That picture is AWESOME! :D
I found this as a surprise as well. Although I am happy that the TG's Granamyr thread is relatively short, I am shocked that there aren't more posts...... There's hope yet!
Salamandra: It's always nice to avoid getting stiffed by the people to whom you're forking over large amounts of money ain't it?
Hypno-toad and the brain slugs. Fry: "What would we do on the brain slug planet?" Hermes: "Just walk around, not wearin'a helmet."
No it's not obvious, I've seen maybe 10-20 complain all together. Some might even have been broken by mishandling. So let's take an imaginary number, lets say 10 000 units, with 10-20 defect figures. Suddenly "a good number being defective" isn't the case any longer.
We're all working off theories here with no hard facts to go by. A few complaints here doesn't make me believe that there are any more defects then any other line nor figure in this line.
My tail port was in tact upon arrival. I lined the tail plug up very carefully, and pushed with slowly graduating pressure, and the ring broke with incredible ease. It's a defctive design, plain and simple. The ring has places that are not designed to take pressure, and the plastic is frail. It being cold expounds the issues, so warming it up should help to make the plastic much more flexible, keeping it from breaking. I promise you, it's flawed. Basically the tabs around the ring have weak spots where the slits in between the tabs are, and pressure on these weak spots, esspecially when the plastic is cold, is what seems to be causing the cracking. I know some are arriving cracked, but I would guess that they were test assembled at the factory, and some broke then, while others survived that test, only to be broken upon assembly by the consumer.
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Whur's 'at dernded like button at?
It's hard to showcase the problem with a bunch of photos, and it's not like Mattel is going to do anything about it other than apologizes and say tough luck, you always can return him for a refund!!!
People who ended up with defective figures are aware of how Mattel normally responds, it's pretty much useless!!! In my case fixing him was the easier choice than dealing with DR's service.
Add mine to the broken pile. The right arm won't turn or stay in place.
No amount of blow drying to heat the plastic will make it turn. It's like the rotating bit of the arm socket was painted or glued in place. Trying to get it to turn is just making stress marks on the plastic. Time to return it. ~sigh~
So far I'm 0/3 on my Dec haul from Mattel. Procrustus arrived with a back arm snapped at the joint and Mosquitor with silver paint splashed over the red triangles on his boots. (or red paint peeling to reveal silver?) However, I'm not going to return Mosquitor. When it comes to products from Mattycollector I just have to get a figure with the amount of flaws I can live with and settle. Sending back a flawed figure just risks getting a worse one as the replacement. Or they will claim customer service stock is gone and I end with nothing.
I took the torso off the peg without heating it up. I just twisted and pulled and it came off the peg without any problems. I did that to see if there was anything in the inside that broke off since the left arm would pop out. It looks like all the clips are intact, but something is still causing the arm to pop out of the socket. I've been taking glue and have been trying to plug up the hole with it, and it seems to be working. It may be a temporary fix, but it's something that I can at least live with.
This is true. And I bet their are many people not even going to post pics anyway. Why would they? Seriously....what is TG or Mattel going to do about? Nada,zippo,nothing. Well we'll let our design team know b/c we're going to be using this sculpt over & over again. Not!! People that are receiving a broken $80 toy is ridiculous. I hope they don't have issues returning their Granny's.
The first one of my 3 Granny's broke upon assembly. The right arm socket doesnt hold tight. The tail socket broke as well. I did make the mistake of assembling it within the first hour of receiving it and it was still a bit cold. I opened a second one today and used a hair dryer to warm up the sockets before assembling. It worked out great and I now have a Granny with no major issues. If it was "played with" I'm confident it woud break, but I just display mine so that shouldnt be a big issue. I'm keeping my 3rd MIB. I'm majorly annoyed and unhappy that I have to send the broken one back........
TO ALL WHO HAVE YET TO ASSEMBLE THEIR GRANNY; WARM THE JOINTS FIRST WITH A HAIR DRYER FOR A FEW SECONDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'M CONFIDENT IT HELPED!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes seriously. Wow I guess unpopular opinions really do get bashed around here.
This was a far better answer. But this still doesn't rule out mishandling, which I think there is a lot of. We all saw how much toyguru and pixeldan struggled. I can easily see people rushing to get him together in a moment of glee, and then putting pressure where pressure is not supposed to be and in turn breaking him.
I don't disagree that a lot of this breakage could be because of people assembling him... but is that really mishandling? It's true that "operator error" can often be an issue. :) But in this case, they are just trying to put him together as instructed, right? The fact is, this should be engineered in such a way that you don't risk breaking the toy when just trying to put him together. Mattel can do that. They should be old pros at this sort of thing. There really is no way around it. Mine hasn't been sent out yet, but successfully putting a Mattel toy together should not involve heating pieces and applying pressure from both sides. We don't have a great idea of how widespread the issue is, but it's certainly not rare. There definitely seems to be an engineering or materials issue here, no matter what. Even if it only affects a relatively small portion of customers (something we may never truly know) it doesn't make it less of an issue.
My hope is that there are plenty of good ones out there, though. I plan to return it (and keep returning it until I get a good one) if I get a bad one. I do plan on taking every precaution, but it really should not be necessary to take these extra steps, and Mattel's internal safety and product standards would not allow such extra steps to be needed if this was working as it should.
This is one of the reasons why I have multiple subs. It allows me to pick and choose which one I actually want to keep. It's sad that I have to do this but it's the price I pay to get decent figures. I don't trust DR or Mattel. Luckily, I have never had any serious problems with any figure.
You mean they should go above and beyond the instructions that come with the figure? I strongly disagree with that. I doubt anyone is slamming the peices together when they go to assemble their figure. We all know by now what kind of shoddy craftsmanship goes into this line by now.
I received my Granamyr. No defects. I don't have a problem with any of the joints. Neither arms pop out when moving. The tail also stays in place and moves very nicely. He's one awesome figure! :hmgrin: