As I'd once said in the MP-44 thread, Takara owes us some monies for these ongoing FAILURE-shenanigans and for us to attempt do some preventive maintenance ourselves.

Takara owes me at least 20k-yen for doing the knee-glue fix on my copy myself.

Now Takara owes me another 5k-yen for the aggravated waiting out of my MP-47 to break like the others here...

 

I assume you mean feet, and not shins? But also, surprisingly, I don't think ANY parts in the feet have reported breakages. The one area that actually, truly does have tight fitting, no clearance parts, has no breakages. Very strange.

Also, still no signs of cracking anywhere on mine. I don't think it will at this point either. But if it does, I have a few ideas on how to repair any cracks before, in hopes they won't get worse. Guess it'll just continue to be check it on a semi-regular basis. About a week after I got mine, my friend got his in. I thoroughly inspected his, no cracks. Checked it again this weekend, still no cracks.

I just wish there was some way of knowing what the culprit truly was. Is is a new type of ABS TT is using? Is it the specific color pigment in the green? The fact that is is happening at specific hinges has to mean something, but without working for TT, I don't think we'll ever know.

But most importantly, I really do hope TT is aware and will correct it in future runs, and will make sure this doesn't happen, ever again, to another figure. The failure rate is definitely the highest in any MP figure produced so far. Which is such a shame, seeing as how good of figure he can be.

 

Thanks a million, brother! Did your replacement copy arrive yet?

 

@Jarrod , I wonder if the failure rate for the evil dark Rodimus' knees was higher. I never had it, but it feels like I've seen everyone who's owned him have a break there. The Hasbro MP Rodimus had to have a really high failure rate, too.

A few of mine have cracks but haven't broken yet (Wheeljack, Cassettes) so I'm hoping if my Hound gets a crack after the return period is over he'll still hold up over time.

 

By any chance were you confused by my and @ambitron ‘s profile pics? Haha

@amitron that sucks man. Both of mine have developed cracks since opening them.

I fear the worst is true here. Hound, a character and MP that I absolutely adore, is reprehensible. Absolutely a shame. Because the anti-official crowd is really giving themselves a big barbaric slap on the back right now...

 

Aw crap haha apparently so!

 

Of all the MPs I’ve owned black rodimus and hound are the only toys to break on me. Hound over a few transformations. B. Rodimus had crumbly knees right out of the box.

I feel hound is a similar misstep for Takara. Unfortunately. Hopefully they move production to another factory. Because according to sources they are absolutely livid about this. Scorched earth angry. And rightfully so in my opinion.

 

This is good news, is there any more to this at the moment?

 

Oops how the heck did I accidentally put my post in this thread rather than MP Appreciation?   But my 2nd Hound is out for delivery now! Hoping I get one of those uncrackable @Dean ML copies!!  

 

I'm hesitant to cite a random sampling like that, but a 30% failure rate is obscene. I feel it's even worse because numerous others on this thread have reported cracks forming after they initially inspected it. It is pretty indisputable at this point that something very bad happened with this run. It's just a question now if your figure will self-destruct if you were lucky and had him undamaged at receipt.

I just mailed my copy back today. BBTS was very quick and helpful with the process. So Hound has that going for him...

 

Is anyone ever going to start a normal feedback forum thread for this guy?

 

Where’d ya get it, @ckhtiger

 

Peaugh's mistaken. None of the parts cracking are made from clear plastic, including the doors. The misconception probably comes from how shiny and glossy the plastic is when it breaks.

I've removed a small amount of paint from both parts of the "door" hinges, and it's regular green plastic underneath. The shins are also largely unpainted on the inside, so you can see the bare green plastic.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the black Rodimus. I think that was confirmed to be the paint gumming up in the joint right? And at least that's isolated to just tht knees, with readily and easily replaceable aftermarket parts available.

That's the thing too, these types of cracks are a lot more common than I think people realize. The difference they normally just stay that hairline crack, not breaking like peanut brittle like Hound is.

 

So far, I have a crack in Wheeljack, a broken hinge on Ironhide’s legs,Buzzsaw’s tailfin, Laserbeak’s wing hing, Ravage’s foot, a bum knee in Ultra Magnus, a crack in Sunstreaker’s windshield and two hinge crack on one of my Hounds. Luckily, I skipped the MP-09 knee explosion but got nailed by MP-05’s metal feet problem.MP-01/04 WILL suffer from stressed hip joints as I discovered when I pulled him apart, and I had him boxed for the better part of 10 years.

Despite normal wear and tear on the pin joints, I’m not mad because I did play with these toys a lot and posed them in various positions throughout the years.

 

Hmm, so I think the shape of the hole at the bottom of the neck armature may be the culprit there. Here again is the hairline crack that appeared on mine:



I removed the screw from the top of that part and removed the armature. Here's the hole at the bottom of that part where the crack is:



Note how, somewhat oddly, it's hexagonal. The hole at the *top* of the part is circular (and interestingly the cracks only ever seem to occur at the bottom). The piece running through this hole is a tight-fitting tube. My guess is:

1. The tube is too tight (on many copies at least) so that it is exerting too much pressure in this space as it's turned.
2. The crack is forming at the point of the hexagon where the plastic is thinnest.

I've just filed out this hole so that it is circular instead of hexagonal. Now the tube moves freely within it (a little too freely, but that's probably for the best given that the crack is already there). That's allowed the crack to close up a little so that it is no longer visible to the naked eye. Fingers crossed this will prevent it from getting worse.

EDIT: Here is how it looks after the "fix":



(I had to get the light on it just right to see the closed-up crack at all.)

 

The one thing there, though, nearly 1/3 of the vote (and first place in the poll) said intact after 1 transformation... How many of those would hold up to further usage? What would the number be if everyone transformed theirs 5 times? Only about 1/3 of the vote has held up to more than a single transformation...

 

While the fit might be a problem, a combination of hexagonal hole + circular peg, or vice versa, is not uncommon. Something like preventing a vacuum seal so that the parts don't bind, or some mechanical dealy like that.

 

That silicone oil is available all over the place online: Amazon, eBay, hobby shops. I posted the pic that clearly shows the part number.

 

Thanks for being extremely helpful.

 

It would be interesting to check again after a year and take a count of how those figures are holding up