Design flaw

Transformers toys are marvels of modern toy engineering. They change from one form into another, and still manage to be both great vehicle or animal toys and great action figures. Despite that, sometimes there are problems. Because of the complexities in design toys will have common breakage points, or parts that wear down in predictably consistent ways. These are what we refer to as design flaws.

Design flaws aren't just the common ways that toys break, they're also the common ways that toys don't work properly. Sometimes a toy's features aren't quite finished, or don't really work how they're supposed to. Sometimes the way a toy transforms can cause it to break. Sometimes toys just plain aren't what they're supposed to be. That's what design flaws are all about.

Wear Based Looseness

It's perhaps unfair to include this as a design flaw, but it should be touched upon. When a toy is played with frequently the plastics or metals will wear against each other, causing the friction that keeps the joints tight to lessen. This will lead to looseness in the toy's joints. The easiest way to avoid this common malady is simply to not play with a toy. Looseness is often not much of a problem with toys kept on display. A loose-armed G1 Optimus Prime will look much the same as a tightly jointed Optimus Prime. However looseness can be more of a problem for other toys, preventing them from standing, or holding together in their alt mode.

Some toys are particularly prone to looseness not just due to wear but due to design too. Heavy parts on weak joints are a common problem here -- leading to incredibly weak joints that are loose and difficult to use how they were intended.

Ball Joints

Ball joints, which rely entirely on friction to work, are a common victim of wear-based looseness. This can be particularly bad for toys with ball-jointed hips, ankles or legs, making them nearly impossible to stand. Looseness in ball joints can also make it easy to lose parts, such as arms, legs, or kibble panels... oh, or heads... or uhh... well, just about anything on a ball joint.

• Almost all of Beast Wars is afflicted with this problem. Woe to all those kids who grew up on Beast Wars. Good luck having complete toys.
• Generation 2 Cyberjets can be nigh impossible to stand with just a little joint wear, but it's their arms that tend to get especially floppy.

Retractable Thighs

A common method of Transformation in generation one was for the thighs of the toy to retract into the lower legs (or more accurately for the lower legs to push up over the thighs) when in vehicle or beast mode -- then for the thighs to extend while in robot mode. It doesn't take an enormous amount of wear for the thighs to loosen and then they won't be able to stay extended in robot mode. When that happens you'll either have a midget version on display or you'll have to shove a wedge of paper down into the joint to increase the friction to let their thighs stay extended.

This problem can be particularly compounded when a toy has a really heavy upper body. A toy with electronics or metal in his torso will be much more likely to collapse his own knees just due to his weight, time, and wear-and-tear on the toy.

• G1 Special Teams toys are particularly prone to this. Especially the Aerialbots.
• Astrotrain is particularly problematic due to his heavy upper body.
• Sandstorm is also prone to this problem.
• Generation 2 Laser Optimus Prime has a massively heavy upper body and weak knees. It's incredibly common for him to just collapse into Midgetimus Prime.

Clipping issues

Sometimes when designing a Transformer the designers will forget that these things have to work in 3D space. Parts will have to bend around each other or pass through the same space during transformation. Often if you don't do steps in the right order this will lead to parts breaking or snapping. This is particularly problematic when you given the designers the freedom of things like ball joints, where you can use their flexibility to Transform the toy, leading not just to breakages but to toys that are incredibly difficult and frustrating to transform.

Parts breaking off other parts

Especially around late generation 1 there were a few toys where you needed to transform their parts in the right order. If you don't you risk breaking your toy when the parts push against each other causing stress or wear. This problem is a lot less common with modern transformers which use parts that are designed to pop off rather than simply break, if the stresses are too great.

• Generation 1 Skystalker's wings are known to snap quite regularly. This is particularly a problem for his left wing because of the way the base is designed. If you attempt to fold Skystalker's wing down from base mode into its shuttle position before you've folded in the grey box next to it it's very easy to snap the wing due to the edge of the box just touching the wing. The edge of the box is even curved, giving you the visual impression that it won't be a problem. But it will be a problem -- ebay's endless supply of one-winged Skystalker bases says so.
• Animated Lockdown has tabs in his wrists that prevent them from extending into a straight position. Unfortunately these self same tabs act as levers so that if you try to force the hands into a straight position you will simply snap his wrists. Ouch.

Common Breakage Points

Some toys have flimsy plastic, others have joints that are too tight, others have metal pieces wearing on poor plastic pieces. Whatever the case there are often Transformers with predictable, easy to identify, breakage points. Let's have a look at a few types.

Breakable Joints

Joints are very important to Transformers. They're required both for articulation and to allow the toy to change from one form to another. Usually articulation isn't much of a problem -- but sometimes transformation joints put a massive amount of pressure on a small joint that's just not able to keep up with the strain of moving large parts of toy from one place to another. You'll see ebay littered with toys that are victims of these sorts of joints -- the same toy breaking over and over in the same place due to the stresses on a joint.

• Generation 1 Metroplex is particularly bad, with his entire body rotating around a flimsy little waist joint that likes to snap. Loves to snap. Delights in snapping. Reportedly the reissue of Metroplex has made this joint a little bit more robust.
• Transmetal Megatron suffers from a weak plastic used in a very small, tight joint. His waist is so well known for snapping that the fandom has mistakenly though that it was Gold Plastic Syndrome. The fact that the forces involved cause it to ratchet apart doesn't help.
• Armada Megatron's turret has a gearing flaw on the inside. Namely, the ratcheting joint simply... breaks, eventually. The ratchet is actually a very small and relatively flimsy gear that is attached to the rotating handle. When the handle is locked in place, high stress is placed on the gear and tends to make it snap somewhere between the teeth and become loose or just fall off and rattle around inside Megatron.
• All four Action Master Elite figures (Omega Spreem, Windmill, Turbomaster, and Doublepunch) are prone to roughly the same problem as Armada Megatron, in that the gears used to drive their gimmicks are not made of strong enough plastic to last very long. Many an Elite can be found with a half a neon plastic gear rattling around inside.

Clear Plastic Breakage

Common especially for Diaclone-based toys, which have hinged clear plastic parts that are very well known for snapping or breaking.

• Generation 1 Prowl's roof is particularly prone to this problem.
• A number of Beast Machines toys, such as Deluxe Optimus Primal and Skydive, use clear plastic for tight pinned joints. These generally break without careful use.
• Robots In Disguise Prowl's clear plastic car doors are mounted on a balljoint. Unfortunately, clear plastic is not usually malleable enough to withstand the constant pressure and tends to break, especially if the door is accidentally dislodged from the joint.

Mismolded Parts

Sometimes, just sometimes, a toy comes out of the factory with a part not working quite the way it should. While fairly rare in comparison to other problems, it does happen maybe once or twice a decade.

• Generation 1 Skystalker's right wing usually has a mismolded socket that is the too small to deal with one of the pegs to which it is supposed to snap on. This means the wing's joint ends up bent, showing white stress marks, or just straight up broken. As such, unbroken right wings are hard to come by. Poor guy can't win.
• Destructicon Bludgeon suffered from severe mold wear when G2 Hero Megatron's mold was brought back into use again, leading to mismolded panels on the backs of either shoulder. The panels are molded twice as thick as they should be and prevent the turret of the tank mode from forming properly.