So a few months ago. I got Classics Kup, played around with him for a bit, then put him on my shelf. Today, I felt like screwing around with him, so I picked him up, and a little gray piece connecting his knee to the upper leg had snapped off. It was no big problem, I thought, and proceed to transform him. Then, the little pieces that fold into his legs that become the kid of Headlights in truck mode, their connectors snapped and fell to the ground. I can't take pictures as I don't have a camera, but I can kind of make out that infamous swirl...

 

Yeah, I'm not sure about Transformers, but this shit is notorious in Popy toys and vintage Bandai robots.

 

First I've ever heard of it. That would blow.

 

I wonder if that's what happened to the head on mine. It popped off the ball joint and I snapped it back on, but it's loose as hell.

 

I've transformed mine multiple times with nothing happening. I'd fix it or buy a new one.

 

When you say swirl it sounds like the factory might be recycling sprues in with the virgin plastic. It can cause all sorts of weirdness

 

kup has metallic swirl^

 

This is oh so very, sadly true.

Even with Go-Bot such as Buggy, blue plastic can rot just as badly as brown or gold.

 

Most probably this. Bad batch of plastic: the factory mixed previously processed (and re-shredded) plastic back in with new plastic pellets before heating and molding, which causes the consistency of the plastic mix to be 'poluted', especially when the resulting plastic mix isn't integrated enough (i.e. not stirred well enough).

 

I've always thought that swirled/flaked/whatever plastic looked better though... heh

 

Yeah, I have a Voltes V Crewzer head that has a piece missing in the face plate. It sucks.

 

Dairuggar (Vehicle Voltron) is pretty bad. Seen a few people literally shatter the chest pulling the red jet off.

 

I'll keep that in mind with mine, though those pieces are so stuck together I've really just said "fuck it" at this point.

 

This makes me angry. If there are issues with making toys with metallic plastic, don't do it until the problem can be worked out. Plastic shouldn't be disintegrating. I love how thundercracker(I've been tempted to pick him up even tho I don't have the other seekers just because of the metallic look) looks with the metallic plastic, but if it turns out that he'll have issues it'll destroy those complete seeker sets out there.

 

Uh oh. Thank goodness I just keep Kup in bot mode shooting at my seekers. Let's hope that we don't have to have widespread instances of BPS now.

 

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I couldn't tell if the OP was referring to Generations Kup or G1 Kup. I thought it was Generations at first, but the rest of the replies were about older toys. As I don't have either, I can't tell. Which is it?

 

I would assume Generations.

I'm also not too worried about BPS or GPS. While from time to time I'm sure there will be bad mixtures that get put into mass production, I think they're accidents.

 

Same here... transformed him lots!

 

I'd assume Generations based on the way he described its transformation.

As for "Blue Plastic Syndrome," it's not so much the color of the plastic as much as if it has metallic swirls in it or not. Somebody bought me a TM2 Beast Wars Megs a couple months ago and the first time I transformed it the knees literally shattered. I'm sorry bout Kup, man (or woman, if the case may be  ), he's an awesome toy.

 

The reason why gold plastic is brittle is entirely different from why blue plastic would be. Could be an issue of poor design, a bad batch of plastic, or simply force being applied the wrong way in this case.