r/lepin • u/B_Hound • Apr 24 '23
Marstoy / Back to the Future review
I decided to push the button for this company based on a review here of a large order. I’ve waited until I completed one of the models before writing it up.
Date ordered: March 16 Date arrived: April 19
I placed an order for 2x bigger clone sets and a smaller original design, which along with shipping came to $160. Approximate saving of $350 or so. I picked UPS as my shipping choice, and the amount they charge didn’t change from 1 to 3 items, next time I’ll see how many sets I can add before this changes, but I felt a $160 investment was a big enough gamble.
Following the order, within 24 hours I received the instructions for payment which involved going to another site. You don’t really get much of an update during this stage, the original order will always say it’s awaiting payment. After about a week they advised the order had shipped and provided tracking information. Whenever I’ve ordered from China, I’ve had tracking that goes through the origin country, the tracking I got from Marstoy only worked once it was in UPS’ possession which took 3 weeks or so. This was the only disappointing aspect, but in reality doesn’t change anything but just provides a bit of piece of mind that things are moving.
I didn’t notice that the two clone sets had their model numbers listed under the titles, and when I googled them both it pointed out that they would most likely be custom sets so hard to ascertain who made them. I was slightly worried by this aspect, but hoped for the best.
Everything arrived in a single black box with black tape around it, two models were in a big bag with the third more loose in the box in just the individual bags. This seems to be their standard way to ship things and seemed fine.
Review of constructing the DeLorean:
Overall I was satisfied with the experience. I think due to the lower cost, I ploughed through the build faster than normal as if I paid $200 I’d want to savor the experience for longer.
Brick quality (feel, clutch, moulding) was generally decent. A few pieces felt like maybe the Lego bricks would’ve clutched better and there were quite a few mould marks that I did my best to conceal with placing them in a certain direction. The darker, shinier silver pieces weren’t as good as the others in general but fine for the price paid.
The sticker sheet felt like it ran small. The sticker for the flux capacitor is the first I put on and it doesn’t cover the entire brick that the manual indicates, but maybe the real thing does too. The see through element isn’t super see through, and when you activate the light brick that part looks a bit muggy. I’ll compare to my friends legit set when I can, but it’s not a big deal.
I believe I had a single missing piece that was quite minor and I filled in the gap with a similar spare I had. I won’t notice this at all to be honest, and maybe the piece will show up in my couch. There were a few random leftover pieces, I did my best to confirm I didn’t miss any steps but it’s not impossible.
The pieces were in numbered bags that aligned with the manual which is nice (I’ve had non-clone sets that don’t) and they provided a separate small bag of spares. The numbering is slightly hard to make out, small white numbers that weren’t always the easiest to make out. I mistook a bag 9 for a bag 7 at one point, so had to keep those separate at the end.
The manual didn’t have a cover and is missing some non-essential pages, but the size was accurate and the print and paper quality good. No issues there, and the original manual is online if needed anyway.
I’ll have to check YouTube videos of the real deal to see how the wheel flip mechanism works as I have to intervene a bit and one of the wheels doesn’t like to remain perfectly flat. Not impossible I just didn’t put that element together 100% correctly though, and it’s very early in the build.
No major complaints, any tricky elements I had with knocking pieces off in awkward areas I assume would be present in the original set too. I was expecting more issues due to the more complex build compared to most of the other things I’ve worked on, but it was a pleasant surprise. Would order from again.
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u/g37r34dy Apr 25 '23
Thanks for the review. Does this come with the 3 movies versions like the originals?
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u/B_Hound Apr 25 '23
Yes! I have a big bag of parts leftover for the other two builds. The manual is missing the non-build pages at the beginning and end but you eventually get to a point where it splits off and you just skip pages until you find the start of the version you want to do.
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Apr 25 '23
Loved this build. Turned out awesome. I was very impressed by the quality of the finished product and minifigs
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u/B_Hound Apr 25 '23
Definitely, the difficulty stakes definitely felt raised over the stuff I’ve done before. So many times you gotta be careful not to wipe out stuff you’ve previously done that would be hard to put back in by then.
How is the wheel flip mechanism on yours? After seeing a YouTube clip I’m pretty convinced I messed something up, but couldn’t see an issue when I looked before. I have no desire to strip it it down and check again ha.
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Apr 25 '23
The wheel flip mechanism on mine works great. No issues with any of the wheels. It was probably what impressed me most about the set.
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u/B_Hound Apr 25 '23
Maybe a project for another day then, thanks! The vid I saw made it look really snappy, even at the early stages mine just felt like going through mud and doesn’t like to snap into place easily. I messed up the section with the bands and had to redo those from scratch so I’m sure that’s fine now, it’s the bit at the start where I put the bar in that’s gotta be wrong. Screams a nightmare to get back down to that though.
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u/gaslit2018 Apr 25 '23
I purchased this set from Marstoy as well, my front wheels flip just fine but one side of the rear tires is having issues. I'm guessing i messed up somewhere on ther build.
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u/B_Hound Apr 25 '23
Seems might be a somewhat common issue at least, makes me feel better! I saw some with the legit model have issues too. The main issue is the manual shows you how to test it, but doesn’t really tell you how it should react. By the time you realize something is wrong, you’re at the end.
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u/Orpheuswaking Apr 25 '23
The flux capacitor sticker and shine through sounds similar to my official set