Man these Garlands suck!

[Lonely Soldier Boy]

I received my replacement part for my Garland today. It came in a big box ala Christmas Story's "Great Reward" . I looked in that box and after a couple of minutes found the part. It's the whole shoulder/wheel/arm attachment and the die-cast swing bar to boot. I was just expecting the upper arm assembly but I'm more than satisfied! Props to Garner for his help!

Now it's time for some minor surgery to the Garland!

Hey gerwalk, did you find any difference in the set, beside the shoulder being made from another plastic?

Are the bar and the wheel the same?

[Scream Man]

they seem to be. the shoulders are the only parts that are new as far as i can see.

[gerwalk25]

Hey gerwalk, did you find any difference in the set, beside the shoulder being made from another plastic?

Are the bar and the wheel the same?

Yup. It' looks pretty much the same plus the plastic feels solid and sturdy. Once I replaced the shoulder it's good as new and now when I transform it I'm being extra cautious .

[mpchi]

Actually, there are more differences on the new shoulders. Here are a few things I spotted:

1. The piece that prone to crack or shatter is now in a slightly darker grey plastic. The shape from the outside seems identical to the old, but the plastic is darker than the old piece, as well as darker than any other grey pieces around it. Hope that means Yamato use some tougher plastic to re-mold this piece.

2. The yellow sidemarker (tiny front yellow clear light in bike mode) is positioned slightly different, now flush with the inner edge of the grey piece it sits on, now touching the wheel in bike mode.

3. The robot mode shoulder joint between the wheel & the breakage piece has one less click on the ratchet. It now only clicks/locks all the way up with the shoulder tilting upwards(look better with a higher shoulder). The old shoulders has one more click/lock position when the shoulder is more horizontal (a position where a lot of the Yamato official pics were positioned) which make the shoulders lower.

Not sure why it came packaged in a huge box stuffed, when teh shoulder parts are pretty small. The surgery is pretty straight forward, though the white bicep piece can be tricky. If you don't position the halves correctly (even though they look like its the same size on both ends and can pair up either way), you get a big gap you can't really close up when you screw them together. Try not to redo this too many times, or your threads will be worn out for good.

With the new shoulders, it still feels very breakable on the shoulders, as I can't really tell how much stress the new piece can really take, so can't really bend the arms like I would on a normal action figure. Has to be careful and use my fingers to 'help' it out of the click/lock position to transform.but if it last, at least I can treat it as a fragile display piece, but not a broken piece of crap. Its a very nicely designed figure afterall.

[Scream Man]

axctually, mine arrvied ina huge box also.

[Graham]

axctually, mine arrvied ina huge box also.

Wadda ya expect, this is Yamato afterall, they of the huge box fetish.

Graham

[Lonely Soldier Boy]

2. The yellow sidemarker (tiny front yellow clear light in bike mode) is positioned slightly different, now flush with the inner edge of the grey piece it sits on, now touching the wheel in bike mode.

I've checked on my Garland and only on of the yellow clear pieces you're referring to sits flush on the shoulder. After closer inspenction I found out that the piece on the left shoulder was assembled backwards.

Edit: By the way, both of my shoulders can barely hold the arm extended sideways without the gun (on the right shoulder, the wheel even falls off from the magnet when I put the arm in this position). Is the new shoulder assembly tighter? I hope my replacements come with strong magnets.

Edited March 31, 2007 by Lonely Soldier Boy

[Scream Man]

i dont know if its stronger, but mine can hold its arm out sideways with no hassle.

[Kin]

If they put metal parts into those weak areas... none of this would happen. The hard financial reality of toy industries.....

[Lonely Soldier Boy]

i dont know if its stronger, but mine can hold its arm out sideways with no hassle.

Thanks, SC. Good news.

[EXO]

wow, I read this thread 4 days ago and decided to email them. I got the package yesterday

that was quick!

[jenius]

did you get a reply before the box? I sent an email a while back with my address and everything and haven't heard anything back.

Edited April 3, 2007 by jenius

[EXO]

nope, just noticed it in my house this morning before I left for work. No emails, no nothing...

[Ginrai]

I still have gotten no reply whatsoever from Yamato, nor have I gotten any package. I guess they don't like me.

[Scream Man]

Did u email Garner directly?

[GobotFool]

maybe it got lost in the giant pile of emails he must be getting regarding the part? E-mail him directly again.

[jenius]

Jeebus, I got mine today too. Yep, no response from Yamato first just a GIANT box full of styrofoam. I seriously had to go searching through the styrofoam before I finally felt the tiny bumps at the bottom which were the new shoulders. I'm stoked!

[Ginrai]

I emailed info@yamatotoysusa.com and when they didn't respond there after a few days, I emailed Garner directly, who also did not respond. I guess I will wait a couple of more days and then try again.

[Ginrai]

Okay, I have still not received any kind of response to either email at either address, nor have I received replacement shoulders for my Garland. That's 19 days with no reply from the info@yamatotoysusa.com email address, and 14 days from when I emailed Garner directly about my Garland with no reply.

Is there some kind of secret password to get my replacement shoulders?

Edited April 10, 2007 by Ginrai

[GobotFool]

Okay, I have still not received any kind of response to either email at either address, nor have I received replacement shoulders for my Garland. That's 19 days with no reply from the info@yamatotoysusa.com email address, and 14 days from when I emailed Garner directly about my Garland with no reply.

Is there some kind of secret password to get my replacement shoulders?

You must tell them they are the greatest toy company to ever exist. JK

Sorry to hear about your bad luck, I really don't get whats wrong. I got a response 2 days after I complained....

[Scream Man]

Yeah i'm not sure mate. Maybe attach a flag so u know if the message has been recieved and read?

I'll try n email Garner tonight about it. I havent chatted to him in a few weeks anyway.

[jenius]

My email went directly to Garner and was extremely basic, it just said "Hey, my shoulders broke but I liked my Garland otherwise. I heard you can get me new and improved shoulders. My address is blah blah blah."

I'm guessing Ginrai that he got several emails in, put in requests for shoulders, and yours either got erroneously checked as having been a request that was satisfied (since he apparently doesn't respond via email) or that he actually did send a request and a shipping person sent yours to some other address.

[Sam]

Hm, I emailed Garner, didn't get an actual reply, hit the 'send again' button, and he replied saying 'I have sent it out, have a great weekend' so it was heaps good! It arrived super quick to, being in Australia was even more impressed!

Im thinking that jenius hit the nail on the head, in that he prob had several requests, but definatly a nice bloke who will look after you =)

(still amazed at the shipping box size.I guess they buy them in bulk! but did anyone else notice, the shipping only cost just under $3USD! )

[Ginrai]

Well, I sent another email, so I guess we will see what happens.

[Ignacio Ocamica]

Well, I sent another email, so I guess we will see what happens.

Better luck this time

After months of transforming my Garland it's still holding fine. Should I let it just for display in case it breaks?

No matter how gently I treat it , will it snap

[GobotFool]

Is there going to be a second run? with transforming toys I normally buy two, one for each mode. I don't want the messed up 1st run. I'd rather get a 2nd edition with all the fixes.

[Macross73]

1/2 off at HLJ

clearance

http://www.hlj.com/product/YMT33967

[GobotFool]

1/2 off at HLJ

clearance

http://www.hlj.com/product/YMT33967

I have a feeling those are going to be on clearance for a loooong time :-p

[drifand]

I have a feeling those are going to be on clearance for a loooong time :-p

That, sir, is truth.

[Fit For Natalie]

Reading various horror stories about Yamato products (particularly first releases) here, I've always wondered why a manufacturer of such expensive collectors toys have such a poor quality control and design record? Isn't it bad business sense (not to mention costly) to not extensively test the product for flaws first before approving it for manufacture? This would save them millions of yen in replacement toys, replacement parts and redesigning the figures further to iron out flaws.

Just does not seem to be very logical, especially as I would figure a primary market of older collectors would be much less forgiving than say, collectors of a children's toyline.

[jenius]

It's all in the economics Fit For Natalie. Yamato has a budget for failure (as all companies do), be it goods that are destroyed in shipping or goods that are unsatisfactory and returned. Yamato also has a name it needs to keep in the consumer's minds and so they rely on fairly prompt delivery of toys (scheduling of releases has multiple variables). The bare minimum amount of time that is deemed necessary is used to pressure test new products because, in today's environment, extensive design testing is done via computer on computer models. So, Yamato accepts that some products won't be up to snuff, accepts that they will spend very little time actually handling prototypes and first-runs, and anticipates that their computerized evaluations would have revealed any significant issues. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong. I think their audience has also proven to be quite patient which can't be a good thing. Any situation like this is a bit of a gamble but believe me, they've done the math to determine what they feel is the most profitable amount of effort to invest in every step of the process and the most profitable route rarely coincides with the perfect route for the end consumer.

Edited April 11, 2007 by jenius

[Fit For Natalie]

Too bad then that they can't test toys the old fashioned way like Hasbro and Takara. Of course, Hasbro and Takara make far fewer collector-focused products.

And of course, Hasbro mass produces low-cost products on a near constant basis, so they always have a presence in their markets, and can afford to take the time to test their products for wear and tear.

Edited April 11, 2007 by Fit For Natalie

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

Too bad then that they can't test toys the old fashioned way like Hasbro and Takara. Of course, Hasbro and Takara make far fewer collector-focused products.

And of course, Hasbro mass produces low-cost products on a near constant basis, so they always have a presence in their markets, and can afford to take the time to test their products for wear and tear.

Take into account that Yamato is a much smaller company that focuses primarily on older collectors, whereas hasbro and takara cater also to kids and have exponentially larger production runs. Not to mention both companies are large by themselves, and Takara is also said to be buying out 2 rival companies in japan.

Yamato is much smaller but for a small company, they do venture out to do mecha the bigger companies would probably overlook.

With that said however, I too wish more time was spent on discovering possible defects and breakages. These things don't come cheap.

[EXO]

There's no excuse to putting out defective products no matter how small the company is. The excused used is the high price. But getting both defective and expensive is ridiculous. Broken toys are trash... I don't want to spend any money on trash.

[GobotFool]

What I find really disapointing is that up to the scopedog yamato's QC was going up, but right after that it seems to have taken a sharp dive. I myself didn't have any major problems with my VF-zero, but my garland kept falling apart in my hands and even without the breakage factor the 19 had enough small minor errors that added up to one big annoyance. Though crappy quality seems to be the general trend in the industry, as Takatomy has also been churning out some toys of questionable quality as well, with the sloppy paint jobs on MP-3 and MP-5 and cheap plastic. Not as bad as yamato but still, the last few MPs and BTs have certainly been below standard that takara had before the takatomy merger.