The last few days of LEGO news have been dominated by discussion of 21303 WALL•E and its patchy availability worldwide. It is a great shame that such an impressive set has incurred so much negativity, although not without good cause as there is a significant flaw in the design of the model.

There has also been some confusion about what exactly is wrong with the set. This has been exacerbated by an email currently being distributed by LEGO customer services which refers to 4265484 and 4211695 as the pieces needed to resolve the issue, contrary to the known problem. Hopefully we can clarify both issues now.

WALL•E's neck consists of four joints, three of which allow you to angle the head vertically while the other allows horizontal rotation. It is this rotational joint which is causing an issue as it does not have enough friction to keep the head in position. Instead it rotates freely, thereby restricting the poseability of the figure.

However, to complicate things further LEGO customer service has suggested that there is a second fault which requires parts 4265484 and 4211695 to solve. Apparently this has only impacted upon a batch of sets destined for North America, hence the delay in the release of the set in the US and Canada. I suspect there are some missing or defective parts in this particular batch, although that has not been confirmed as far as I know.

It therefore appears that LEGO will not be resolving the issue with the neck at the moment, in which case we will have to modify it ourselves. My first thought would therefore be to replace the problematic joint with something stronger, perhaps a large ball joint consisting of parts 4497253 and 4619760. I am having difficulty incorporating these elements without compromising the appearance of the model at the moment, but I will keep working on it.

If anybody has any suggestions for improvements I'm sure they would be much appreciated by everyone who owns the set, so let us know!