After dissecting the contents of the June 2025 wave of LEGO® Technic sets, it’s time to check out what is built with them. We’ll start with 42209 Volvo L120 Electric Wheel Loader. Also, sorry in advance for the rant.
Products in this article were gifted by The LEGO Group; the author's opinions are their own.
This article contains affiliate links to LEGO.com; we may get a small commission if you purchase.
42209 Volvo L120 Electric Wheel Loader
- Release date: 1 June 2025
- Pieces: 973
Price: US$119.99/ £89.99/ 99.99€/ AU$149.99
- US$ 119.99 on LEGO.com US
- CA$ 139.99 on LEGO.com Canada
- GB£ 89.99 on LEGO.com UK
- AU$ 149.99 on LEGO.com Australia
- NZ$ 169.99 on LEGO.com New Zealand
- DE€ 99,99 on LEGO.com Deutschland
- NL€ 99,99 on LEGO.com Nederland
- FR€ 99,99 on LEGO.com France
- PLN 439.99 on LEGO.com Polska
- NOK 1399,90 on LEGO.com Norge
- DKK 899.95 on LEGO.com Danmark
The box
Since this set has “electric” in its name, there’s the possibility that people would think it contains electric components, such as the Powered Up system. As such, I found it mildly amusing that TLG decided to add this tiny disclaimer to the box.
Instructions
At 228 pages, the instructions book has a size consistent with the set’s girth.
This set’s exclusion from the “18+” club means we don’t get an introductory text about the real thing and the design of the LEGO version. But being licensed means the last pages offer a few photos, comparing real and model, as well as some specs of said real thing.
One missing spec that I’d like to see is the battery capacity, commonly measured in kilowatts-hour (kWh). For reference, a regular electric passenger car’s capacity ranges between around 30 and 100 kWh, so it’d be nice to see here how much zappy juice the L120 behemoth can hold.
Sticker sheet
Besides the usual detailing-oriented stickers, sadly including one for the non-brick-built taillights, it contains abundant “Volvo” and “Electric” lettering on plain rectangular black backgrounds. These could be useful in decorating an electric and/or Volvo MOC.
The build
The building process is divided by the eight numbered bags. As the parts of each bag are added, we can appreciate how dense this model is.
Unlike “traditional” LEGO® System construction, which tends to happen bottom to top, studless LEGO® Technic System construction lends itself more to inside-to-out builds, and 42209 is no exception. Proof of that is in bag 1, which builds the very core of the model: the articulation that allows it to steer and the multiple axles that use U-joints to transmit power through it.
After bag 2, both axles and their differentials are in place. It’s not immediately apparent, but this will be the front of the machine, with the three neatly aligned tan 12T bevel gears waiting for the arm structure.
Bag 3 is more focused on the rear (on the left, in the photo above) and the beginning of the powertrain. As this is a model of an electric loader, there’s no cylinder engine in sight: instead, we get three spinning cylinders, representing the rotors of the three electric motors (two for propulsion and one for hydraulics). Ironically, these cylinders are built with Technic Driving Ring Extensions (35186), which are more commonly used in the transmissions of LEGO combustion-powered vehicles.
Bag 5 is dedicated to the bonnet and the start of the cabin. Nothing very interesting here, it’s mostly panelling action.
Now the building process turns its attention to the middle. Bag 6 builds the rest of the cabin, and a ladder to avoid the need for the driver to also be a high jump athlete to reach it.
With bag 7, the rear is finished. Next we’ll finally be moving to the L120’s business end.
And, after 8 bags of elements, we’re done. This is by far the trickiest part of the assembly, as it requires extending the three mini linear actuators to precise lengths for everything to go together without forcing stuff. This is also where I intentionally deviated a bit from the instructions, but that’s something to be discussed further down.
The finished model
As we saw during the very first steps of the assembly process, and as is typical for this kind of machine, steering is done by articulating the two halves of the body. You control it from the black 20T gear at the top of the cabin. The beacon light placed right next to this gear can make steering slightly cumbersome, but it’s easy to fold it away for play.
The only missing functionality is the steering wheel, as it’s not connected to its respective system. There’s a vertical axle right beside it (marked with the red arrow), which is part of the steering mechanism. If one were to forgo the small realism provided by the tilt of the steering wheel and have it completely vertical, it should be possible to have it turn with the machine via this axle.
Speaking of realism, the cabin has plenty of details, achieved using LEGO System elements. The seat looks comfy, but the air conditioning appears to be broken, judging by the bottle of (presumably) water by the driver’s side.
I thought a minifigure would fit inside this model. Well, it does, but I had to remove the seat to give the cockpit enough vertical space, and even then, it was a chore to get this guy sitting inside. I know yellow isn’t his colour of choice, but still, he could really be a little more cooperative.
Presumably the driver isn’t used to electric vehicles and thus suffers from range anxiety: they thought it best to bring a shovel along, just in case the batteries die out before the job is done and they need to finish it by hand.
The model features four-wheel drive, with one differential on each axle. The heaviest-duty LEGO differentials (each built with a casing 65414 and a gear 69761, mated to a gear 69762) are totally overkill in this rather small, non-motorised set, but you won’t hear any complaints about that from me in that regard. This is the newest and least common LEGO differential, it’s the best for, you guessed it, heavy-duty applications such as large remote-controlled MOCs, and the more sets it comes in, the better.
The rear axle is of the pendular type, to help keep all four wheels in contact with even rough terrain. This is typical of this kind of machines, in which traditional leaf or coil suspensions tend to be too weak for the supported weight and their high-speed advantages don’t apply to lumbering workhorses. The travel is barely noticeable on the LEGO model, but I guess it’s realistic; after all, we’re dealing with a front-end loader, not a rock crawler. If you want to learn more about pendular suspensions, look no further than Jennifer Clarke’s excellent Demag All Terrain Crane page (scroll to the “Suspension” section).
Don’t worry, folks, our lovely assistant is OK: he’s got his protective suit and helmet. See, he’s even smiling!
I don’t remember ever seeing a brick-built fuel cap on a LEGO Technic set. However, this set that represents an electric machine features a charging port behind an openable flap, perhaps to help differentiate it further from a machine powered by an ICE (internal combustion engine). This is a detail that could have been easily replicated with a simple sticker, but I’m glad that that choice wasn’t taken.
The bonnet is hinged at the back. Opening it reveals the three electric motors that all spin when the model is pushed around. Realistically, only two of them would spin when driving because the third is only for powering the hydraulics, but I’m happily willing to make the concession because spinning is cool, that’s a scientifically-proven fact, and anyone who says otherwise is a dummy rotten egg. There’s also an orange rigid hose (100745) that, from its colour, I assume represents high-voltage cabling.
With the bonnet open, it’s possible to also open a panel on each side behind the rear wheel. If you apply the set’s stickers, opening these panels reveals some more electrical details.
Let’s now take a quick sidequest. Toby already discusses this situation in his review of 42215 Volvo EC500 Hybrid Excavator, and the smaller Volvo in this review suffers from the same issue. It's something that really needs to be addressed, and, frankly, it's a pet peeve of mine.
Ever since 8043 Motorized Excavator introduced a boom raised by twin linear actuators (LA) powered from the main structure by gears instead of U-joints, LEGO has used some variation of the mechanism sketched above. This example uses the small LAs, but the same principle applies to the large ones.
When the blue axle is driven (via manual crank, motor, or anything else), its motion is transmitted through the green and red gears into the two input axles of the LAs, which then extend or contract in sync.
So far so good, right? Well, as the boom raises or lowers, it brings the dark grey tips of the LAs with it, which makes them pivot around the yellow axle. “No problem with that”, you may say, “that’s what the red gears are for, to accommodate the change in angle”. And that’s indeed what they’re for. However, from the LAs’ point of view this pivoting is making the red gears turn a bit, either adding to or subtracting from the main rotation action coming from the blue axle.
So, because of all this pivoting action, the red gears induce a small additional extension or contraction of the LAs. The problem with the way official instructions have you build this mechanism is that they want you to place the red gears facing opposite directions. This has the effect of causing an extension on one of the LAs and a contraction on the other, which in turn misaligns the LAs’ piston ends, twists the boom a bit, and induces stress in the boom and the structure it attaches to. If both gears are facing the same direction, they are equally extended or contracted and there’s no risk of twisting.
Hopefully this animation makes it clear how the symmetrically-placed 20T bevel gears make the mini LAs turn in opposite ways when the latter are tilted.
What grinds my gears (pun intended) is that I see this choice of symmetry in official sets all the time, that it was likely made just for the sake of aesthetics, and that turning one of the gears around so they both face the same way and therefore avoid all this is almost always possible, even trivial during assembly. Worse yet, the instructions often really want to make sure you build it the wrong way and this set is no exception, as pictured above. I hope I was able to bring some awareness to this problem and that, in the future, the designers of this kind of mechanism don’t affect function in the pursuit of form.
As you may guess, this is where I rebelled against the instructions, and the rant above was to explain why. I placed the two outside 20T bevel gears (87407) facing the same way instead of at each other. The mechanism works this way like a charm and I don’t have to fear forcing anything.
The bucket’s range of motion seems fine, but I’d like the geometry to be a little tweaked to allow its angle to remain constant as it rises.
Given that my taste swings more towards function than form, I don’t mind what some people call “colour vomit”: the usage of non-matching colours inside a model to ease the building process for non-die-hard builders. Therefore, I’m not too miffed about the glaring blue 20T gear parading on the top of the bonnet. However, the double-bevel version (18575) could be used here instead: it’s widely available in black, and, being bevelled instead of spur, has the advantage of being able to mesh with other gears in a 90º angle. Since this gear wouldn’t be used anywhere else in the set, I suspect it’d increase too much the elements budget, hence the choice for the blue element. Anyway, if you have a spare black 20T gear lying around, the swap is a trivial thing to do, even after the model is fully assembled, and the looks will improve significantly.
Closing thoughts
Not only that, but, more importantly for people who want to create stuff, in my opinion this is an excellent parts pack. As a not very expensive set ( contains all sorts of useful generic elements: beams (of the regular and flip-flop types), panels, frames, gears (I’d prefer more bevels and less sours, though), U-joints, wheels, differentials, mini linear actuators, a bottle, and more. Furthermore, the main colours being black and regular yellow mean you won’t have trouble finding more parts to supplement this set’s inventory. The only element you may have a harder time reusing on your builds is the bucket, but I understand it’d be impossible to have a brick-built solution at this scale and price point that didn’t fall apart at the slightest touch.
So, unless you have a very specific need for your MOC, such as some specialised element or a particular colour scheme, this set is both an excellent starter pack for newbies and an equally excellent booster pack for veterans.
Oh, I almost forgot another downside to this set: despite representing a loader, it doesn’t come with anything to load. You’ll have to provide your own material, though this may involve certain risks.
READ MORE: See the new elements that come in this and the other June 2025 LEGO® Technic sets
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This was a particularly fun review, thanks for brightening my day. The steering actuator is a 12 tooth gear, though.
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