I bought this because I thought it would be a cool build. Got to side panel opposite side of motor door and it was no where to be found. When I open packs I cut over and dump on a big cookie tray so nothing gets lost. Major disappointment considering money spent. Thought I would put parts for side panel in ziplock bag an continue. Put on what I could on that side after requesting part and continued building. Got to part that bucket and jack hammer mouth to and was missing 75% of those pieces 😠so I went thru everything left sort parts for rest of build and requested around 20 pieces in total. Received email this morning side panel was in mail now still need other parts to get sent. This is a failure on quality control in my opinion big time. Not what would be expected for money spent. As for operations as is..maybe 2 motors would make experience better. Overall not happy with this purchase. Have had others missing parts also but borrowed from this and ordered what I needed and extra. Might be the end of my run with legos.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Response from LEGOBy Rob, LEGO® Customer Service, August 27, 2026
Waiting for replacement parts is never fun. We're sorry that it affected your building experience with the Volvo EC500 Hybrid Excavator. If you ever need assistance with a build or an update on your parts order, please reach out to us at LEGO.build/Service.
Extremely complex and slow build, with a gear system prone to fail. The gears keep grinding out of nowhere with all the steps followed. The tracks and the rotation are manual and the boom is extremely slow. I had a lot more fun building and playing with the 42042 set.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Response from LEGOBy Redd, LEGO® Customer Service, August 12, 2026
Hi, thanks for taking time to leave us feedback, I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the building and playing experience of the Volvo EC500 Hybrid Excavator. We'll pass your comments about the gear system and the tracks to our design team to help with future sets!
The set was fun to put together, and the instructions were well-done. My big complaint is that the motorized movements are extremely slow, to the point that it’s only really good as a static display. For the price I would expect a lot more, and for the swivel and tracks to be motorized. This is probably the most disappointing set that I’ve ever bought for that reason.
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I bought this set for my birthday and I absolutely love this set. After reading previous reviews of this set I was pretty skeptical but I bought it anyway. This was my first 18+ set and I love it. It may be a little slow and expensive but if you love all things construction related you should like it.
The build was okay but for the money this Lego doesn’t cut it. It never worked properly and was just an inferior design.
I have built several dozen Lego’s and this was the worst one hands down. Very disappointing
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Response from LEGOBy Sien, LEGO® Customer Service, April 9, 2026
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience with us! We're sorry to hear that you didn't enjoy the build. If you found The Excavator didn't work as it should have, something may have gone wrong during the building process. If you'd like any further help, please don't hesitate to get in touch via LEGO.build/Service and we'll have a look!
Read reviews after purchasing and I was a little concerned. The poor reviews were a bit surprising considering the reviews of the other products I have purchased were so high. I’ve read the negative reviews and my experience doesn’t reflect them at all. I’ve done multiple Technic builds and this was on par with all of them. During the build I was waiting to run into issues that would, in my eyes, justify the poor reviews but I never came across them. It’s not cheap but definitely worth the money and I would recommend.