The LEPIN 15004 Fire Brigade is the bootleg version of the LEGO 10197 Fire Brigade. LEGO released this set back in 2009 and the cheapest brand new set on eBay now is priced at USD 375. Wow! The LEPIN 15004 Fire Brigade is currently priced at USD 35 on AliExpress which is 10% of the price! The LEPIN version comes with an extra 82 pieces of bricks but I don't have the original set to compare what the pieces are. Maybe I should just cross check with the original manual. What about the box and packaging? The box looks exactly the exactly the same as the original and Oh! What's this? The bricks packaging comes 2 nicely packed boxes labelled A and B. Does this mean LEPIN finally sorted out the bricks!? NOPE! We were fooled by the nice packaging! The bricks are still sorted by sizes and colors.
Original LEGO 10197
LEPIN (Front)
LEPIN (Back)
LEPIN (Bricks Packaging)
Okay, let's start bricking!
Finally, after 6 hours, it's completed! My verdict, 7.5 out of 10. Let's start with the mini figures. LEPIN's mini figures are horrible as usual. The legs of all the mini figures are loose so they fall off easily. Tsk tsk, improve your QC, LEPIN! I have a deformed 1x6 tile but luckily it still fits in...barely...but not noticeable. And the refrigerator on the first floor - it's barely holding and falls apart if you hold it to hard. And the string that LEPIN provided to hold the bell on the roof - it's pathetic! I ended up using my own string! Another issue I discovered was the front gates are a bit tough to push up. I had to manually filed the sides so it becomes loose. Even after filing, the front gates can't go up fully. You can see the video of it below.
The bricking process was fun though. The floors snapped in nicely unlike the LEPIN GhostBusters Firehouse Headquarters and the base plate did not warp even though the building sits on 2 separate base plates. Love the flag and ping pong table!
Thank you for reading! I'll be writing a review for the LEPIN 15003 Town Hall sometime next weekday. Wait for it!
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ReplyDeleteGood job! Keep it up. Can I ask what you paid for the set?
ReplyDeleteRoughly RM 250-ish
DeleteOh, that's Malaysian Ringgit if you were wondering
Deletevery nice review and pictures man! tempted....
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI just got one and loved it!!
ReplyDeleteIf you like you can see mine here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFg5p_l5qxQ