This will be a LOONGG term project. I'm setting a reminder in my calendar to revisit this thread in seven years.

Anyone who has been in this hobby for decades has heard the mantra: "GPS isn't a thing anymore" only to have that proven wrong long enough down the road that the figure in question is considered an older product and therefore not relevant.

An analogous phenomenon can be seen in the auto industry. Most people seem to buy a new car thinking that "only old cars rust" and that corrosion will never be a problem for their new car and they care for it (or don't) accordingly...and while there have been improvements in corrosion resistance (particularly in the 1980s when automakers began to use galvanized steel), new cars absolutely can and will rust, often starting around the ten year mark depending on climate, care, and model.

As with corrosion resistance, the producers are not incentivized to prevent this problem beyond making the product last the duration of the warranty period or the duration of collectors' attention spans. In fact, getting old product out of the way makes room for new product in the market so the incentives may actually run in the opposite direction if you want to be cynical about it.

Looking at Transmutate and Black Roritchi, each figure has a gold plastic with a metallic luster. They do not have the characteristic metallic "swirls" that many GPS victims have had but the flakes that are present may still be enough to disrupt the polymer chains and have our figures go "bad comedy Starscream" on us. To me, they both look like candidates.

Based on the CAD images that we have seen so far, it appears that Black Zarak will have some components molded in gold. A vote for this figure would be even more speculative but GPS would be a fitting problem for this figure as the G1 incarnation is one of the most famous victims of this plastic disease.

Folks have speculated about a similar parallel between the CW release of the Aerialbot Slingshot who is molded in gold just as its predecessor was. That figure has been left off the list since it's already five + years old so it has too much of a head start.

Thoughts, opinions welcome.
Barring any disaster, look for a thread bump in September 2028.  

 

For those of you guys voting for "it's not a thing anymore" (and I hope you all are right) what is your reasoning?

 

Of course a guy named after Smokescreen would open a thread about gambling.  

 

Assuming they actually experience GPS, Black Zarak will blow first due to his feet being mostly made of gold plastic. That's a lot of weight on a hypothetically brittle part...and would be the first one to show cracks and or simply give out on a display if it happens. That said, I think he'll last longer than Masterforce Black Zarak's plastic did. The fact is that ALL plastic deteriorates over time...the notorious gold plastic just breaks down faster.

 

My T30 Goldfire is still standing well, so I don't think GPS exists these days 

 

Wait, people think that?

Statistics and probability:

Could it happen? Sure, anything is possible. Will it happen? Just because it can happen, doesn't mean it will happen.

Since 2010 (Cybertron Repugnus rereleases/reissues due to no changes being made), there has only been one known toy with GPS and that was Unite Warriors Motormaster in 2016 (the gunmetal waist).

There was only one known toy in 2009 with GPS and it was Bayverse Stratosphere.

There was only one known toy in 2007 with GPS and it was Protoform Starscream.

There were only three known toys in 2006 with GPS and they were Cybertron Repugnus, Star Wars x Transformers General Grievous and Star Wars x Transformers Millennium Falcon (Sole & Chewbacca).

There was only two known toys in 2003 with GPS and ithere were Universe Megabolt Megatron and Universe Micromaster Superion.

There was only one known toy in 2001 with GPS and it was RID AAOP (Air Attack Optimus Primal).

There was only two known toys in 2000 with GPS and they were BM Snarl and BM Striker.

That brings us all the way back to Beast Wars which might as well be The Hunger Games since everyone looks at each other and mumbles "may the odds be foerver in your favor" . . .

 

Because of the potential, even remote, I don't transform Transmutate anymore. I just leave her in robot mode and call it a day. That crunchy snap the head makes when forming the chest of robot mode (and vice versa) is bad enough on "regular" plastic but on anything remotely golden? Hah. No.

 

This is my answer too. Since 2010 the only known case is UW Motormaster. If it really as bad as you think than logically we'd see more cases but that hasn't really come to fruition.

 

That's my expression every time I hear it.

Fortunately GPS has always been pretty rare. That's why two (and possibly three) new figures with gold metallic base material stands out. In any case, the ~10 year mark seems to be the key. I picked a seven year interval to check back in because this is about the shortest interval that I could remember. UW Motormaster seems to back that up.

One aspect of this is that the team in place under John Warden seemed to be aware of the problem and if memory serves, metallic paint was chosen instead of metallic base material. The only exception that I can think of is that CW G2 Slingshot. This could explain a gap if there turns out to be one. The three figures that I tossed into the poll are post Warden offerings. It could be that the new team doesn't know/care about this problem. We have seen a lot of brittle plastic (non GPS) in Kingdom...which speaks to material selection not being a priority at least. Obviously, these are just guesses.

 

I hope that kid grew a huge beard and mustache as an adult. Not sayin' he's ugly, just that some people look a lot better with a beard and mustache.  

I'm very suspicious of Black Roritchi. The swirling and fleckiness of his gold plastic is highly suspect. Time will tell... Sooner or later, time will tell.

 

He was an adult, then. lol He's pushing 30, now. And no, no facial hair. Will Poulter is his name, a fantastic actor with pretty good range.

 

If I'm not wrong, isn't Motormaster also a case of swirly metal plastic on a ratcheted, weight-bearing joint that can't handle it? Even when GPS happens now, it's not like the old days where just existing would eventually make it crumble, and pretty much no part of Transmutate or Black Rortorichi is under any pressure, ever.

 

I remember him from Chronicles of Narnia and Maze Runner. He was a great casting for Eustace Pevensie Scrubb. But it's time for a glorious beard, Will!

 

Examples like you mention with highly stressed areas will definitely fail earlier but keep in mind that any joint or connecting point relies on preload from the surrounding plastic material. They’re all under pressure.

 

Plastic is rigid due to an immense weave of interconnected molecular bonds between carbon atoms, and the slightly weaker hydrogen bonding between adjacent molecules. Plastic is technically not a solid, it's a very highly viscous fluid that is effectively in the solid state at most temperatures humans exist at. Heating it up a bit increases its fluidity, which is why it can repair stress marks to blow hot air on it. But alternating cycles of increases and decreases in temperature result in permanent reorganization of this lattice of "fluids", and in formulations that sacrifice some of their strength to entrain metal flakes or other colorant substances in the makeup, this reorganization can result in some colorant and other non-plastic components of the mixture stratifying, bleeding off, and otherwise contributing to a breakdown of the plastic structure. Thin parts are the most susceptible. Basically, when you see "swirled" plastic, what you're seeing are areas of the plastic where the mixture has imperfect homogeneity and the colorant molecules are not distributed evenly.

 

I'm pretty sure that GPS is still a thing.





This is my LG17 Blackarachnia.
It's 2015's product and didn't much played with.
And I realized that it cracked with no reason. This is not just for me, some of my other community members have same experience too.
If anyone have this, please check yours.

GPS is not over and I don't know maybe 5 or 6 years later? I'm sure we will see some signs of GPS on the WFC Selects toy.

 

Isn't that area of the ball-joint cup super thin though? The crack being in almost the exact same location on both sides makes it look more like a tolerance issue. e.g. Nothing on my Megabolt Megatron when it started breaking and/or crumbling was in the same location on both sides (other than the tiny round forearm pegs as it was stored in Megabolt mode and, it's impossible to tell where it started as they were both clean breaks). Do the breaks on the other copies in your community start/end in similar locations as your copy does?

I understand that the breaks in your photos aren't clean (even clean breaks aren't going to necessarily be smooth) but, plastic breaks like that if it's forced/pried apart rather than snapped. That's how thin plastic would behave if it couldn't stand the pressure/tension/etc. that was being placed on it due to being thinner than the rest of the part (e.g. the weakest link in the chain). The right (your left if looking face to face) elbow's ball-socket is a good example of that because of the additional break near the top of the pressure cutout (the open rectangle) for the ball-joint. I'm not saying that you did it nor that you caused it. I'm just saying that it looks like something tried to force the socket apart (even just sitting there on the shelf could have been enough force over time) and it gave at the weakest areas. I would be amazed if the other elbow ball-socket doesn't do the exact same thing at the same location at some point in the future. The "webbing" also looks like stress and, it reminds me of Transmetal paint/plating when it "webs". That's assuming it is actually "webbed" though and that it's not a swirl/marble in the plastic.

For clarity, I'm not saying that it's not MPS* (GPS is an extremely outdated moniker that isn't accurate and creates panic anytime that gold plastic is used). I'm just saying that the breaks starting in almost the same location on both pieces doesn't look random (even though those areas were fine when the toy went on the shelf and then they randomly weren't). My reply is meant to be exploratory in order to gather more data and foster conversation, it's not a declaration that you're wrong.


Personally I would be far more worried about all the metallic razor thin plastic on Netflix KBW Cheetor (which I own) *edit* due to the super thin plastic on certain parts */edit* rather than Selects Transmutate (sitting in a Pile of Loot), Selects Black Roritchi (which I own), and Selects Mega Zarak (which I have on preorder). Those are all Hasbro products though and since 2010, GPS has only been a Takara problem (it was only on UW-02 Motormaster which was full of large sparkles/glitter in the waist) and that will still be true even if LG-17 turns out to have MPS*.


*edit*

* MPS stands for Metallic Plastic Syndrome (please keep in mind that an overwhelming majority of metallic plastics will not experience MPS). GPS is outdated because, colour isn't the cause, it's just that "gold" was the first colour that the issue was widely observed in. This is similar to situations related to the health of any given species when something picks up an unfortunate and/or intentional moniker that is determined by the location and/or population that it was first widely observed in.

*/edit*

 

Not selects but im afraid of kingdom grimlock breaking due to gps

 

Umm someone fill me in what was the last figure that we saw GPS take effect in?

 

The most recent case i can think of is rotf stratosphere and his exploding knees , uw motormaster doesnt have any gold but his waist disintegrates after some time