ORIGINAL: rchobbyunlimited
Very well said rc dad very well said and as you stated eariler I can blog about the same BAD experinces I have had with HPI I have my own personal HPI savage XL the motor was garbarge from the moment I broke the seal on the box HPI sent 2 more bad motors and I just ended up putting in a LRP .30 motor and boy does it flies now it would have been very wrong of me to get on HPI blog and just say HPI really sucks all of there motors are bad just buy traxxas NO I know thats just part of the hobby I fix it and move all there is no perfect R/C they all will have a good point and they will have a bad point.
I just was really sleepy last night but then you stated rc dad you like nitros and you will not buy used or unless you really know the person ok makes really great sense to me. He come back and says he buys used all the time you just need to know what to look for WHAT!!!! there is no know what to look for I can sell him a used nitro he says he looks at the carb or whatever he looks at. I will have the car cleaned running great purring along nicely even let him test drive get his money but guess what he has no clue that number 1 I didnt even break the car in right 2 I let the car sit for 4 months on the shelf with gas in the tank so now he has plent of moisture and rust in the engine within a few tanks especially when he drives the tanks out and the car runs lean from when the tanks is empty the moisture or the rust come loose from the heat scratch the piston or the sleeve and he will need a new engine very very soon so what did he save from buying used not anything he will be paying more because he needs a new engine.
Yeah, I know HPI makes some good stuff, you just have to be buying that particular model. Nobody can deny the Savage's reputation as being bullet proof, they've earned it. But personally I think HPI's engines are junk. It's funny how people will even bash SH engines just because they come with a Redcat , but in my opinion for people just out having fun, the SH engines are awesome. They're very powerful and easy to tune especially for the beginners. I don't think HPI is junk by any means, I have friends with their higher end stuff. I was just trying to explain when you talk about having issues with a rc, that you can have them with every manufacturer. I realize my MT2 was at the bottom of the HPI food chain and just took it for what it was worth. All in all, every time I fixed it, it ran really well and handled great. I wanted to like it, it just kept breaking very easily and to me, a $180 Volcano breaking easily is better than a $360 MT2 breaking easily. Luckily I didn't pay that, I bought it as a roller for $100 and had it back running with a new engine and tank for $200. I just got tired of it breaking.
But yeah the used issue with nitro's to me is just too much of a gamble. There are so many variables when buying a used nitro. Yes you can look in the head and see the color of the piston, and also feel what the compression is, but you still never really know what's its going to run like down the road. As I said, with my MT2, the guy told me it needed a connecting rod, so I was already assuming I needed an engine when I made an offer. I knew I could do the HPI engine program swap so that's what I wound up doing. After getting it running I eventually bought new wheels and tires for it and a new body. The body was needed so I figured that was another $22. The wheels and tires I kind of figure are the nature of the game. I used the originals on another truck I had. So with the body I had $225 in it. Now not including the replacement parts along the way, I drove it for a year and wound up selling it for $220. To me, that's how I like to buy used.