How many sets do you buy per year, out of curiosity? I got into Lego during the pandemic and bought around 50 sets in the past three years. Over that sample, the number of missing pieces was precisely zero.
I've also always questioned this. I have purchased about 60 sets in the past 4 years. I have a friend who has purchased well over 100 (he runs a Lego YouTube channel - he spends > $6,000 a year on Lego by his estimation).
I have never had a missing piece. There have been two times when I thought I was missing a piece and then found it stuck in a bag or hidden under another piece. I've never had to write to Lego to get a replacement (which I've heard they are really easy to work with if it does happen).
Out of curiosity, I just texted my friend to get another sample from him and he said it happened to him one time, but also admitted his kids might have been to blame.
So when people claim that every other set they buy has missing pieces, I always feel like I am either the luckiest person to ever live, or maybe the pieces are there and certain people are just more likely to misplace or lose them in the building process.
Yes I was thinking the same thing. Certain factories may have worse quality control, and those sets end up in different regions from sets that come from better production facilities
One thing they do on the big sets is give you extras of the small stuff. Like if you need 10 of a 1x1 tile of a certain color, maybe they give you 11, or even 12.
The biggest limitation to that is that the selection of extra pieces is probably not as random as the set of missing pieces, especially since they focus on smaller pieces - presumably to accommodate the ones you lose after buying a full set.
Perhaps set size is a contributing factor? I've bought two sets over the last few years, and both of them have had a piece missing. One was 1969 pieces (no prizes for guessing which set that is!) and the other 1222 pieces.
Both occasions the pieces weren't structurally important, and were small decorative elements.
I've put together probably 50 sets over the past 5-6 years. I pretty much only buy the largest sets they make, especially Technic. I doubt I have many sets under 1500 pieces.
I've yet to find a single missing piece so far. Many times we thought a piece would be missing, only to find it trying to escape somewhere. The plastic bags carry a pretty heavy static charge in dry winter conditions, and the tiny pieces love to stick inside those in the corners where they somehow turn damn near invisible.
To be honest the quality control is pretty unbelievable. If someone tells me they had 6 sets with missing pieces over the past 5 years my initial reaction would simply be to not believe them as it's so easy to misplace a piece during a 2,000+ piece week-long build. I've misplaced dozens to the point of having to order replacements from ebay or whatnot - only to find the pieces lurking around my house before the new parts even arrive. The joke of the household is you need to order a replacement part and then you'll find what you're missing a few hours later by complete accident.
I've found pieces in the strangest places. If you accidentally sit on one they will basically become one with your flesh, and I've found random pieces floating in the tub completely unexpectedly.
Knocking on wood my luck (and Legos QC) continues.
I have the exact same experience as you. I have build 50+ sets, 10 of them 1500+ piece sets and a few over 3000. I have never had a missing piece. I have had small pieces that was hiding or I dropped on the floor, but never missing. There is always some additional pieces in the set, and I assume it's because they err on the side of being sure.
I have opened and built hundreds of lego sets over the years, and the only missing pieces I’ve ever had were in the Saturn V set. I think they had a QC issue on that set specifically.
I don't have children and I do all sorts of kits besides lego; with even smaller pieces. Either I have bad luck or I am careless. But you'd think with multiple decades under my belt I'd eventually find the "missing" pieces. When it's like a 4x12 left wing, or a 2x1 it starts to get suss.
The only time I ever had a large piece like that missing, it was pretty clear (on afterthought) that the box had been opened in the store before I bought it.
And I've had to return a set or two to Amazon because they'd clearly been opened and returned (and usually all the minifigs stripped out).
Understandable. I am pretty selective when it comes to a kit. Dare I say autistic? Box condition is a consideration, along with down to how I open them. It's noticeable.
My experience is in fact the opposite. I usually buy the larger sets, and have nearly always had left over smaller pieces. It made me worried the first time it happened and I spent the time tracing back through the model only to find I didn't miss anything.
They do precise weighing of bags as a quality control measure. The tiny 1x1 type pieces are more likely to get missed by the weighing so they often add an extra of those pieces to offset a potential loss that might not get noticed when weighing them.
That is why you always get two helmet visors for example when you buy a speed champion. The machine is actually just designed to give you two, because that way if it breaks and misses one, you still have one that you need and it costs them almost nothing to do that. But a missing helmet visor is easy to get missed by the quality control scale. So if you ever buy a speed champion and only get one helmet visor, it is because you lost one or the machine broke. But that's why there's an extra. They do that by design. That's just one example. You see it with magic wands in Harry Potter sets, you always get two, and a lot of sets with 1x1 pieces will always have 1-2 extras just because they are cheap to add in and more likely to get missed in their QA process which weighs the bags.
Every tiny 1x1 piece always comes with an extra. That must be by design.
I think that’s calculated in their cost of doing business. Add one extra of each 1x1 probably eliminated most of the missing parts issue at a fraction of the cost.
> and have nearly always had left over smaller pieces
Almost every Lego set I've ever owned (going back 30+ years to when I used to get Lego) and now my son's Lego recently have all had at least one leftover piece.
I have never had a missing piece. There have been two times when I thought I was missing a piece and then found it stuck in a bag or hidden under another piece. I've never had to write to Lego to get a replacement (which I've heard they are really easy to work with if it does happen).
Out of curiosity, I just texted my friend to get another sample from him and he said it happened to him one time, but also admitted his kids might have been to blame.
So when people claim that every other set they buy has missing pieces, I always feel like I am either the luckiest person to ever live, or maybe the pieces are there and certain people are just more likely to misplace or lose them in the building process.