40th Anniversary Haslab: RID2001 Omega Prime

Looks like Hasbro is sending out letters to people who have contacted them about their issues saying they will be sending replacement Prime's later this year. I finally opened mine this morning and no cracking issues so I did the fix .

I guess I need to try the fix on mine as he will not slide down without considerable force

Are they sending out a whole Prime? Just the core robot? Because if the latter, I wonder if I could get one to display both Super and Omega Prime at the same time.

The Mighty Mollusk said:

Are they sending out a whole Prime? Just the core robot? Because if the latter, I wonder if I could get one to display both Super and Omega Prime at the same time.

Click to expand...

I think its just the core robot

I doubt it's just the core robot since the whole fire truck was packaged together as one unit in the box.

Sabrblade said:

I doubt it's just the core robot since the whole fire truck was packaged together as one unit in the box.

Click to expand...

What's more expensive? Running off thousands of armor/trailer sets, or designing some new shipping package for just the core bot?

I'd lean towards the latter, but I genuinely don't know.

Undead Scottsman said:

What's more expensive? Running off thousands of armor/trailer sets, or designing some new shipping package for just the core bot?

I'd lean towards the latter, but I genuinely don't know.

Click to expand...

I would think the entire front and back of the fire truck would be gangmolded together, but now I'm wondering if they would even bother making new packaging instead of just wrapping whatever they send out in protective bubble wrap and styrofoam inside a standard cardboard shipping box.

I'd assume it'll be packed a bit more securely than that. They've irritated people enough with such a major QC problem already, they won't want to risk sending out more broken figures.

Sorry, that's what I meant as packaging.

They are absolutely not going to design a new fancy box with artwork for this; at best we'll either get a secure cardboard inset, inside a nondescript box, inside another nondescript box, or a duplication of the fire convoy box from the Haslab.

I still need to check mine...

The box won't be pretty but I expect it will be sturdy enough. If Hasbro wants to do more crowdfunded items like this, and if they want to get into made-to-order stuff, doing a quality job with this replacement is worth every penny.

The costs of figuring out entirely new packaging and how to selectively cast only the base robot parts out of the molds that in all likelihood contain both super mode and base robot parts would probably outweigh just making the entire Optimus package. I think it's most likely we're getting a modified version of the Optimus box and its contents. It wouldn't be out of the question for them to cast the entire molds, use the base robot parts and recycle the super mode parts for plastic, but with a relatively small run like this, I'm not sure it'd be worth the trouble.

I'm tickled by the thought of them bothering to print off entirely new packaging. Mainly the idea of the box art being tweaked so that Fire Convoy is holding a little sign that says "sorry about that uwu".

Sending out entirely new sets would be hilarious because AFAIK Ultra Magnus was fine... it's just Optimus who has potential issues. Meaning that if they send out entirely new sets there's going to a massive imbalance between available functional Optimusi and available functional Magni

they screwed up the white plastic in Ultra Magnus so that some parts have a fluorescent white additive and others don't. It's easier to see under certain light conditions (people mistook it for yellowing on the non-fluorescent parts).

Plus the wing posts can stick so hard the blue plastic will start prying up and bending before they will extend or retract. I had that happen on mine, I had to sand the posts.

Edit: It's not too late to report yours if it has an issue, I did for my Optimus with the impossible-to-move waist (I took a sanding file to it) and they asked for pictures, numbers, etc, and then sent me the same form letter about a "replacement figure (not full replacement product)" backordered to be shipped Fall 2025, and that I don't have to return my existing Optimus Prime core robot.

So far my fix seems to have worked, if it continues to hold up I may just stash the new core for backup since it's the main load-bearing part of the entire assembly, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of pictures of yellow home repaints with faint cracks in the abdomen popping up shortly online.

For packaging, I remember getting Robot Points mail-aways in the 80's that just arrived in a brown box with the instructions. I would expect this would be similarly utilitarian.

Edit to Edit: I'm also feeling better about what I did NOT do. Looks like Hasbro is also saying to some that if you purchased 3rd Party (like ebay) they void any warranty or the like, and so they do not provide parts or such. I had originally considered just selling it as-is, but didn't as I didn't want to leave someone hanging if that was the case, possibly sell a broken toy, or worse, have to sort out replacements as a go-between which would rapidly stop being worth the time for the money. Looks like I made the right call.