Broken pieces in kits - are the manufacturers ever any good?

[Guest]

Have popped an email off to Revell (.de) after I just opened up a 1:72 P-47D-30 Thunderbolt to find that the nose piece is fairly fubar-ed (fin-type bits mostly been detached, piece itself already off the sprue). Can't actually remember where I got the kit from (been a while) so that avenue is closed off.

Can I expect any response at all from Revell, and if so what's the best case scenario in people's experience? Are any kit manufacturers better than others when it comes to this sort of problem? (For future reference...)

Not made a model in a while and was looking forward to bashing this one together to get myself back into it so a bit fed up now!

[Guest]

Rob, you should get a positive response from Revell. A while ago I opened the same model as you (kit number 04155) to find a clear part missing from the sprue (front section of canopy). Revell supplied me with the whole sprue but it did take a while though. They responded to my email in 2 days, but the sprue took about 5 weeks to appear.

cheers

Mark

[Guest]

Airfix are pretty good at part replacement. I had to get a couple of new parts for the severn class lifeboat and got replacements back within 3 days of emailing. Also have an Academy M2 Bradley with a missing wheel and light cluster, can't find any contact details for replacement parts for that other than the distributor listed on their website who i emailed and got it sent back as an undelivered email. As for Revell, i have no experience of missing parts yet

[Guest]

Hi Rob, I've had a couple of experiences contacting revell about missing/incorrect parts, what I found is if the kit you need parts for is still in production they will send you out replacements. Unfortunately even though both times the kits were purchased recently the kits were out of production, so they couldn't help!!!!

Cheers, Andrew

[Guest]

Thanks you guys, appreciate this. Will keep my fingers crossed, and by the looks of it I may have to get another little kit to get me back into it. I've got a half-started Eduard Lavochkin from last autumn but almost feel I need to have a new "thing" to have a go at and come back to that when I'm back into the groove! Oh dear, forced to buy more things, that will never do! :-)

[Guest]

Update on this - got a letter from Revell today (or might've been yesterday, been away!) acknowledging my enquiry and that it has been passed onto the distribution centre for actioning. Will take 4-6 weeks but pretty happy with the speed with which they've at least made it known they're doing something about it, nice one!