Hi All,

First off, I want to say that I have just written Dragon Care about my missing parts. However, I want to know if any of you have experienced this problem. Way back in 2012, I ordered 2 Dragon 3536 M1A2 SEP Abrams kits from Dragon USA Online. I know that's an eternity ago, but I just got around to opening the boxes (removing the factory cellophane from the outside of the box), and I found, to my utter dismay, that neither box contains the photo etch parts. I'm writing to ask if any of you have encountered a similar lack of quality control, especially from that time frame. I know that you probably won't remember 5 years ago, but I'm really curious, and annoyed. I can understand perhaps one kit being deficient, but two? I won't be able to build those kits without the photo etch, so it's a good thing that I wasn't planning to start building either of them right away, but still, it's aggravating.

I have had good luck with Dragon Care in the past (I know many of you have written that your experiences were not that good), and I'm hoping they make good on these deficiencies, but wondering if any of you have encountered this unfortunate circumstance.

I bought a Dragon 1/35 M1A2 SEP v2. My kit came with everything, but it had one MAJOR flaw. The one piece hull was badly warped. All other parts were fine, so I don't think the warp-age was due to excessive heat during shipping.

I think Dragon's quality control is not so good. Read about other people having similar issues after my purchase. Dragon may produce one of the most accurate Abrams kits, but I'm leery of buying another Dragon product.

All of my problems with Dragon stem from errors in the instructions.

Instructions calling for parts that aren't in the box or the sprue maps, mis labeling parts, backwards assembly ( put a part in the hull only after you seal the hull up?)
The same parts on different sprues and they tell you to use the worse of the parts? And too tiny pictures for intricate ambiguous multi piece assemblies and huge pictures for simple obvious assemblies.

The actual parts are usually the least of my problems.

Though I do have one Sherman in the stash missing the grouser vent PE and a Pzkpfw III missing the intake PE. But since it's a screen I can replace that.