Kazi brand Fire Station 8051 Building set review (not Lego)

 

Hi brick fans!  Four years ago I bought my first non Lego building set and it was a Kazi fire truck set.  That was followed by several more Kazi fire vehicles and subsequently the Kazi Fire station set 8052.    I've reviewed them separately, links at the end of this post.

I finally completed my Kazi Fire Fighting collection with the purchase of the Kazi 8051 Fire station last month.  I got it off Ebay for $19.99 USD with free shipping.  The set has 774 pieces, has 5 firemen mini figures, and several vehicles to complete the fire station building set.

The Fire Station

Here's the instruction booklet and all the parts bags for this set.  There's no sticker sheet but there are quite a few printed parts.

The Kazi instruction booklet tries to compress a lot of steps into each page, making it somewhat confusing when building this fire station set.  Some of the steps are really small and hard to make out.

The fire station consists of 2 garage bays and they are connected by a central 2 storey office.  At the side of the large garage bay, there is a faucet and sink and a collection of tools, like an ax, shovel, broom and saw.  There's also a big palm tree in the front.

Having built the Kazi 8052 fire station, that set had garage roll-up doors that worked well.  I can't say the same for the garage doors from this 8051 set.  They are quite stiff and when I try to move them up and down, invariably some of the door segments separate from each other.

There's a helipad on top of the garage.  The sides of the garage aren't bricked in.

This set comes with 5 firemen which need to be assembled.

Here they are with all their fire fighting gear.  One fire fighter has a helmet and visor while three others have have oxygen tanks, visors and breathing apparatus.  They all wear the same uniforms, but each of their faces is unique.  Too bad they look so funny.   Some extra pieces include an arm, a leg and a hand.

Hey, no pictures!

This is the other smaller garage of the fire station.  It also has a roll up door and a stair case to access the roof.  The garage door works a little better than the larger door of the bay 01.

Now that we've built the two garage bays, let's construct the offices that connect them together.

The center office of the fire station is equipped with a coffee maker and a computer terminal.  There also seems to be what looks to be a weigh scale although I don't know why that's here.

One accesses the lower office through the sliding door at the front.

Here's how the fire station looks with the office attached to both garages.  I noticed that some of the red brick pieces have different shades of red.  The gray plate pieces also vary in colour between a flat shade to a metallic shade.

Window glass is pretty scuffed up and I found this white brick with dirt on it. Ewww.

The second floor office has a computer terminal and control panel.  Someone left their mug overnight without washing it again.

The second floor of the fire station  is enclosed on three sides by windows and there's a cool tilting sunroof.

Here's the sunroof in the open position.

The second floor is installed onto the remainder of the fire station.

Here's the completed fire station.  I added my own 8x16 plate piece (not originally part of the set) in front of the first floor sliding door.

The other thing I should add is that the brick clutch is rather tight and my fingers hurt trying to pry some pieces apart.

Here's the backside of the completed fire station.

The Vehicles

This fire station building set includes a fire chief's car which is also sold by itself as Kazi building set 8057.  It has 83 pieces.

The fire chief's car has a rear hatch for storing extra fire fighting gear.  A walkie talkie and axe adorn each side of the vehicle.  Also on the sides of the vehicle are bricks that say Fire Protection.

The fire chief's car fits snugly into garage bay 02.  It rolls really well but I'm not a fan of the blue tinted glass.

The next fire vehicle is the helicopter.  It's included in this set but can be acquired by itself as Kazi set 8056.  The helicopter is made up of 89 pieces.

It features rotating top and rear rotors.  It has an opening canopy that unfortunately doesn't stay up when you lift it.

 Other features of the helicopter include two storage cubbies and the adjustable water nozzles on either side of the chopper.

The last emergency vehicle that comes with the Kazi fire station is the fire engine with articulating platform.  It is comprised of 244 pieces and can be purchased on it's own as Kazi 8053.

The fire engine has two storage compartments,  two stabilizers that fold down and the rotating and extending snorkel.

The platform stays up on it's own, but once you put a minifigure into it, it collapses.

To rectify this problem, I added an extra lock nut on top of the extender tube.  This stopped the piston from sliding into the shaft.

Here's the telescopic arm in the lowered and closed position.

Another view of the fire engine.  The turntable rotates without any issues.

It should be noted that the fire engine doesn't fit into the garage bay too well.  The top of the fire truck scrapes the garage door, causing it to separate the door sections.

Summary

The Kazi Fire station 8051 is a good sized set with 774 pieces and a decent price of under $20 USD.

Pros

It's a large set with a fire chief vehicle, a helicopter and a fire engine with articulating snorkel.  If you purchased the three vehicles on their own, they would probably cost you $20 USD, so this set is good value.  You get 5 mini figures in this set.  There are plenty of play features such as opening doors and lots of accessories.

Cons

The brick clutch is a bit too tight for my liking which might make it difficult for younger builders to pry pieces apart.  The brick colours are inconsistent on the red bricks and gray plates.  The roll-up garage doors don't move that smoothly and sometimes come apart.  The fire snorkel's articulating arm needs a small fix to allow the minifigure to stand in the platform.  Oh and the minifigures don't look all that great.

However, if you don't mind the small nits about this set, it would make a nice addition to your brick city.   I would rate this set 3.5 out of 5 for the reasons above.  Thanks for checking out my review!

My Related Kazi Fire reviews

Kazi Fire Station 8052

Kazi Fire Chief Car 8057

Kazi Fire Utility vehicle 8055