Originally Posted by
Zeeb
Tower has always been great, Hobby Services is another story. Pricing on Futaba stuff from Tower is absolutely outrageous. No real innovation, no attempt to keep good customers like the Gold Member evaporated this year much to my chagrin as I have a couple of new turbines to setup, the employees' who were owed money last year didn't get any and so on. Personally, I have just not had issues with Horizon either sales, warranty or support and for that I will pay extra.
Oh, I used to fly JR but I won't get into that here when there's another thread for it already.
JMHO.....
Could have said pricing on Futaba stuff is outrageous leaving off the FROM TOWER. There is the indicator for who is next. As stated above the Chinese manufacturers are putting out much better quality and even though Chinese distributors are still pretty much useless when it comes to customer service (Bangwhogood?) some have American warehouses that are pretty reliable. I still buy from HK but only the American warehouse and never on backorder. Never had a problem. When I can buy 4 or so Turnigy receivers for the cost of one Futaba why buy from Tower. Like I've said in other threads on this subject Hobbico sealed their fate when the refused to deal with the cheap Chinese sources. They should have stayed a rep and let Tower and the others handle their one businesses. Tower could then have adapted to a changing market. Top-Flite could have made deals with World Models. And so on.
All that will likely happen now since the entire organization is up for sale. Anyone buying it as a whole is a fool or planning on divesting it. Breaking it into smaller pieces is a much better way to go.