Hi everyone, I’m posting this here to share a very frustrating experience with Bambu Lab support regarding a brand new A1 unit and to see if anyone has faced a similar situation. **The Problem:** My Bambu Lab A1 arrived with a physically deformed / misaligned toolhead retaining latch. Because the metallic latch on the toolhead assembly is bent from the factory, it is impossible to properly lock the stock hotend in place (even when completely clean and using official Bambu Lab parts). Because the hotend cannot be secured tightly, the nozzle moves during automatic bed leveling, causing the Z-offset calibration to fail completely and destroying the first layer. **Temporary Verification:** To confirm the root cause, I temporarily secured the hotend block using heat-resistant silicone as a makeshift clamp. With the movement eliminated, the piezo sensors leveled correctly and the print succeeded—proving 100% that the issue is the mechanical latch failure on the toolhead chassis. **Bambu Lab Support Response:** After opening a ticket and providing clear video evidence showing the latch refusing to close, support responded by: 1. Questioning if the stock nozzle was an official part (due to a missing QR code on the A1 nozzle design). 2. Claiming that the nozzle/hotend are “consumables subjected to wear” and therefore not covered under warranty. 3. Offering a single free nozzle as a “complimentary exception” while refusing to fix/replace the physically defective toolhead chassis or issue an RMA for the unit. **Why this is unacceptable:** The nozzle itself is fine. The issue is a **structural defect in the printer’s toolhead latching mechanism**, which came damaged out of the box. A bent frame component on a brand new printer is a manufacturing defect, NOT consumable wear. Has anyone managed to get an RMA or a proper toolhead replacement after support tried to classify structural hardware failure as consumable wear?)
You need a new hotend heating assembly. Cheap part thats easy to buy.
Attach a picture of the latch. Its thin metal that can probably be bent back into place in a few seconds.
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Agree with @CincinnatiDesigns , we need to see a picture of the damaged latch.
If you paste that into a support ticket with a pic, Bambu will probably send you at least another hotend heating block.
On the A1 specifically I would hold an extra one of these on hand as a spare part. Those heater wires like to get stiff over time, and an overzealous brushing can kill them once they get brittle [thousands of hours]