- Another day, another endemic MOTUC quality control problem. This time it’s a crack on Fearless Photog’s extending lens. Anecdotal evidence suggests three out of four Photogs may have it. Mattel says it wasn’t on the factory samples–which makes me wonder if the factory makes sure to do a good job on the samples, like a chef giving his best work to a food critic. Those of you with experience in such matters–are there any standard checks and balances to make sure that doesn’t happen?
- So if you’ve got a Photog coming, will you go through the hassle of returning it for a replacement that has a 75% chance of also having the crack? I probably won’t, but this is yet another addition to that “Cons” list for signing up for the 2013 subscription.
- How fast do you think McFarlane will push out a Jeremy Lin figure? I say it’s in stores in less than six months.
Poe Ghostal
So–as you may have noticed on my Twitter–my figure has no crack, but the lens absolutely refuses to budge.
JediCreeper
got a crack… but forget it… I'm not going through a million issues for a figure I barely wanted in the first place… he can be battle damaged… I will say, I will probably do exactly as mattel fears and ditch the line, except for cherry picking, once a particular character finally reaches market…
dean
If mine is cracked I may be done with this line. This is getting ridiculous. Tired of fighting this every month. So not worth it anymore. Me and the kiddo will start collecting Legos. Their QC is typically legendary.
Muck Fattel!
Glad you are "so sorry" about this, Guru. I tell my kid that sorry only matters if you are willing to do something about it, or handle it differently next time; otherwise, it is just empty words used to placate and get you off the hook, pain free.
dean
Old post, but have to be fair…got my Photog and he is awesome. One of Mattel/4H's best. I love him.
My Sorceress, though, looks like half her face was smashed in…time to call DR, dangit.
I still hate the smooth abs, but man, Fisto kicks major tucus. Booyah! Way better than I thought he would be. Stll, I may have to figure out how to change out those abs.
toyman
Just checked mine….no crack. Good luck to all who haven't received/checked their's yet. Way to go Mattel, let's give everyone more of a reason to lose all faith in this line.
Doctor Mako
First time I buy a figure from Matty Collector and now I have this to worry about… How do you completionists do it?
Mysterious Stranger
Simple. We drink. A lot. And take our frustrations out on the internet.
Ridureyu
And here's a shot of that MUSCLE in the pic in color: http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y185/Ridureyu/sc…
Ridureyu
It's almost as if they have a guy intentionally cracking the lenses, "to teach 'em a lesson."
My dad used to be part of an assembly line at GM (decades ago!). He saw plenty of other workers do things like toss loose nuts and bolts into doors to make a rattling sound, or rig the windshield so it would eventually crack on its own, just for shits and giggles.
Poe Ghostal
Ugh…that's depressing 🙁
Ridureyu
Yeah, it is. Now, he specifically worked on engine blocks, but he did too good a job, and his boss took him aside and told him to slow down and be a little sloppier, because he made everybody else look bad. Eventually, he'd just walk in, do his allotted quota in half of the day, and then spend the rest of his workday reading and studying, hah.
But you wonder why the American auto industry collapsed?
carl
i wonder how quick TG will be to blame either The Horsemen, or the customers themselves. It couldnt possibly be Mattel’s fault, right?
Be weary of any motu or toy site that doesnt post anything about this serious QC issue…
Dark Angel
…*sigh*.
Nothing else. What’s the point? Just *sigh*. I should find out the condition of mine tomorrow-ish.
Mario
It's kind of funny to me that you've had these struggles, Poe, because both times I've had to deal with a defective product, I've received a replacement both times. Now mind you, on both counts, I had to angrily ask to speak to a supervisor, but in the end, I always received my replacement items.
It's especially surprising given that you have a popular website that highlights the product in question. Mattel should personally be on that. Alas…
Mysterious Stranger
I can tell you that from my experience in manufacturing for an end client that when we pulled samples to send them we always sorted through for the best examples. Why are you going to send them random examples of your work and take the chance something incorrect arrives? That just highlights 1) your poor QC, 2) your lack of attention to detail and 3) that you don't care what kind of product you're putting out as long as you get paid.
I can all but guarantee you that whoever at the factory is pulling the samples to send to Mattel corporate is culling the defective figures and sending only the best examples. Otherwise production would have been halted until a fix was found for the problem and product would have been delayed.
Poe Ghostal
Yeah, that's exactly what I would have thought.
It seems to me test samples would be most useful for making sure the figure is being assembled correctly (i.e., catching reversed shoulders, though they didn't do a great job on that either). But QC issues would have to be assessed by checking actual production samples early in the process.
As for delays, at this point I'll take a delay over a defective product, especially on an expensive line like MOTUC.
Mysterious Stranger
Exactly. Samples sent to the end client should be representative of the majority of the production run. Errors and damage does occur but should be few and far between. If the damage on Photog is as widespread as reported then that's an issue that should have been caught at the factory. Clearly the factory isn't doing their full job here. They should be catching errors like this and fixing them, not pulling the best figures to send to Mattel and passing them off as how the whole production run came out.
My question now becomes, does Mattel have a representative at the factory monitoring production? Or do they rely on the factory to do that themselves?
Southxen
Mattel is wearing me out. I’ll get the subscription, but it is mostly out of laziness that I don’t want to deal with Matttcollector once a month.