Transform Element TE-02 Bumblebee Movie VW Bettle Bumblebee

Discussion in 'Transformers 3rd Party Discussion' started by Jhund, Jun 18, 2019.

  1. ambitron

    ambitron Well-Known Member

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    Do you mean a PayPal claim? I'll give TF-Direct until the end of the week to get back to me, and if they don't I think I'll do just that. Fortunately I just realised the floppy chest is a non-issue - it just wasn't tabbed together properly out of the box (not sure how I missed the necessary tab). So I just need to get them to send out the missing parts. I can't believe such a large part of the alt mode is missing, though!
     
  2. Obvian

    Obvian Well-Known Member

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    Some info on the fall apart roof joints.

    I had a first run one from eBay that ended up with the right leg roof bit falling out, the way the joint works for transforming it is sliding the piece along the same axis as the pin, and given how snug a fit it is, it\'s a recipe for disaster. I hammered the pin back in, but it didn\'t hold - the pin is way too short, so there\'s not enough to grip it in place. Thankfully the 2nd run figure I got from Chosen Prime seeeems to have fixed this: The pin goes all the way through to the other side.

    I\'m kind of scared to transform him, though. The slider for transforming it still feels tight, so when I put some future on the hips and the back tab, I might carefully squirt a little WD40 into his ankles.

    But I seem to be fairly fortunate in that both of the ones I got weren\'t missing parts, I\'m sorry to the rest of you. He looks great in both modes, he just has really spotty QC.
     
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  3. ManelFigures

    ManelFigures You can't hear the bass, but you can feel it.

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    I will wait some months before order again on China, they're doing a mess with the pre-orders and orders... isn't the last figure that I see with issues or missing parts, it's something commom these last days. Except for the MP44 KO and FireScorpion Optimus, I cancelled all my POs because I'm afraid of suffering things like this with expensive toys.

    I will stuck on legend+ figures for a while, if the chinese companies improve the QC issues... maybe I will buy again bigger figures.

    Anyway... two days ago I received two MFT figures full of issues... (Kup and Springer). It seems to be a general situation.
     
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  4. ambitron

    ambitron Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, at least you can enjoy him in robot mode without half his legs missing. :D  How can I tell whether I have a first run or second run based on the pin? Could you take a photo showing what the second run pin looks like? Presumably I have a second run since TF-Direct were waiting on a restock and only just sent it last week. Not that I can transform it anyway without the missing parts...

    I'm *really* unimpressed with TF-Direct. I emailed them about the missing parts on Tuesday and still haven't heard back. Given that the last time I emailed them (about when they were expecting a figure in stock) I never received a reply at all, when I hadn't received a reply this time after a full business day (allowing for them being in China), I also left them a message via their online chat service, in case they were more likely to respond. Still nada, so I sent them a message via PayPal yesterday, and still nothing. I'll give them until Tuesday - a full week - and then I'll escalate with PayPal to file a claim. I'd much rather just get the missing parts, though, as the figure *looks* great. I certainly won't be using TF-Direct again. A shame as I've never had a problem with them in the past.
     
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  5. ManelFigures

    ManelFigures You can't hear the bass, but you can feel it.

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    Sorry to hear that. For sure, Paypal will be your only friend in this situation. Cheer up!!.
     
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  6. Shmoptimus Prime

    Shmoptimus Prime Za Warudo!

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    TF-Direct sucks. I've ordered from them only once and the thing never arrived and they didn't respond to my messages. It was only $10 or so worth of stuff so I never opened a claim but I should have. These days the only place I trust (that also gets things in early) is showz.
     
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  7. kronatron

    kronatron Well-Known Member

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    TF-D was my go-to for a while, before ShowZ climbed to the top of the list. I still order from them once in a while when other places are out of stock. I haven't had any issues with them but I know they don't really put the heart and soul into each interaction like ShowZ.

    I'm waiting for my bee to come in from TFSafari, they've also been good so far, but China shipping and customs delays feel interminable these days. Hopefully soon and without issue.
     
  8. ManelFigures

    ManelFigures You can't hear the bass, but you can feel it.

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    Actually the best web-store of these days. Never disappointed me. I buy there since 3 years, everything perfect with customer service, they ALWAYS respond. When I had issues with a figure, they sent me replacement parts very quickly.

    Bababobo gave me problems.
    Robot Kingdom gave me problems.
    Choosen Prime gave me problems.

    And lately, one of my ex-trusty sellers on Aliexpress was Lensple Robot Store, they sent me two figures literally smashed and one of them broken, with a very poor package protection (no box, only plastic and bubble wrap... they said "i will send you another one"... still waiting... finally I opened a claim and get half refund... a shame.
     
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  9. Zherneboh

    Zherneboh BRAVE BOMBER

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  10. mag_jr.

    mag_jr. <B><font color=red>TFW2005 Article Guy</font></B> Veteran

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    Finally got paid back for some stuff I did back in frigging 2018, so I picked a V2 of this guy up from The Chosen Prime. I’m really regretting it. It was mistransformed in the box with the “real” front bumper piece sticking out under the fake chest because that section wasn’t folded away, so there’s always a huge gap between the torso and pelvis, and the back won’t tab in all the way or stay tabbed in no matter how hard I push. So mine really does just end up with the upper torso just flopping all the way back as soon as the back comes untabbed, which is frequent. Trying to use polish on the tab to give it more friction hasn’t helped at all, so perhaps the issue is that the tab is too big rather than too small. I can’t tell because it’s bigger at the end where it’s attached to the back panel than it is at the front of the tab. If I could find a pair of calipers maybe I could figure it out. The slot looks bigger than the tab to me, but trying to judge that based on my aging eyes doesn’t seem too wise. :p 

    Also, in keeping with the spring issues I’m having with Zeta Toys’ Ford, his left roof section won’t tab into the leg at all because the spring just pushes it back out. There’s next to no friction in his hip joints, so those have to be tightened so he doesn’t try to do the splits. His arms won’t tab in at the shoulders at all, but I guess that’s like having a butterfly hinge so it’s not bothersome compared to everything else. I’ve had him for several days and I still haven’t dared to transform him because everything is either too tight or too loose and I’m afraid I’ll break him. I’d try to exchange him but I haven’t had good luck with their CS in the past so I’m thinking of passing him on to a friend who likes to tinker and fix things up and who also loved the Bumblebee movie. I wouldn’t have bought it from there if they hadn’t specifically advertised it as a V2 because I assumed it would have fixed any issues from the first release.

    Like, I don’t want to oversell this because there’s way worse and more important things going on in the world than a toy with some messy QC issues (though mine doesn’t seem to be missing pieces and I’m sorry for those of you who are). It’s not some earth-shattering crisis. I’m just disappointed because their Optimus was so good and this ‘Bee looked so cute and wouldn’t take up as much room as the bigger ones. None of these issues would be a huge problem individually, maybe aside from the gap in his midsection which bugs the heck out of me. It’s just the combination of all of them that has me let down. I have the official Takara Tomy MPM and it at least had better joint tolerances, even if the transformation sucks enough that mine has been in Beetle mode for over a year and the backpack and “weathering” are awful.
     
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  11. harrismonkey

    harrismonkey Well-Known Member

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    I doubt I can help you here, but looking at mine, I'm not understanding what gap you speak of. He chunky (chunkier than he should be), but still cool.

    I guess the question would be have you looked at videos just to make sure it's a genuine defect vs an out of the box mistransformation? Probably a stupid question, you probably have. Just confused by the gap and wondering.

    Good luck.
     
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  12. mag_jr.

    mag_jr. <B><font color=red>TFW2005 Article Guy</font></B> Veteran

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    Thanks! I’ve managed to get his hips tighter so he can stand now, so here’s a couple of pictures. Sorry for the terrible backdrop, it’s laundry day :p 

    I’ve watched every video review I could find and I’m at a loss for what I could be doing wrong. When his back is untabbed, mine looks like everyone else’s does:

    [​IMG]

    It’s hard to see in the picture because I didn’t match the angles correctly, but the upper torso is almost flush with the waist on the sides as well as the front.

    When I tab in the back, it pulls the torso upwards:

    [​IMG]

    Now there’s a gap and part of the vehicle mode hood is visible where it wasn’t before.

    Sometimes he stays like this, and sometimes the tab on his spine piece slides back out and the whole upper body falls backwards, which is also weird because it feels like it tabs in pretty securely after transforming him a couple of times. I’ve had him apart looking for flashing or misaligned parts but I couldn’t find anything obvious. That is, apart from him having two of the same shoulder, which going by pics in this thread is so common that I’m not sure if it’s an assembly mistake or intentional! *insert confused emote here*

    Kinda stuck at home atm so I’ve been messing with him teying to figure out the puzzle. there’s a little indent on the black part of his chest assembly. There’s a tab on the hood that slides down into that and catches if you’ve pushed it down right. (Emgo explains it in his video if I’m not making any sense.) I’ve been able to do that right with mine. There’s two very thin tabs on the front bumper piece that rests in his big ol belly that don’t seem to do anything in either mode (because the front bumper comes together from the other two pieces pegging into that center piece). So either I’m missing something *really* obvious or it’s just a really unfortunate issue of tolerances.

    In the meantime I just leave the back unpegged, because his upper body is heavy enough that I can pose him and he doesn’t go anywhere when it’s *not* tabbed in. :confused:  Also his vehicle mode fits together almost perfectly, aside from a very small gap in the rear, which is the opposite of what I expected from videos!
     
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  13. harrismonkey

    harrismonkey Well-Known Member

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    That sucks. I looked at mine a little now that I see what you're talking about (even tabbed and untabbed the back a few times) and I have no idea. Sorry. Good luck!

    Maybe it's defective? Is there any possability of return/exchange?
     
  14. Alan Low

    Alan Low Active Member

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  15. mag_jr.

    mag_jr. <B><font color=red>TFW2005 Article Guy</font></B> Veteran

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    I finally figured out the cause of the problem I was having with the upper body not holding and always wanting to fall back: the screws they used to hold the upper and lower body are just too small and they’re dang near stripped. At least I’ve got some screws that should fit.

    Reading about the aoyi mech bumblebee prime gave me the idea to check for possibly small screws since TE is apparently Aoyi/BMB. But I can’t figure out why they thought holding the upper and lower body together with two screws was a good idea in the first place, along with the relative lack of useful locking tabs on his leg kibble or the springs in the roof panels that won’t even let them peg in any more. Or all of the clearance issues that make what should be a very simple transformation one of the most frustrating ones around.

    He’s cute but he’s not even remotely in the same league of design or build quality as their Prime. I guess I could just put him in beetle mode forever and hope the TransCraft one comes out well. but I really just want to get out of the game for good at this point
     
  16. City Commander

    City Commander Well-Known Member

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    The TransCraft robot mode is amazing but, sadly, the car mode is horrible. For that price i still prefer buying the TE-02, honestly.
     
  17. Reygn

    Reygn Banned

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    Good luck with your chunky munky.
     
  18. idkwdya

    idkwdya Nicks_Plastic_Shelf

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    Glad you like him! So far my copy has had zero breakage or issues minus some of the reported pins falling out. He stays in robot mode anyways. The neck hinge hasn’t given me any problems either but why on earth would you use clear plastic when literally none of the figure has it anywhere else...
     
  19. paparazz0

    paparazz0 Well-Known Member

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    Anyone know of any bigggg transformers store in LA I can lose myself in?
     
  20. QuintusTheExaltedOne

    QuintusTheExaltedOne Creator of the Quintessons and ex-Prime

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    has anyone posted comparisons between this and the original masterpiece bumblebee? I wanted to see if the beetles were roughly the same size or if this is way bigger.