Not gonna lie, I bought an F1 car kit and they are about 95% accurate to LEGO bricks, just a couple loose pins and the other bricks integrate without issues. It cost $50 and was a great build, looks more accurate than the Merc or McLaren.
As an engineer, 95% accuracy to the actual Lego pieces, hurts my soul, because I've used Lego pieces to teach people on process control since their stuff is so well produced. :D
The issue with these compatible bricks brands is that the quality level is very inconsistent within the same manufacturer and worse across manufacturers, and you'll never find out whether you picked a good or bad one until you spend your money and put your hands on the pieces. I actually like that some of these companies have moved away from knocking off independent designers and do their own models but the build quality is so inconsistent I am still sticking to Lego all times
@@lorenzodenardo1860 Yes! That's why I use Lego parts to teach about process control, which is all about consistency in manufacturing, the first part off the line is as good as the last part off the line for any given run!
US$4 price is for Chinese people who earns like US$500 per month compared to your US$3000 per month salary. So the quality is super for this price for chinese people. Therefore don't be too quick to say it is bad. It is NOT Lego and they never said it was Lego. But to a chinese kid in China (many of them), this is a great toy to receive.
i have bought lots of unofficial lego sets over the years (mainly rifle replicas) and if i can give any tips to others who are considering getting a set that's not official Lego, here is my heads up: [i will refer to official legos as officials and unofficial lego sets as UO] • *make sure it is a set you really want and REALLY want to complete.* everyone has had remorse building a (official) Lego set due to not wanting to spend more time to finish. best part is officials make it easy to pick up where you left off; it doesn't help UO's case when the instructions "booklet" (sometimes they email you a pdf of instructions) is not as easy as it should be to figure out what piece needs to be added or where it goes on the build step. I have also spent two continuous days building a large UO set so you can imagine how sick of building legos i was after i was finished. (Surprising even to me who has played with legos his whole life) • i cannot stress this enough, *make sure you have you big lego piece bucket handy.* some UO's I've received have had pieces missing. not to mention how they all are one color so it blends in. you remember how i said it took me 2 days to build a large UO's? Half of one day in total was spent looking for that *one* piece to finish the step, which it was either A. hidden underneath hundreds of similar pieces or B. simply not included making me more frustrated than necessary and the easy fix was to dig in my Lego box for that one piece. • *your set WILL have some pieces that were poorly sculpted cut or made.* not a terribly bad feature but in some cases it can compromise your build, some studs have little to no friction holding them in place when two pieces are put together. all in all, if you get past the obstacles then you will have a great Lego set that Lego themselves did not release. which is worth it for those supercars or those bolt action rifle replicas and loads of fun to play with the features they provide. Thanks for reading if you did, i hate long comments on UA-cam too. I hope this helps a lot of builders out there🕋🧠
I found in my local toy shop brand Rastar. I bought Creator Expert/Icons set(Pagani Zonda Cinque) for 50 euros with 1024 parts. Very good parts quality, some custom parts for this set and every details are printed(without stickers). Very good compatibility with Lego parts, so example wheels from this set won't have problem in Lego MOC, if you will want custom wheels for better look. Sometimes buying on internet, special cheap bricks sets is like cat in bag, you don't know, what you buy, parts quality in specific price. Example my first Lepin set had bad quality, parts hadn't same quality, but if you didn't look on details, look like original Lego set(I bought cheaper version HP Hogwarts castle from second serie) + stickers on transparent background, perfect fit with parts color.
rastar is a reputable brand of affordable diecast. they probably chose a ok parts suppler. problem with knockoff lego is you don't know what quality you are getting. I have a $40 gt3rs, it comes in the red/white color scheme, which lego don't have. it assembles just fine but the complex gear box would never work, original lego is already stiff enough.
... but it of no use. The really cheap stuff will vary in quality from batch to batch, as they will source everywhere and anywhere to get the cheapest parts. Don't think they're losing money at $24, it's Lego being heavily overpriced that skews your judgement.
I bought some clone building sets (non-Technic) from China (non-Temu). One was pretty good. One was good enough. Neither have been disappointing. Neither have been LEGO quality either. The one you built is pretty bad. I think your sentiment is correct. We shouldn’t accept poor quality just because it’s cheap. I learned that with hand tools. By the same token, you don’t always need to go top-shelf to find quality.
Regarding hand tools I have heard of a tactic that seems good: "buy the cheap ones first, then once you break it you buy a good one." That makes it so the tools you use the most will be good quality, while you haven't "wasted" your money on stuff you hardly use.
I have 2 fake legos already, FORD F150 and WALL-E both were good quality and pretty cheap the ford was 20$ and Wall-E about 7$. I like lego and would buy them, but 150$ for a plastic car is too much for me.
@@ArbiterGP We know. We just don't want to spend that much when there's an alternative... Especially when a lego technic set is ⅓ of the minimum wage in my country
@@ArbiterGP Cada, Bluebrixx, Mega, Cobi are very good alternatives to lego. not to mention that they surpass lego in quality in many places. most obvious is the piece color quality which lego really is known to be very bad at.
2:50 These numbers are probably from the mould from the injection moulding machine. I work as a injection moulder, and we have those tiny numbers on our moulds aswell. Those numbers are the cavity numbers. If you, for example, take a sample to check if the parts are good, you'll automatically check if there are all cavities (all numbers, for example 1-8) in that sample. If there is a number missing, there could be something wrong with the mould or moulding machines settings.
Their app is mandatory if one wants a max discount, not to mention all data those Chinese are collecting. NO THX! Free or cheap cheese is found only in a trap!
I've bought 2 different Lamborghinis from Aliexpress, which definitely share origins with this model. So far I've been quite satisfied, as they look nice and can be motorized (instructions included, motors package optional or being-your-own, wireless 2.4GHz bluetooth or proprietary). I have them on display, because I like the non-concept Lamborghinis. Ah, for the first car I had to change the wheels to my own (later ordered rims with a matching yellow-orange color) because they were interfering with some parts of the frame and steering. The second car (with a tri-beam headlight) was much better. And interestingly, it actually offered two appearances: completely black or stickered "cyberpunk" theme with neon cyan-blue-purple-magenta. Sticker guide was included but it had the model and the stickersheet a little different from what I assembled, but nothing major.
I would like to note that I am living in Russia, and even though official lego sets are available unofficially here, they are still expensive. Aliexpress offers a lot, but you gamble with quality of the product.
@@JTCF "Aliexpress offers a lot, but you gamble with quality of the product." Yeah, and if you know what to get you can get great deals. I bought some extremely powerful, nice and sleek, flashlight for like $20. Convoy S2+ if anyone's interested.
TBH this kind of Legos is a god sent for people living in the third world country, where average monthly salary goes for $328. Some Bootleg kits are actually decent, example the bootleg version of the lego ferrari daytona sp3, theres even a video about comparing the two sets which is shocking how the quality rivals that of the more expensive one, which is not even 1/3rd of the price.
And we in the “3rd world” countries could care less about those capitalist copyrights. As long as the price is cheap and the quality is not far from Lego, we would gladly buy it. And to be honest, living close to China really helps with the prices of these sets and the quality is getting closer and close to the original thing each day.
I’ve ordered lots of “Lego” from Alliexpress, and with one exception they’ve always turned out to be great. The one exception was down to parts not fitting well which can easily be sorted by ordering a few parts from bricklink
Not gonna lie, on my birthday l bought a radio-controlled" lego" car from Temu and it ended up pretty good, the instructions were clear, nothing was falling apart. It was and is a really good set. For 50 bucks- 56 cm radio controlled car whit a decent quantity. I am fully into it!
I have a lot of temu "lego" mostly trains and city stuff, the technic stuff from them is not great and tend to be very lose. The main problem is a lack of quality control, so i have gotten sets that are missing critical pieces, but i have a huge collection of lego bricks so it has never been a big deal, it is just a risk i take.
@@simonsvahn9834 I'm not sure if there is much difference there between the fake Lego or the "Made in China" products in the store unfortunately. Like you would hope that companies actually made sure their overseas worker had it decent, but they often chose to turn a blind eye.
I bought two sets from Temu. Darn cheap. One was the copy of the Orchid set by Lego and the other one was coffee shop. Both cost around 15-20 bucks. The quality of orchid was 6 out of 10, and the coffee house was 8 out of 10 (10 being the Lego standard.) The experience was really good, but sometimes especially the technic parts are stiff and take a toll on the fingers. Final verdict: look for decent designs, because some of their designs are really innovative. Quality of the pieces depends on your luck.
for the money these builds are 110% a lot of this knock of lego is good it hard to keep it separated for my real lego. I've had some kits that are not as great. but the bulk I've bought are incredible. for these knock offs to only fall slightly below lego standard to an lover of lego. yet be so much better value is amazing i grew up not being able to fully explore my creative lego ideas as a kid because it was so expensive . that sucks, and i know im not alone. for there to be such a good cheaper option its absolutely 9/10 experience
I mean, if you said it's pretty much the same you'd be in trouble with Lego and they'd stop sending you stuff, so... For the price looks good enough for me
I bought a "Speed Champions" set for around 2.25 euros. It turned out to be a Mould King 27037 which is $18.99 on their site. It's almost the same price as an original LEGO. Instead of a minifigure it comes with a display case. The build quality is EXCELLENT, 99.9% same as LEGO. The instructions is clear, the shiny pieces in the manual are marked with words which even more straightforward than the LEGO solution. The sticker cutout and quality in general (especially when needed to reapply) wasn't that good as LEGO but pretty good. Transparent background which I like. Much more than a color mismatched LEGO version. All in all I was AMAZED by that! Even on full price it is a pretty good deal. Really hard to not recommend it...
Thanks for a very detailed and honest comparison of these non-Lego brands of "Racing Bricks" ... based on your review, it is clear Lego is still the far better choice particularly in regard to build quality, accuracy, stability, along with associated license agreements for various kits! As a serious collector, price is not my only consideration but also the ethics of any brand I choose to support. Honestly, I am not a fan of plagiarism, copies, or patent infringement. Respect along with actual purchases should only go to the brands which do the original R&D (including time, effort, & investment). Any other brands which attempt to capitalize on the true innovators, such as Chinese knockoffs of Lego in this case, should be boycotted and not receive financial support (even if a few dollars are saved during a potential buying decision)!!!
Thank you for this review and for recomending CaDA as alternative! I hope people will soon realize that some platforms are better than others where you buy your stuff or better not buy at all.
Fantastic. Thank you so much for reviewing this brand. I also have been inundated with links for a variety of "non-Lego" building block sets and I'm very wary of about being disappointed with my purchase or just getting ripped off. This review was VERY helpful. Also... here in Canada, I've come across a "technic-like" brand called iM.Master or Mechanical Master which is very comparable to lego technic in quality and functionality. I was very pleased with the end result, and the price was considerable less than Lego. I'm not sure if it's available in Europe, but some of your subscribers may be interested if they can get their hands on it. Thanks again for the great review.
Just be aware that Temu is a platform like Amazon, not an actual brand itself; any Lego-like sets you buy from there will actually be from a whole variety of Chinese brands, some are noticeably better or worse than others. (in cases like this car, they tend to not show the brand or there's multiple listings with multiple brands, I think it's a couple of larger companies that basically do 'blank' sets for other brands to put their logo on.) Bit of a gamble what sort of quality you get from the no-name ones, sometimes it's not terrible but sometimes you'll get parts with rough edges, washed-out colors, etc. And there's a couple of brands that are a little more established and surprisingly close to Lego in quality; LOZ is one I've been liking, they do some fun mini-block sets that are about as good as official Lego, but all the pieces are 3/4s the size, fun little desk decorations. Just gotta be aware when you're buying off Temu or AliExpress that you might not know what brand you just bought until it shows up, and if it's without a box you may never find out.
Quality can vary a lot between brands, and they can have very different practices. BlueBrixx and Cobi are from the EU and only sell their own sets, nothing stolen (BB even has a video or two talking about designing sets). BB also sells parts and parts from good brands. WeBrick is so confident about their quality they give away free packs (shipping not included). I've yet to be ripped off, but that depends on what website you order from.
I rolled the dice on a metal gear rex "Lego" model from temu. It was £50 with shipping and other than a few confusing instructions the set is insanely detailed. Around 2000 pieces and stands at 10 inches tall. Honestly can't fault it. I've just ordered a few of their horizon zero dawn sets to go with my official Lego tall neck
I took a risk and bought my unicorn set from TeMu. The UCS Slave1. Was $80 bucks, but ended up getting a full refund because it arrived two days late. So I got it for free basically. The only issue I had with it was the rear dish was 2 studs smaller than it should have been. Everything else was great. Overall I was and still am beyond happy with it.
For the low low price of free even if you only got half the parts it would have been a great deal. Surprised they gave a full refund and not a coupon or partial refund only.
I bought a couple of the small 'Lego' sets from Temu and they were pretty nice. True, the quality of the build and integrity of most sets is nor like real Lego but I choose only small sets that were not Lego rip-offs, sets that I knew Lego never made. For example, the robot Johnny-5 from the movie 'Short Circuit' (from 1986). The Robot is nice but as I said, quality is OK. Its arms are a bit flimsy but other than that it's OK. Another set I bought and haven't built yet is the Bathhouse from 'Spirited Away'. Lego never did anything of Ghibly Studios and far as I know. I found this set on Amazon(!) for about 40$. Pretty good price for a set of that size. It's made by ENJ Brick and I could not find any other sets they made... It's going to be an interesting build.
I've got a fake Lego dodge charger and it's awesome. Looks great and was great to build. Also got the McLaren Senna, again not bad at all and saved me a lot of time. £60 for both 🎉 Real Lego is too expensive
I love the quality of Sluban and Reobrix. They make military models (ships, planes, tanks) that Lego does not offer. Some of these have exquisite detail and precision. I avoid knockoffs of existing Lego models whenever possible. I think Mega makes some really cool themed models too.
For the most part I have had okay luck with the off brand stuff but they always feel cheap when building. If it is just for looks they can get by with it but sometimes I have had issues with pieces not even wanting to stay together. However, if it is for a child that wants to play with it than cheaper probably works.
I would actually like racingbrick to review like some good alternate Lego sets from china and speed champs and technic Mocs from rebrickable since Lego is getting expensive for some audience.
Some companies sell toys under official licensing, just like Lego. For example, Cada signed a licensing contract with Mercedes, and Cobi sells toys with the Top Gun logo. Lego really doesn't want anyone to know that because this takes away the whole "but Lego is the one and only original" aura, which is their biggest selling point. It's also not a secret that if any UA-cam channel starts putting videos that show Lego in negative light or competition in positive light, they'll stop getting access to pre-release materials and free sets, which is basically a death sentence to 99% of such channels. Therefore youtubers have zero motivation to give accurate reviews of competing products. I'm not saying that competing products are better. The success of Lego clearly shows that there's something they're doing right. I'm just saying that reviewers have all the reasons to be biased in their videos, and the only way to get to know whether a Cobi or Cada set would be good for you personally is to just buy one
@@kurczaczak Chinesse manufacturer Rastar also has licensed cars. And when you talking about Cobi, almost every plane they produce are licensed. Also cars.
@@kurczaczak unfortunately this is probably true. I don't put all too much blame on the creators though, everyone has to make a living, and it's not like Lego is a bad product. So in a way it's better than every UA-camr shiIIing for some mobile game, loot boxes, etc.
I also really enjoy Mouldking sets, i stay away from stolen mocs. But the part quality is great and the sets are Really fun. Sadly more fun than i have had with Lego Technic lately.
Thanks for doing this; I see some ads for sets of buildings that look intriguing but also too good morning to be true on the price. I like the Technic sets that this one resembles, but they a tricky enough with good instructions.
As you said don't trust these chinese brands that are not Cada. Most of them basically steal MOCs designs and that's really disrespectful and damaging for the Afol community.
You're kidding right? Cada stole my rotary engine Moc and refined it and stuck it in their Rx -7 set. Cada doesn't care either about your ideas or anything of the sort except money.
All my tecnic amd icon sets are copies, $100 vs $400 for Concorde and $300 vs $1200 for the Titanic for example. They do vary in quality, but the majority are excellent. I have most of the shelf behind you of these......
I almost never buy off-brand LEGO for all those reasons... but there was one I bought that turned out to be decent. The brand was COGO, the product line was called "Techstorm" (knockoff Technic), and the set was amusingly called "Violence CEO," which has nothing to do with the build, I think they just picked random powerful-sounding buzzwords from a hat. Anyway, the model is of a Jeep-like SUV, and it's actually pretty great. It has full suspension with solid axles; the design is something LEGO would never do as it flexes the pins a bit, but it's extremely clever and compact and works very well. It also has a differential in the rear (no 4wd unfortunately, the front u-joint is needed for steering) and a two-cylinder engine. The hood, doors, and tailgate all open as well, and the tailgate even has a latch. The model's aesthetics are better than even some modern LEGO Technic sets, with small gaps filled in with system parts so it looks very cohesive. Unlike most knockoff LEGO, the parts quality is pretty good as well, with all the axles and gears and such having good consistent clutch power, and my only complaint being that the pins are too tight so they're difficult to remove if you put one in the wrong place or ever try to take the thing apart. My only complaints about the design of the set are that the springs are too stiff, which is strange as LEGO makes a softer version of that spring, and that the seats are mounted loosely so if you turn the model upside-down they get stuck in the steering gears and jam it up. Otherwise it's fantastic, and once I swapped out the original springs for the softer LEGO springs, the suspension became delightfully bouncy and flexible. If it was a LEGO set I'd expect it to cost about $60 and I think I paid the equivalent of $34 for it, which I think is fair. That's the one knockoff LEGO set I'd actually recommend to people, though COGO does need to improve their pins and include softer springs for it to make it great.
I'm not sure this is a fully fair comparison. He chose a bad model, but there are many, many good sets for very good prices that hold up just as well as real Lego, so i wouldn't discount these options entirely.
It wasn't intended to be a complete overview of all non-LEGO building block brands. This set literally popped up in my feed for $4, I bought it, and I showed what you get for that money on TEMU, simple as that.
I have purchased 4 ReoBrix sets from Temu at a price of about $20 CAD each. The brick quality is similar to Lego (not quite as good), but the build experience was not nearly as good. The finished cars looked close to Lego Speed Champions, but getting there did not have the surprise "wow!" or "aha!" moments that come with building a Lego Speed Champion set. Lots of stacking plates and tiles from back to front without much sense of completing smaller steps or modules. I don't have any complaints about the buying experience, though, or the quality of the bricks. Shipping was free, and all sets arrived within 10 days of ordering. All four sets came in branded boxes. No missing pieces in any of the sets. Would I buy more? No. I build Lego for the building experience, and the ReoBrix sets just didn't compare to Lego on that score. I have never tried CaDA sets, but they look okay.
Depends on the set. 76916 was a lot less interesting than the 6 buck robot I got from Sluban. Though I wouldn't recommend them unless you're a masochist who likes to step on bricks.
Some offbrand stuff from Temu or Ali are fairly decent Specialy if you just want a close enough looking car or module to display Technic-like stuff is a nightmare tho, pins and axels either too lose or too thight and some fragile stuff here and there But overall if you know exactly what you're getting into, a couple of sets doesnt hurt
Those bags aren't date stamped, they are the bag numbers. 2014.01.04 refers to the model kit number (2014, as seen on the instruction cover), 01 is the section, and 04 is the bag number. If you still have the bags you'll see at least 4 bags which have 2014.01 printed on them
i recently bought a 3800 piece blue car for 70 bucks and its good for the price. downside is a lot of loose pieces and the instructions are all over the place.
I purchased the Gulf livery Porsche 911 GT3 RS and it was just as good as lego brand for 70 bucks shipped. Beats the aftermarket pricing on the original one
To anyone thinking about purchasing this: someone has made a Lamborghini VGT moc available on Rebrickable that is a specific improvement of this model and is much better quality than this. The instructions are free so it costs nothing to support an independent moc creator
I don’t consider Cobi a knockoff, it’s just an alternative. Their ww2 sets are great quality, and they are filling a niche Lego will never touch due to their brand values.
There are entire businesses built solely around buying and storing data about everyone just to be sold to other businesses it really won't make a difference in the end
I bought a fake lego ferrari SP3 daytona for 80 euros with a box similar to the original, the porsche 911 rsr for 40 and the ford GT for 20 both in bags from temu and piece by piece it was the exact same, even came with numbered bags and a thick instruction booklet, but I still used the official digital instructions, the occasional piece missing so I just looked for one around my room, I was genuinely surprised at how good this was for a fraction of the price tbh
Well, I just bought my first bunch of items from Temu, and I did order a car model, so I'll see what I get! Expectations are not high, but never was with Wish either!
For those LEGO like from China, thats the rule: Panel and blocks are fine, but pins and joins are suck, so replace the pin and joins by offical LEGO product then it will totolly different
I have to be honest, I Love Lego and always have, but some sets I want are just so expensive (McLaren P1, Veyron etc) and I’ve been soooo tempted to try one of the cheaper, rip-off sets, purely out of curiosity more than anything! I’ve seen the P1 for as cheap as £80 on eBay, but being sold by shops, listed as “Private Sellers”, so be aware as you don’t have the same returns rights. eBay still offer their money back guarantee though, so they say. I’ll maybe give one a go and I’ll do a video on my own channel for you guys and gals to watch. Might be worth it for £80! Worst case, if some bits are lose, I’ll use genuine Lego parts to replace them or even glue bits lol 😂 I tend to build them for display anyway, so if they look good on display, the actual functionality doesn’t really bother me that much! I keep seeing the Land Rover models very cheap too, on eBay, as cheap replica kits, so might get one of them too!
Thank you for showing and sharing your footage. This set is just for the bin. Maybe it could used for a serious crashtest. Before that you have to use plastic cemet. The glue is more expensive then the set. 😂
I mean I bought the Ford raptor, and the F1 McLaren off temu. And every piece was accounted for as well as sticker sheets were in decent condition. For like 1/5 the price of the authentic Lego. My only advice when using temu is make sure you look at the description/images and the customer reviews before buying.
I think you just chose a bad one, I got a 500 piece f1 car for $10 and the pieces were all lego quality, only a couple of them were tighter, and it came with like 10 spare parts too (no missing parts)
I always see these kind of sites. If I can get a deal I’ve been looking for some kind of pirate ship but buying in LEGO for the size is crazy expensive
It was probably said in the comments, but the numbers on the connectors are here most probably mold cavity numbers. Quite common on small plastic parts.
They have the same issues as other low quality knockoffs. The experience playing with this, is just lackluster. Even for kids. The better Lego alternatives are almost in range with Lego in terms of price at this point. Especially when you wait for discounted Lego. Also longevity is pretty much am mystery for all Lego competitors. If the budget does not allow new Lego, I always recommend buying a used bin of nice Lego. With a bit of work (washing, sorting) you get an amazing variety of pieces, often even with instructions or boxes at a pricepoint that is impossible to beat. Especially for kids this is in my view the perfect solution.
I personally would be skeptical about the plastic. Lots of cheap stuff has plastic that's full of harmful chemicals. Even stuff that's imported and sold under own brand in normal stores. The direct imported stuff have even less controls and is at an even higher risk. Then to have kids play with it, and put pieces in their mouths and such...
@@ano_nym Lego is usually not suitable anyways for kids that put stuff in their mouth due to the small piece size. But I agree that the type of plastic is also an unknown variable with Lego knockoffs.
@@LizZard1988 perhaps I'm a brainlet, but I'm pretty sure I put Lego in my mouth as an older kid. I remember putting a bunch of the soda can looking pieces in my mouth and shooting them out.
Honestly, i buy almost nothing but chinese sets from Aliexpress, Joy, MarsToy, etc and apart from the occasional missing part, or badly deaigned MOC i cant say I'm disappointed. I'll order the missing pieces or printed pieces and call it a day. Worst one yet was a MOC of the Stinger Mantis which was missing multiple pieces, but even then after buying the parts it still cost less than half the price of I bought the pieces through Bricklink.
I bought a Toyota Supra MKIV from AliExpress Lego Technic. I paid around € 95,- and I uploaded a video of the building proces and my opinions. It was the hardest Lego project I've ever put together but as a former Supra owner, it's such a awesome looking build! I highly recommend it if you want a REAL challenge!
I have bought several cars from Temu must of them have been pretty decent quality. I have noticed that ones that come in boxes seem to be of better quality. There are a lot of good off brand models out there, of course it will cost you more than four dollars. I like Lego it's just that they don't have a large variety of cars at least not for the adult builder.
Aliexpress is literally flooded with off brand original builds and KO Lego sets. Especially The Creator Expert/Icons line for a fraction of what they would normally cost. Personally I would rather go for an official release though I can see how these are tempting to some. Haven't had any experience with Temu, but outside of Cobi I attempted a couple of Neiflez Technic sets in 23 distributed through Amazon. Biggest was near 4000 pieces for about 170 CND which I felt was decent value. Quality on both were decent, but the latter Military Ambulance was an absolute nightmare to assemble because it allowed for zero mistakes as the pins were I think designed for one time use only so taking anything apart out literally destroying them was near impossible. Luckily I had plenty of replacement Lego pins to properly complete the model. All said and done though it's a stable, well designed and functional model for the price though could have used better Q/C. Would definitely love to see more of these off brand reviews as there's a lot available that doesn't directly rip off Lego designs.
I think it's just much better to buy from Mouldking or Cada or any other set from a brand then a no name Set. Yes they do cost more but they have more quality, I would even say more then Lego. But for a small set just for fun I think it's not that bad.
What I'd be curious to know is how much the stability/quality would improve if all the pins were replaced with original Lego ones. I'd imagine pinholes are a lot easier for them to get right than pins, even though (Lego) pins are the cheap parts!
If it's just going to sit on a shelf as a display piece that's not too bad. I won't buy anything from Temu at all though. And hey, you showed the one Lego Car I do have- the W-16 Bolide :D
From what I've read, TEMU has gotten a lot of criticism these days. So buying from them also means supporting them which is another reason why I wouldn't want to buy a set this cheap. I wish this would've been covered more and not just quality/ building experience. Still, very good video! :)
I bought porsche 911(42096), i got all peaces all.stickers instructions and superfast delivery, so far i can complain about that, But your hands will be in pain. So hard to put them together. Everybody who know Lego will/would see difference instantly. Overll goodlooking piece fo under 50$
I bought a Ferrari Daytona for around $70 USD. Some steps were harder to do due to the quality of the pieces and hence the difficulty in docthe connections, even some pieces that are supposed to come connected like the gray piece which is used in the steering wheel system (sorry, I don't know the technical name). Also one factor to take into account is that it was my first set, so it may be harder for me not just for the quality but for my experience as well. I have bought three of this sets in Aliexpress. The typing machine, NES and the Ferrari Daytona, all three for less than 160 dollars total. It may be a bit harder to build but as an alternative for someone with less resources who lives in a country with not as great economy like me it's a great choice if you know how to filter. I hope to be in a better economical position someday and build the original sets to give Lego the support they deserved.
I think this is the problem. Lego sets have gotten increasingly expensive to where genuine fans cant afford them. I'll gladly take a gamble on a set thats 1/4th the price and usually 95% of the quality.
idk man,i got a buwizz style battery box ,2m motors and a servo for 13€ that work perfectly i paid 70€ for lego official motors and they were...unoptimal
I got back into Lego during my broke college era by getting sets like these off Aliexpress. Thankfully I was able to mostly find better sets than this one, though in hindsight, it's best to just get CaDA for cheap non-Lego. The other brands tend to struggle with low-quality parts or set designs stolen from MOC creators.
Some of temus "lego" products Have showed up is redesigns on Lego ideas In particular there "lego" trains which Actually look cool they have a 4-4-0 Mallard A mogul 2-6-0, and even a big boy locomotive
According to a source i read it on average costs lego .10 cents to make a lego brick and i did the math on many of the expensive sets they tend ro hike the price about 10 - 30 percent and usually when a set is sold for less than the price per peace ratio they have most likely made up for the price of that set and double with many other sets
Sometimes folded instructions are giving me a hard time. Then there's various brown-red-orange-tones with bad printing. And sometimes they (eg. qman) use techniques Lego would deem too .. complicated .. for average europeans, it seems? But then there's so much fun you can have with their sets for like 30-40 Euros. And it doesnt feel like they cut every brick they could somehow. So I'm quite happy 'off-brand' most of the time. Technic seems to be a bit more tricky either way.
I forgot how you do it but I know you can make those loose parts a bit tighter, I think its by dipping them in a lacquer or varnish but again I cant remember the exact details so its best to check online, so knowing this it could be worth getting them as a cheap kit if you cant afford genuine lego
In general Cada, Cobi, Pantasy and Keeppley all have a higher quality than Lego now. Sembo has at least the same quality. They have only less models (only Cada and Sembo have racing cars, Cobi some sport cars).
unfortunately, even the second hand market is too expensive. waiting for little Timmy's mom to sell his lego when he's off to college isn't how Lego is getting sold anymore. Instead, little Timmy is selling the lego himself in order to pay rent and he knows the worth of what he's selling.
The thing about spending $4 on a product that costs maybe $10 from a Chinese drop shipping company that only stays afloat from selling user information and its parent company that nearly bankrupted from lawsuits about selling user information is: you get what you freakin payed for.
great video! may I ask where you store the pieces from alternative brands? do you have a separate bin or labeling system? or you just throw them away or donate?
I've a bunch of Zelda themed sets that honestly are fantastic. Also got a cool chibi megazord and dragonzord. Both are great though one small piece was missing... That said my legit Optimus Prime was also missing pieces sooooo
Temu has a minimum order amount. You cant just order something for 4 bucks. You have to shop for a certain amount or they wont ship. So if you find something decent at a cheap price, you have to force yourself to find a couple of more cheap stuffs you dont really want or need just to reach the minimum.
I dont agree with the point, that the instruction is crowded. It seemed pretty good and easy to follow for me. The rest I can totally understand. Personally I had no bad experience with aliexpress, temu I never tried. But like you showed there are serious competitors to Lego, which are even in quality and sometimes cheper.
I got the mclaren f1 technic car from temu and it had almost no problem except for bag numbers it was $40 usd and the original was $200 usd it was awesome
I prefer getting non-lego brick sets from actual brands like Mould King, and there are good actual copies of lego sets from China in boxes or bags but in a really great quality around too. but it s true that you could also get something atrocious if u arent getting things from a good source.
The car looks serene and at times is outlined like a L.E.G.O. despite that it's not similar. 차는 고요해 보이며 때로는 L.E.G.O처럼 윤곽이 그려져 있습니다. 그럼에도 불구하고 그것은 비슷하지 않습니다.
Not gonna lie, I bought an F1 car kit and they are about 95% accurate to LEGO bricks, just a couple loose pins and the other bricks integrate without issues. It cost $50 and was a great build, looks more accurate than the Merc or McLaren.
As an engineer, 95% accuracy to the actual Lego pieces, hurts my soul, because I've used Lego pieces to teach people on process control since their stuff is so well produced. :D
The issue with these compatible bricks brands is that the quality level is very inconsistent within the same manufacturer and worse across manufacturers, and you'll never find out whether you picked a good or bad one until you spend your money and put your hands on the pieces. I actually like that some of these companies have moved away from knocking off independent designers and do their own models but the build quality is so inconsistent I am still sticking to Lego all times
@@lorenzodenardo1860 Yes! That's why I use Lego parts to teach about process control, which is all about consistency in manufacturing, the first part off the line is as good as the last part off the line for any given run!
I have bought some CaDA sets, it is very close to Lego, but not the same.
@@msbrickkitten6882 I agree it’s not the same, but I hope maybe it will put some downward price pressure on Lego.
Looks more like “I can’t believe it’s not Lepin” ! 😂
US$4 price is for Chinese people who earns like US$500 per month compared to your US$3000 per month salary. So the quality is super for this price for chinese people. Therefore don't be too quick to say it is bad. It is NOT Lego and they never said it was Lego. But to a chinese kid in China (many of them), this is a great toy to receive.
i have bought lots of unofficial lego sets over the years (mainly rifle replicas) and if i can give any tips to others who are considering getting a set that's not official Lego, here is my heads up:
[i will refer to official legos as officials and unofficial lego sets as UO]
• *make sure it is a set you really want and REALLY want to complete.* everyone has had remorse building a (official) Lego set due to not wanting to spend more time to finish. best part is officials make it easy to pick up where you left off; it doesn't help UO's case when the instructions "booklet" (sometimes they email you a pdf of instructions) is not as easy as it should be to figure out what piece needs to be added or where it goes on the build step. I have also spent two continuous days building a large UO set so you can imagine how sick of building legos i was after i was finished. (Surprising even to me who has played with legos his whole life)
• i cannot stress this enough, *make sure you have you big lego piece bucket handy.* some UO's I've received have had pieces missing. not to mention how they all are one color so it blends in. you remember how i said it took me 2 days to build a large UO's? Half of one day in total was spent looking for that *one* piece to finish the step, which it was either A. hidden underneath hundreds of similar pieces or B. simply not included making me more frustrated than necessary and the easy fix was to dig in my Lego box for that one piece.
• *your set WILL have some pieces that were poorly sculpted cut or made.* not a terribly bad feature but in some cases it can compromise your build, some studs have little to no friction holding them in place when two pieces are put together.
all in all, if you get past the obstacles then you will have a great Lego set that Lego themselves did not release. which is worth it for those supercars or those bolt action rifle replicas and loads of fun to play with the features they provide. Thanks for reading if you did, i hate long comments on UA-cam too. I hope this helps a lot of builders out there🕋🧠
I found in my local toy shop brand Rastar. I bought Creator Expert/Icons set(Pagani Zonda Cinque) for 50 euros with 1024 parts. Very good parts quality, some custom parts for this set and every details are printed(without stickers). Very good compatibility with Lego parts, so example wheels from this set won't have problem in Lego MOC, if you will want custom wheels for better look.
Sometimes buying on internet, special cheap bricks sets is like cat in bag, you don't know, what you buy, parts quality in specific price. Example my first Lepin set had bad quality, parts hadn't same quality, but if you didn't look on details, look like original Lego set(I bought cheaper version HP Hogwarts castle from second serie) + stickers on transparent background, perfect fit with parts color.
rastar is a reputable brand of affordable diecast. they probably chose a ok parts suppler. problem with knockoff lego is you don't know what quality you are getting. I have a $40 gt3rs, it comes in the red/white color scheme, which lego don't have. it assembles just fine but the complex gear box would never work, original lego is already stiff enough.
These type of videos are so fun to watch. you should make a video comparing real lego supercars to knockoffs
Yeah he should compare the mouldking power functions sets
... but it of no use. The really cheap stuff will vary in quality from batch to batch, as they will source everywhere and anywhere to get the cheapest parts.
Don't think they're losing money at $24, it's Lego being heavily overpriced that skews your judgement.
I bought some clone building sets (non-Technic) from China (non-Temu). One was pretty good. One was good enough. Neither have been disappointing. Neither have been LEGO quality either. The one you built is pretty bad. I think your sentiment is correct. We shouldn’t accept poor quality just because it’s cheap. I learned that with hand tools. By the same token, you don’t always need to go top-shelf to find quality.
Well-said.
Regarding hand tools I have heard of a tactic that seems good: "buy the cheap ones first, then once you break it you buy a good one."
That makes it so the tools you use the most will be good quality, while you haven't "wasted" your money on stuff you hardly use.
I have 2 fake legos already, FORD F150 and WALL-E both were good quality and pretty cheap the ford was 20$ and Wall-E about 7$. I like lego and would buy them, but 150$ for a plastic car is too much for me.
there is a lot of engineering, research, investement... That's why it's not cheap...
Where did you get the Ford for 20$? Can you send me a link?
@@ArbiterGP We know. We just don't want to spend that much when there's an alternative... Especially when a lego technic set is ⅓ of the minimum wage in my country
i also have the fake wall E, but considring the price and the model its kinda cool and worth the price
@@ArbiterGP Cada, Bluebrixx, Mega, Cobi are very good alternatives to lego. not to mention that they surpass lego in quality in many places. most obvious is the piece color quality which lego really is known to be very bad at.
2:50 These numbers are probably from the mould from the injection moulding machine. I work as a injection moulder, and we have those tiny numbers on our moulds aswell. Those numbers are the cavity numbers. If you, for example, take a sample to check if the parts are good, you'll automatically check if there are all cavities (all numbers, for example 1-8) in that sample.
If there is a number missing, there could be something wrong with the mould or moulding machines settings.
Could also be sourcing parts from different factories, different batches, etc. Some brands are less strict than others about their parts.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I have seen this in real Legos as a kid. Wondering about what the numbers meant.
Their app is mandatory if one wants a max discount, not to mention all data those Chinese are collecting. NO THX! Free or cheap cheese is found only in a trap!
I've bought 2 different Lamborghinis from Aliexpress, which definitely share origins with this model. So far I've been quite satisfied, as they look nice and can be motorized (instructions included, motors package optional or being-your-own, wireless 2.4GHz bluetooth or proprietary). I have them on display, because I like the non-concept Lamborghinis.
Ah, for the first car I had to change the wheels to my own (later ordered rims with a matching yellow-orange color) because they were interfering with some parts of the frame and steering. The second car (with a tri-beam headlight) was much better. And interestingly, it actually offered two appearances: completely black or stickered "cyberpunk" theme with neon cyan-blue-purple-magenta. Sticker guide was included but it had the model and the stickersheet a little different from what I assembled, but nothing major.
I would like to note that I am living in Russia, and even though official lego sets are available unofficially here, they are still expensive. Aliexpress offers a lot, but you gamble with quality of the product.
@@JTCF "Aliexpress offers a lot, but you gamble with quality of the product."
Yeah, and if you know what to get you can get great deals. I bought some extremely powerful, nice and sleek, flashlight for like $20. Convoy S2+ if anyone's interested.
TBH this kind of Legos is a god sent for people living in the third world country, where average monthly salary goes for $328. Some Bootleg kits are actually decent, example the bootleg version of the lego ferrari daytona sp3, theres even a video about comparing the two sets which is shocking how the quality rivals that of the more expensive one, which is not even 1/3rd of the price.
average salary in brazil is like $270 and the state taxes imported products up to 90%, a mid lego product is like $100 here
And we in the “3rd world” countries could care less about those capitalist copyrights. As long as the price is cheap and the quality is not far from Lego, we would gladly buy it. And to be honest, living close to China really helps with the prices of these sets and the quality is getting closer and close to the original thing each day.
I’ve ordered lots of “Lego” from Alliexpress, and with one exception they’ve always turned out to be great. The one exception was down to parts not fitting well which can easily be sorted by ordering a few parts from bricklink
You can only do the following with this: glue it together, display it for some time, and throw it out.
Not gonna lie, on my birthday l bought a radio-controlled" lego" car from Temu and it ended up pretty good, the instructions were clear, nothing was falling apart. It was and is a really good set. For 50 bucks- 56 cm radio controlled car whit a decent quantity. I am fully into it!
I have a lot of temu "lego" mostly trains and city stuff, the technic stuff from them is not great and tend to be very lose. The main problem is a lack of quality control, so i have gotten sets that are missing critical pieces, but i have a huge collection of lego bricks so it has never been a big deal, it is just a risk i take.
So no different from modern Lego. Got it.
Cool. And the people suffering in the supply chains?
@@simonsvahn9834 I'm not sure if there is much difference there between the fake Lego or the "Made in China" products in the store unfortunately.
Like you would hope that companies actually made sure their overseas worker had it decent, but they often chose to turn a blind eye.
I got one of off Amazon that looks almost identical for $30 and it has decent quality
I bought two sets from Temu. Darn cheap. One was the copy of the Orchid set by Lego and the other one was coffee shop. Both cost around 15-20 bucks. The quality of orchid was 6 out of 10, and the coffee house was 8 out of 10 (10 being the Lego standard.) The experience was really good, but sometimes especially the technic parts are stiff and take a toll on the fingers. Final verdict: look for decent designs, because some of their designs are really innovative. Quality of the pieces depends on your luck.
Cada, zylegen, mould king, nefiliz are the brands im buying over Lego currently. Ive done 10 large 1:8 scale cars from them all with no issues.
for the money these builds are 110% a lot of this knock of lego is good it hard to keep it separated for my real lego. I've had some kits that are not as great. but the bulk I've bought are incredible. for these knock offs to only fall slightly below lego standard to an lover of lego. yet be so much better value is amazing
i grew up not being able to fully explore my creative lego ideas as a kid because it was so expensive . that sucks, and i know im not alone. for there to be such a good cheaper option its absolutely 9/10 experience
I mean, if you said it's pretty much the same you'd be in trouble with Lego and they'd stop sending you stuff, so...
For the price looks good enough for me
I bought a "Speed Champions" set for around 2.25 euros.
It turned out to be a Mould King 27037 which is $18.99 on their site.
It's almost the same price as an original LEGO.
Instead of a minifigure it comes with a display case.
The build quality is EXCELLENT, 99.9% same as LEGO. The instructions is clear, the shiny pieces in the manual are marked with words which even more straightforward than the LEGO solution.
The sticker cutout and quality in general (especially when needed to reapply) wasn't that good as LEGO but pretty good. Transparent background which I like. Much more than a color mismatched LEGO version.
All in all I was AMAZED by that! Even on full price it is a pretty good deal.
Really hard to not recommend it...
Mould King and other brands that use gobricks are basically exactly the same quality as lego
I just finished the Daily Bugle from Ali. 100% complete and it was less than $100 usd. Great quality too
Thanks for a very detailed and honest comparison of these non-Lego brands of "Racing Bricks" ... based on your review, it is clear Lego is still the far better choice particularly in regard to build quality, accuracy, stability, along with associated license agreements for various kits! As a serious collector, price is not my only consideration but also the ethics of any brand I choose to support. Honestly, I am not a fan of plagiarism, copies, or patent infringement. Respect along with actual purchases should only go to the brands which do the original R&D (including time, effort, & investment). Any other brands which attempt to capitalize on the true innovators, such as Chinese knockoffs of Lego in this case, should be boycotted and not receive financial support (even if a few dollars are saved during a potential buying decision)!!!
This thing is hilarious! A good example of "you get what you pay for" I don't understand how people can buy from Temu, what do they expect anyway?
Thank you for this review and for recomending CaDA as alternative! I hope people will soon realize that some platforms are better than others where you buy your stuff or better not buy at all.
Fantastic. Thank you so much for reviewing this brand. I also have been inundated with links for a variety of "non-Lego" building block sets and I'm very wary of about being disappointed with my purchase or just getting ripped off. This review was VERY helpful. Also... here in Canada, I've come across a "technic-like" brand called iM.Master or Mechanical Master which is very comparable to lego technic in quality and functionality. I was very pleased with the end result, and the price was considerable less than Lego. I'm not sure if it's available in Europe, but some of your subscribers may be interested if they can get their hands on it. Thanks again for the great review.
Just be aware that Temu is a platform like Amazon, not an actual brand itself; any Lego-like sets you buy from there will actually be from a whole variety of Chinese brands, some are noticeably better or worse than others. (in cases like this car, they tend to not show the brand or there's multiple listings with multiple brands, I think it's a couple of larger companies that basically do 'blank' sets for other brands to put their logo on.)
Bit of a gamble what sort of quality you get from the no-name ones, sometimes it's not terrible but sometimes you'll get parts with rough edges, washed-out colors, etc. And there's a couple of brands that are a little more established and surprisingly close to Lego in quality; LOZ is one I've been liking, they do some fun mini-block sets that are about as good as official Lego, but all the pieces are 3/4s the size, fun little desk decorations. Just gotta be aware when you're buying off Temu or AliExpress that you might not know what brand you just bought until it shows up, and if it's without a box you may never find out.
Quality can vary a lot between brands, and they can have very different practices. BlueBrixx and Cobi are from the EU and only sell their own sets, nothing stolen (BB even has a video or two talking about designing sets). BB also sells parts and parts from good brands. WeBrick is so confident about their quality they give away free packs (shipping not included). I've yet to be ripped off, but that depends on what website you order from.
I bought like a 4000 piece car on amazon for like 70. Thing is a masterpiece. Would cost your 1st born if it was real lego
Which brand and model ?
I rolled the dice on a metal gear rex "Lego" model from temu. It was £50 with shipping and other than a few confusing instructions the set is insanely detailed. Around 2000 pieces and stands at 10 inches tall. Honestly can't fault it. I've just ordered a few of their horizon zero dawn sets to go with my official Lego tall neck
I took a risk and bought my unicorn set from TeMu. The UCS Slave1. Was $80 bucks, but ended up getting a full refund because it arrived two days late. So I got it for free basically. The only issue I had with it was the rear dish was 2 studs smaller than it should have been. Everything else was great. Overall I was and still am beyond happy with it.
For the low low price of free even if you only got half the parts it would have been a great deal. Surprised they gave a full refund and not a coupon or partial refund only.
@@LutraLovegood I was shocked too. Used the money to get the correct sized dish for the back and parts to do a detail up mod I found on Rebrickable.
Kinda rude to do a refund just because of two days...
@@ano_nym I didn't request one. Temu refunded of their own accord.
@@thomaswalker9277 okay, then it's okay I guess.
I bought a couple of the small 'Lego' sets from Temu and they were pretty nice. True, the quality of the build and integrity of most sets is nor like real Lego but I choose only small sets that were not Lego rip-offs, sets that I knew Lego never made.
For example, the robot Johnny-5 from the movie 'Short Circuit' (from 1986). The Robot is nice but as I said, quality is OK. Its arms are a bit flimsy but other than that it's OK.
Another set I bought and haven't built yet is the Bathhouse from 'Spirited Away'. Lego never did anything of Ghibly Studios and far as I know. I found this set on Amazon(!) for about 40$. Pretty good price for a set of that size. It's made by ENJ Brick and I could not find any other sets they made... It's going to be an interesting build.
I'm the designer of Mould king 10061, a Transformer that turns into lambo v12 vision as well. Failed to apply the iconic headlamps in my design though
I've got a fake Lego dodge charger and it's awesome. Looks great and was great to build. Also got the McLaren Senna, again not bad at all and saved me a lot of time. £60 for both 🎉 Real Lego is too expensive
I love the quality of Sluban and Reobrix. They make military models (ships, planes, tanks) that Lego does not offer. Some of these have exquisite detail and precision. I avoid knockoffs of existing Lego models whenever possible. I think Mega makes some really cool themed models too.
For the most part I have had okay luck with the off brand stuff but they always feel cheap when building. If it is just for looks they can get by with it but sometimes I have had issues with pieces not even wanting to stay together. However, if it is for a child that wants to play with it than cheaper probably works.
I would actually like racingbrick to review like some good alternate Lego sets from china and speed champs and technic Mocs from rebrickable since Lego is getting expensive for some audience.
They won't because theyre too good and they'll lose their sponsorship from lego lol
Some companies sell toys under official licensing, just like Lego. For example, Cada signed a licensing contract with Mercedes, and Cobi sells toys with the Top Gun logo. Lego really doesn't want anyone to know that because this takes away the whole "but Lego is the one and only original" aura, which is their biggest selling point.
It's also not a secret that if any UA-cam channel starts putting videos that show Lego in negative light or competition in positive light, they'll stop getting access to pre-release materials and free sets, which is basically a death sentence to 99% of such channels. Therefore youtubers have zero motivation to give accurate reviews of competing products.
I'm not saying that competing products are better. The success of Lego clearly shows that there's something they're doing right. I'm just saying that reviewers have all the reasons to be biased in their videos, and the only way to get to know whether a Cobi or Cada set would be good for you personally is to just buy one
@@kurczaczak Chinesse manufacturer Rastar also has licensed cars. And when you talking about Cobi, almost every plane they produce are licensed. Also cars.
@@kurczaczak unfortunately this is probably true. I don't put all too much blame on the creators though, everyone has to make a living, and it's not like Lego is a bad product. So in a way it's better than every UA-camr shiIIing for some mobile game, loot boxes, etc.
I also really enjoy Mouldking sets, i stay away from stolen mocs. But the part quality is great and the sets are Really fun. Sadly more fun than i have had with Lego Technic lately.
Thanks for doing this; I see some ads for sets of buildings that look intriguing but also too good morning to be true on the price.
I like the Technic sets that this one resembles, but they a tricky enough with good instructions.
As you said don't trust these chinese brands that are not Cada. Most of them basically steal MOCs designs and that's really disrespectful and damaging for the Afol community.
There are few good chinesse companies like CaDa, but yes, most of them are trash.
@ceruleanidiot I am speaking in general, not this particular model
You're kidding right? Cada stole my rotary engine Moc and refined it and stuck it in their Rx -7 set. Cada doesn't care either about your ideas or anything of the sort except money.
@@TheRealBmanswan Wasn't the Rx-7 an Artemy Zotov design?
@@Dadudi the rx-7 isn't my design the rotary engine is. I have videos of prototypes on my channel.
All my tecnic amd icon sets are copies, $100 vs $400 for Concorde and $300 vs $1200 for the Titanic for example.
They do vary in quality, but the majority are excellent.
I have most of the shelf behind you of these......
i got the lamborghini sian off temu for $65 and it’s literally the exact same just without the logo
I almost never buy off-brand LEGO for all those reasons... but there was one I bought that turned out to be decent. The brand was COGO, the product line was called "Techstorm" (knockoff Technic), and the set was amusingly called "Violence CEO," which has nothing to do with the build, I think they just picked random powerful-sounding buzzwords from a hat. Anyway, the model is of a Jeep-like SUV, and it's actually pretty great. It has full suspension with solid axles; the design is something LEGO would never do as it flexes the pins a bit, but it's extremely clever and compact and works very well. It also has a differential in the rear (no 4wd unfortunately, the front u-joint is needed for steering) and a two-cylinder engine. The hood, doors, and tailgate all open as well, and the tailgate even has a latch. The model's aesthetics are better than even some modern LEGO Technic sets, with small gaps filled in with system parts so it looks very cohesive. Unlike most knockoff LEGO, the parts quality is pretty good as well, with all the axles and gears and such having good consistent clutch power, and my only complaint being that the pins are too tight so they're difficult to remove if you put one in the wrong place or ever try to take the thing apart. My only complaints about the design of the set are that the springs are too stiff, which is strange as LEGO makes a softer version of that spring, and that the seats are mounted loosely so if you turn the model upside-down they get stuck in the steering gears and jam it up. Otherwise it's fantastic, and once I swapped out the original springs for the softer LEGO springs, the suspension became delightfully bouncy and flexible. If it was a LEGO set I'd expect it to cost about $60 and I think I paid the equivalent of $34 for it, which I think is fair. That's the one knockoff LEGO set I'd actually recommend to people, though COGO does need to improve their pins and include softer springs for it to make it great.
I'm not sure this is a fully fair comparison. He chose a bad model, but there are many, many good sets for very good prices that hold up just as well as real Lego, so i wouldn't discount these options entirely.
It wasn't intended to be a complete overview of all non-LEGO building block brands. This set literally popped up in my feed for $4, I bought it, and I showed what you get for that money on TEMU, simple as that.
Fair enough! @@RacingBrick
@@RacingBrick But that's a sample of 1 and there are tons of different brands. What you get can vary a lot.
@@LutraLovegoodI shared my experience with a random sample. You are free to experiment with more.
So how do you choose a good one? It's a lottery with these unnamed brands on Temu.
I have purchased 4 ReoBrix sets from Temu at a price of about $20 CAD each. The brick quality is similar to Lego (not quite as good), but the build experience was not nearly as good. The finished cars looked close to Lego Speed Champions, but getting there did not have the surprise "wow!" or "aha!" moments that come with building a Lego Speed Champion set. Lots of stacking plates and tiles from back to front without much sense of completing smaller steps or modules. I don't have any complaints about the buying experience, though, or the quality of the bricks. Shipping was free, and all sets arrived within 10 days of ordering. All four sets came in branded boxes. No missing pieces in any of the sets. Would I buy more? No. I build Lego for the building experience, and the ReoBrix sets just didn't compare to Lego on that score. I have never tried CaDA sets, but they look okay.
Depends on the set. 76916 was a lot less interesting than the 6 buck robot I got from Sluban. Though I wouldn't recommend them unless you're a masochist who likes to step on bricks.
Some offbrand stuff from Temu or Ali are fairly decent
Specialy if you just want a close enough looking car or module to display
Technic-like stuff is a nightmare tho, pins and axels either too lose or too thight and some fragile stuff here and there
But overall if you know exactly what you're getting into, a couple of sets doesnt hurt
"Should you buy bad products just because they're dirt cheap?"
Lego management: "No, you should only buy bad products when they're hyper-expensive!"
Those bags aren't date stamped, they are the bag numbers. 2014.01.04 refers to the model kit number (2014, as seen on the instruction cover), 01 is the section, and 04 is the bag number. If you still have the bags you'll see at least 4 bags which have 2014.01 printed on them
Binaltech Optimus Prime on the top shelf. NICE!
i recently bought a 3800 piece blue car for 70 bucks and its good for the price. downside is a lot of loose pieces and the instructions are all over the place.
I purchased the Gulf livery Porsche 911 GT3 RS and it was just as good as lego brand for 70 bucks shipped. Beats the aftermarket pricing on the original one
The quality probably was on par with this review.
To anyone thinking about purchasing this: someone has made a Lamborghini VGT moc available on Rebrickable that is a specific improvement of this model and is much better quality than this. The instructions are free so it costs nothing to support an independent moc creator
Except it costs you the full price of each part and that goes straight to Lego.
@@PlazDreamweaver buy second hand then
I've recently got into Cobi. Mainly for their war plane range, although they also do Tanks
I don’t consider Cobi a knockoff, it’s just an alternative. Their ww2 sets are great quality, and they are filling a niche Lego will never touch due to their brand values.
Temu doesn't sell you products for profit, it sells your data.
Very true. Called buying the market
There are entire businesses built solely around buying and storing data about everyone just to be sold to other businesses it really won't make a difference in the end
fr
And comes with extra child labour! Isn't that cool?
I promise nobody cares about your data. You’re not important at all
I bought a fake lego ferrari SP3 daytona for 80 euros with a box similar to the original, the porsche 911 rsr for 40 and the ford GT for 20 both in bags from temu and piece by piece it was the exact same, even came with numbered bags and a thick instruction booklet, but I still used the official digital instructions, the occasional piece missing so I just looked for one around my room, I was genuinely surprised at how good this was for a fraction of the price tbh
Well, I just bought my first bunch of items from Temu, and I did order a car model, so I'll see what I get! Expectations are not high, but never was with Wish either!
For those LEGO like from China, thats the rule: Panel and blocks are fine, but pins and joins are suck, so replace the pin and joins by offical LEGO product then it will totolly different
I have to be honest, I Love Lego and always have, but some sets I want are just so expensive (McLaren P1, Veyron etc) and I’ve been soooo tempted to try one of the cheaper, rip-off sets, purely out of curiosity more than anything!
I’ve seen the P1 for as cheap as £80 on eBay, but being sold by shops, listed as “Private Sellers”, so be aware as you don’t have the same returns rights. eBay still offer their money back guarantee though, so they say.
I’ll maybe give one a go and I’ll do a video on my own channel for you guys and gals to watch. Might be worth it for £80!
Worst case, if some bits are lose, I’ll use genuine Lego parts to replace them or even glue bits lol 😂
I tend to build them for display anyway, so if they look good on display, the actual functionality doesn’t really bother me that much!
I keep seeing the Land Rover models very cheap too, on eBay, as cheap replica kits, so might get one of them too!
Thank you for showing and sharing your footage. This set is just for the bin. Maybe it could used for a serious crashtest. Before that you have to use plastic cemet. The glue is more expensive then the set. 😂
Ive ordered a lot through Aliexpress and never had an issue
I mean I bought the Ford raptor, and the F1 McLaren off temu. And every piece was accounted for as well as sticker sheets were in decent condition. For like 1/5 the price of the authentic Lego. My only advice when using temu is make sure you look at the description/images and the customer reviews before buying.
I think you just chose a bad one, I got a 500 piece f1 car for $10 and the pieces were all lego quality, only a couple of them were tighter, and it came with like 10 spare parts too (no missing parts)
I always see these kind of sites. If I can get a deal I’ve been looking for some kind of pirate ship but buying in LEGO for the size is crazy expensive
For 4$ you have a good piece for your wall collection ❤
Honestly a little speed champion set from temu are good but i recommend a wheel swap
Cobi, a Polish company, makes high quality Lego compatible military vehicles and figures at about 75% the cost at 95% the quality.
It was probably said in the comments, but the numbers on the connectors are here most probably mold cavity numbers. Quite common on small plastic parts.
I think these are very good for people who can't afford Lego. Lego has priced themselves out of the range of normal wage families.
They have the same issues as other low quality knockoffs. The experience playing with this, is just lackluster. Even for kids. The better Lego alternatives are almost in range with Lego in terms of price at this point. Especially when you wait for discounted Lego. Also longevity is pretty much am mystery for all Lego competitors.
If the budget does not allow new Lego, I always recommend buying a used bin of nice Lego. With a bit of work (washing, sorting) you get an amazing variety of pieces, often even with instructions or boxes at a pricepoint that is impossible to beat. Especially for kids this is in my view the perfect solution.
I personally would be skeptical about the plastic. Lots of cheap stuff has plastic that's full of harmful chemicals. Even stuff that's imported and sold under own brand in normal stores. The direct imported stuff have even less controls and is at an even higher risk.
Then to have kids play with it, and put pieces in their mouths and such...
@@LizZard1988 as a kid I often thought the old kits were often even cooler too. Like looking in the old catalogues from old sets.
@@ano_nym Lego is usually not suitable anyways for kids that put stuff in their mouth due to the small piece size. But I agree that the type of plastic is also an unknown variable with Lego knockoffs.
@@LizZard1988 perhaps I'm a brainlet, but I'm pretty sure I put Lego in my mouth as an older kid. I remember putting a bunch of the soda can looking pieces in my mouth and shooting them out.
Honestly, i buy almost nothing but chinese sets from Aliexpress, Joy, MarsToy, etc and apart from the occasional missing part, or badly deaigned MOC i cant say I'm disappointed. I'll order the missing pieces or printed pieces and call it a day. Worst one yet was a MOC of the Stinger Mantis which was missing multiple pieces, but even then after buying the parts it still cost less than half the price of I bought the pieces through Bricklink.
I bought a Toyota Supra MKIV from AliExpress Lego Technic. I paid around € 95,- and I uploaded a video of the building proces and my opinions. It was the hardest Lego project I've ever put together but as a former Supra owner, it's such a awesome looking build! I highly recommend it if you want a REAL challenge!
I have bought several cars from Temu must of them have been pretty decent quality. I have noticed that ones that come in boxes seem to be of better quality. There are a lot of good off brand models out there, of course it will cost you more than four dollars. I like Lego it's just that they don't have a large variety of cars at least not for the adult builder.
Aliexpress is literally flooded with off brand original builds and KO Lego sets. Especially The Creator Expert/Icons line for a fraction of what they would normally cost. Personally I would rather go for an official release though I can see how these are tempting to some. Haven't had any experience with Temu, but outside of Cobi I attempted a couple of Neiflez Technic sets in 23 distributed through Amazon. Biggest was near 4000 pieces for about 170 CND which I felt was decent value. Quality on both were decent, but the latter Military Ambulance was an absolute nightmare to assemble because it allowed for zero mistakes as the pins were I think designed for one time use only so taking anything apart out literally destroying them was near impossible. Luckily I had plenty of replacement Lego pins to properly complete the model. All said and done though it's a stable, well designed and functional model for the price though could have used better Q/C. Would definitely love to see more of these off brand reviews as there's a lot available that doesn't directly rip off Lego designs.
I think it's just much better to buy from Mouldking or Cada or any other set from a brand then a no name Set. Yes they do cost more but they have more quality, I would even say more then Lego. But for a small set just for fun I think it's not that bad.
What I'd be curious to know is how much the stability/quality would improve if all the pins were replaced with original Lego ones. I'd imagine pinholes are a lot easier for them to get right than pins, even though (Lego) pins are the cheap parts!
If it's just going to sit on a shelf as a display piece that's not too bad. I won't buy anything from Temu at all though. And hey, you showed the one Lego Car I do have- the W-16 Bolide :D
From what I've read, TEMU has gotten a lot of criticism these days. So buying from them also means supporting them which is another reason why I wouldn't want to buy a set this cheap. I wish this would've been covered more and not just quality/ building experience. Still, very good video! :)
If the price could been considered as an advantage, temu blows lego out of water
I bought porsche 911(42096), i got all peaces all.stickers instructions and superfast delivery, so far i can complain about that,
But your hands will be in pain. So hard to put them together.
Everybody who know Lego will/would see difference instantly.
Overll goodlooking piece fo under 50$
I bought a Ferrari Daytona for around $70 USD. Some steps were harder to do due to the quality of the pieces and hence the difficulty in docthe connections, even some pieces that are supposed to come connected like the gray piece which is used in the steering wheel system (sorry, I don't know the technical name). Also one factor to take into account is that it was my first set, so it may be harder for me not just for the quality but for my experience as well. I have bought three of this sets in Aliexpress. The typing machine, NES and the Ferrari Daytona, all three for less than 160 dollars total. It may be a bit harder to build but as an alternative for someone with less resources who lives in a country with not as great economy like me it's a great choice if you know how to filter. I hope to be in a better economical position someday and build the original sets to give Lego the support they deserved.
I think this is the problem. Lego sets have gotten increasingly expensive to where genuine fans cant afford them. I'll gladly take a gamble on a set thats 1/4th the price and usually 95% of the quality.
idk man,i got a buwizz style battery box ,2m motors and a servo for 13€ that work perfectly
i paid 70€ for lego official motors and they were...unoptimal
I got back into Lego during my broke college era by getting sets like these off Aliexpress. Thankfully I was able to mostly find better sets than this one, though in hindsight, it's best to just get CaDA for cheap non-Lego. The other brands tend to struggle with low-quality parts or set designs stolen from MOC creators.
Some of temus "lego" products Have showed up is redesigns on Lego ideas In particular there "lego" trains which Actually look cool they have a 4-4-0 Mallard A mogul 2-6-0, and even a big boy locomotive
A video about off brand Lego, and I get an ad for official Lego
According to a source i read it on average costs lego .10 cents to make a lego brick and i did the math on many of the expensive sets they tend ro hike the price about 10 - 30 percent and usually when a set is sold for less than the price per peace ratio they have most likely made up for the price of that set and double with many other sets
5:50 Lego no longer respects its own trademark hahaha
I work in a postal office and it's insane knowing how many that buys from temu
The fact that this is actually a Lego speed champions set is crazy
Would these kind of things work for DISPLAY purposes only? Lego is expensive (don't mind paying for quality), but there are things they don't make...
Sometimes folded instructions are giving me a hard time. Then there's various brown-red-orange-tones with bad printing. And sometimes they (eg. qman) use techniques Lego would deem too .. complicated .. for average europeans, it seems? But then there's so much fun you can have with their sets for like 30-40 Euros. And it doesnt feel like they cut every brick they could somehow. So I'm quite happy 'off-brand' most of the time. Technic seems to be a bit more tricky either way.
I forgot how you do it but I know you can make those loose parts a bit tighter, I think its by dipping them in a lacquer or varnish but again I cant remember the exact details so its best to check online, so knowing this it could be worth getting them as a cheap kit if you cant afford genuine lego
In general Cada, Cobi, Pantasy and Keeppley all have a higher quality than Lego now. Sembo has at least the same quality. They have only less models (only Cada and Sembo have racing cars, Cobi some sport cars).
unfortunately, even the second hand market is too expensive.
waiting for little Timmy's mom to sell his lego when he's off to college isn't how Lego is getting sold anymore. Instead, little Timmy is selling the lego himself in order to pay rent and he knows the worth of what he's selling.
The thing about spending $4 on a product that costs maybe $10 from a Chinese drop shipping company that only stays afloat from selling user information and its parent company that nearly bankrupted from lawsuits about selling user information is: you get what you freakin payed for.
great video! may I ask where you store the pieces from alternative brands? do you have a separate bin or labeling system? or you just throw them away or donate?
I kept some sets for reference and they are assembled and stored in boxes, I gave the rest away.
I've a bunch of Zelda themed sets that honestly are fantastic. Also got a cool chibi megazord and dragonzord. Both are great though one small piece was missing... That said my legit Optimus Prime was also missing pieces sooooo
Temu has a minimum order amount.
You cant just order something for 4 bucks. You have to shop for a certain amount or they wont ship.
So if you find something decent at a cheap price, you have to force yourself to find a couple of more cheap stuffs you dont really want or need just to reach the minimum.
I liked the video because you didnt milk the video length.
I dont agree with the point, that the instruction is crowded. It seemed pretty good and easy to follow for me. The rest I can totally understand. Personally I had no bad experience with aliexpress, temu I never tried. But like you showed there are serious competitors to Lego, which are even in quality and sometimes cheper.
I got the mclaren f1 technic car from temu and it had almost no problem except for bag numbers it was $40 usd and the original was $200 usd it was awesome
I prefer getting non-lego brick sets from actual brands like Mould King, and there are good actual copies of lego sets from China in boxes or bags but in a really great quality around too. but it s true that you could also get something atrocious if u arent getting things from a good source.
try the chinese rastar it has kinda nice models like a pagani huayra bc, maserati mc20 and audi r8 lms gt3 i would like to see how good are the pieces
They are like cada
The car looks serene and at times is outlined like a L.E.G.O. despite that it's not similar.
차는 고요해 보이며 때로는 L.E.G.O처럼 윤곽이 그려져 있습니다. 그럼에도 불구하고 그것은 비슷하지 않습니다.