at all, which is how I keep them almost all the time. It's gonna be a big deal in alt mode though, all the same. And I'm always going to be bothered by it, knowing that it's broken, even when I can't see it in bot mode. And the question of longevity with these potentially dubious materials... Uggh... Yeah, definitely soured.

 

MP
41 Explosive shoulders
43 Loose waist wtf at least 41 can be fixed with a drop of shock oil
44 Explosive knees wtff at least 43 can be fixed with a drop of floor polisher
47 Explosive everywhere wtfff at least 44 can be fixed with a drop of super glue


What's next?

 

Of course, the big difference is that 41, 43, and 44 CAN be fixed. Relatively easily and cheaply too. Not to mention their issues ended up being far less widespread than initially assumed.

 

Uranium.



Oops, too much...

 

Exploding lottery! 

If that be the case I wish Takara will slow down first and deal with these avoidable issues. Or are they rushing things for the Chinese market? That's their biggest TF cash cow for G1 related products. It seems that the Chinese from the mainland don't give a fck on QC issues.

 

Hound was such a cool character in the show and I’m very glad I have another piece of my childhood in my hands.

 

because they rich af compare to western keep asking for KO with cheap price

 

One of the diehard fans from mainland China who says he has connections at the factory actually advised heavily against buying MP-47. I don't remember which page back, but it's somewhere in this thread.

In addition, phamduc said the issues weren't caught due to moving parts from Vietnam to China for final assembly, foregoing a qc check in Vietnam which may have caught the qc issues beforehand. This, in order to prevent guys like Tonton from getting a leaked copy early in Vietnam. Ultimately to stop a factory leak and screw boogeymen(maybe) like TonTon over, Takara ended up potentially screwing over every customer that preordered Hound. The irony being that they aren't the ones getting leaked copies! We are all on the same page agreeing that this clearly isn't fair. To pluck a weed, they carpet bombed the rainforest.

Again, not sure which page it was stated on, but it's somwhere in the thread.