Quality control?????????????

[Sir Gareth]

I'm, beginning to wonder now if there is any Quality control at the Playmobil factories, sure Playmo's profits are up but are we getting poor quality products and service.

For those who took time to read my review on the Roman arena 4270 you might remember the problems I had with five of the figures in that set, 2 of them slouched and the 3 Gladiators hadn't been painted correctly.

I contacted Playmobil about these problems not long after the post mid December and got a reply within a day about replacements. I had to give them further information about where I purchased the set and then waited until mid Feb to contact them again to get an update because nothing had arrived. The original email address to the Person that I was dealing with is no longer recognized so I guess that person has moved on. So I recent the email back to Playmobil UK and explained what had happened about 4 weeks ago and so far I have not had a reply.
 I'm not in any desperate hurry to get these figures replaced but there is a limit to my Patience and since my last email seems to have been ignored I'm getting a bit annoyed with them.
 UK's customer service seems to work OK when they are taking your money from you but when you have a problem they don't seem to want to know.

Since the arena I have had other defective figures.
 
4651 Cleopatra special, printed face not aligned with the mouth.

4409 Ritter Christopher exclusive, again the flesh on the beggar figure not enough flesh paint on the shoulder the blue shows through.

4654 Pirate special bought Sunday The 4th March no paint for the stockings and brown shoe paint over sprayed on the left leg.

So In the last 3 moths that's 8 defective figures from the 2006/2007 Playmo range and to be honest with you all I'm getting really ****** off with it.


So what has happened to  Quality control and Customer service if anybody has any answers I will be pleased to hear them.

[Outback]

Unreal Garry.

Question; does this all seem to stem back to when PLM went further into the general overall printed method of colour and details as opposed to stickers and minor printing?

I had always thought the figures were molded in their colours, not painted. That pic you posted is the first time I have ever noticed that the feet are printed.

Maybe the printing process is a mistake on PLM's part? Now I am goig to be examining all my new stuff for defects.

Something has definately gone awry.

[playmofire]

Yes, I'm surprised too that the legs and shoes here are printed rather than moulded in the other colour.  Are you sure they're printed?  Would you be willing to cut the right leg off to check for us?

[arab warrior]

Oh wait just a minute!!
Before anyone takes up a hacksaw and starts to cut of legs
The brown from the shoes has to stop at the shoes and the pirate is wearing some kind of stockings in a orange colour between the trousers and shoes.
So this is definitely a misprint!!

Rob

[cachalote]

 
i have gone through my recent buys.
nothing wrong with them except for the 4662 pirate.
 
it has a printing problem - his printed chest color doesn't quite match his head color (which is not printed, i think).
i think this is not a quality control problem - i guess this problem will appear in all these sets. i think this is rather a production design problem.
i can see the "printed" road playmobil is taking is a difficult one.
it is not a serious problem yet but i hope they can do a better job next time.
 

[Sir Gareth]

Well, I have conducted a few tests on this pirates legs and the problem seems to be a mold problem.

The blue is one colour plastic and the brown is also plastic, no paint at all.

I took a craft knife to the legs and scraped several areas of both colours, if it was paint then I would have quickly removed it. Even what looks like over spray on that triangular part on the left leg is solid brown plastic, I know this because I cut a piece out.

So my theory is that the right leg moulded Ok but for some reason the left leg didn't get enough blue plastic in the first place. The brown plastic then filled up what should have been blue and If you look again at that leg you will see the plastic is speckled, maybe air bubbles in it. As for why they didn't go ahead and paint the stockings on this leg is still a bit of a mystery. 

[Jettix2]

...I've had TWO Light Kit As that were missing the same light switch piece between Oct and Dec of 2006.......not sure if it was a bad batch or what, but it's certainly frustrating, I just got replacement pieces YESTERDAY!

Ben

[Sir Gareth]

Just a quick update on my faulty figures.

 I received a package this week from Playmobil Germany that contained my replacement gladiators for my arena. Now if some of you can remember the problem with them was that the flesh paint on the torso's hadn't been put on evenly and the under colour showed through. I was a bit surprised to find the replacement figures in the package have the same faults  as my originals.   

 The other odd thing is that I received other figures and accessories in the same parcel that I did not even require replacing. In fact it almost looks like I have received somebody's DS order but the invoice that came with it has a 0 value ammount. 

I have decided not to have another go at replacing these figures from Playmobil but I might have a word with a seller from Malta to see if they can get any perfect ones for me.

[Tiermann]

Any chance that the figure bag was one right out of a set? I can see them just grabbing the right complete bag and shipping it off without actually going over the contents

[Customizer]

Hi,

i collect figures with wrong things !
If you want to change it with the same complete Figure tell me , please !
Or if you want to sell !

gentle greets

Andi