I popped this guy open in an attempt to see what's up. Haven't had any breaks myself but it's all screw assembled in the scary parts so figured I'd check it out.
Before I get too far,
consider the words of a chemical engineer. It could just be that you need to wait for Winter to actually end before messing with him. I live in a pretty warm, humid place and had no issues. It makes sense that higher temperatures would be more favorable to allowing plastic to flex a little where needed, so possibility one is that if it's cold where you are, you just need to warm-up this guy's crotch a bit with your hands before you go messing with his hips. I know how that sounds, wear your grown-up hat for a few
That said, the visible lines in the pearlescent plastic appear to be evidence of an actual flaw. I haven't been able to figure out if the correct term here is "jetting", "flow lines", or something else entirely, but those indeed seem to signal a poor mix or flawed injection molding technique.
I decided to just loosen up the inside of the whole crotch assembly. Shush. Getting it apart is very easy, you need a couple small screwdrivers and that's it. Once the screws are removed, angle the torso forward to allow it to let go of the midsection assembly.
Be careful to not let stuff just fall, I did this and had a spring pop out, hit me in the forehead and then proceed on its way to oblivion. Ended up using a junker Galaxy Force Soundwave hip spring to replace it.
Here's what it looks like when you get it apart:
That middle silver screw connects the toothed ratchet part to the black diecast hip piece, with the purple metallic piece crammed in between:
Places where diecast and plastic meet are suspect, so I loosened this about a quarter turn. Then, when putting it back together, I made the three screws that hold the metallic crotch pieces together tight but not overtorqued like they were in the factory, as I definitely had some white stress marks inside the part due to this.
Very important things to consider:
- What I did here seems to have reduced the stress on that part but there's no guarantee it's a permanent fix.
- THIS WILL MAKE THE HIPS A LITTLE FLOPPY. He can stand ok in both modes, but will now be limited to angles that the ratchets can provide and won't be able to use halfway points like it can out of the box thanks to friction. YMMV on whether or not this matters, it did not to me.
- I'm not a pro and can't help you if you have trouble, this post is everything I know about it. In other words, tinker at your own risk.
Anyway hope that helps. I don't know if it really does but maybe time will tell. (News staff, please don't post this, it's not nearly definitive enough for that!)