motormouth00

It may be just me, but I'm not seeing much love for the HPI/Hot Bodies brand on RCU. Iwas looking to add my blitz on my profile, and my VE8, and neither model was in the list! Whats the Deal RCU! And all the HPIHaterzz out there, you need not apply to this conversation haha.

futureboy1969

I 2nd that!! Hpi's r very good and tough.i've had a few in the past.. they hold up great!!

cumquat

rcu has been having staffing issues for a year or two now. if you look, you'll notice that under traxxas, they dont have the stampede 4x4. under associated, there's no sc10 4x4, b/t4.1 and no rc18b/t 2.0 (although, they have a seemingly fictional 18b4...). they'll get to it eventually.

phmaximus

what about some of the members attitudes towards HPI and Traxxas, its absolutely disgusting

FahrtAutoRC

What do you mean no love for HPI on a website which half the members own a Savage???

cumquat

my issue with traxxas is the unsavory (in my personal opinion) people it attracts. the ones that think their [enter model here] with all the upgrades RPM makes is the best rc ever made. honestly, if it wasnt for those people, i'd actually consider traxxas as an option for future purchases. it doesnt help that they are drastically overpriced either. why on earth would i buy a tmaxx 3.3 when for less money i could get an mgt4.6? why would i buy a revo when i could get a kyosho inferno neo st? why would i buy an X-O1 at all?

as for hpi, i dont have any problem with them. i actually like several of their models, and have the intention to own most of them (i like the apache, but cant justify the cost). they may have had a few lame ducks in the recent past but they didnt ruin their existing line any, and in fact added to it.

SyCo_VeNoM

past would mean they pulled the lame ducks
The issue is they STILL sell them for more than other brands way more capable RC's
A few of the lame Ducks: Brama 10B, recon, E10, Trophy Truggy

All cost more than the far superior Tamiya's, OFNA's, Associated, and other brand RC's in the same class.

IMO those RC's listed should never have even been sold, and which royally damaged their reputation. Also they have the habit of using electronics in their RC's that are not up to the task like 35A ESC's in 1/10th 4wd ST's(EX: the bullet has a 35A EZ-run in it)

Side note I own 2 out of the 4 I listed, and honestly the piss poor construction of them astounded me. They were designed great just HPI used extremely sub par plastic on parts that needed take abuse. Most of which should have been steel, or aluminum... Other thing that puzzled me on the same RC's they used high quality nylon that was flexible that would have been great for the brittle parts, on parts that didn't require it in the slightest like body posts...
And I'll be honest I lost most my love for HPI when I e-mailed them about an issue with the Brama 10b, and they basically told me it was never meant to be anything over a RTR, and they were providing no more additional aftermarket parts for it to fix its glaring issues(chassis is brittle, and breaks in half on stock power after a few minutes, poor drive gears). Thing that hurt is I REALLY liked the layout .
Even the recon suffers from stupid issues common parts to break are not grouped together in parts bags instead they are grouped with completely unrelated parts. After 1 crash of my recon if I used HPI parts it would have cost me over $90 to fix a $100 RTR (which ESC BLEW out after 4 mins of use)

As for HB most people come here asking for $200-$300 RC's so can't really suggest any from there.

nitrosportsandrunner

the brama and E10 suck IMO
and the mini trophy truck has some serious issues as well. Pain to work on, under powered (way to heavy for the electronics provided) impossible to swap the battery unless you have hands of a 2 year old and worst of all in nose dives on EVERY jump.


But, then they have the savages, the wheely/crawler king, the baja's ect.

Every company has some good/some bad.

It would seem like a company should pull a model that does poorly (like the brama) but since people still buy them (those who dont know better) the company aint gonna pull something it can make money on. This is a good practice for the company (why scrap a model they spent money on to develope when its still selling)(especially if its crap and owners will have to buy lots of spare parts) but not so good for the hobby.

JohnP2

Funny you mention that. I have an HPI Savage X 4.6 on the way. While many folks on here praise the Savage, I'm curious about the HB D8 and D8T. With Tessman's recent success runnig those models, I imagine there will be a spike in interest on the D8/D8T. I know it's something I'm looking at.

The On-Road forum does seem to have quite a bit of action concerning HPI's on-road fleet.

As a new-comer to the hobby, I'm excited to see what HPI/HB has to offer.

SyCo_VeNoM

actually the brama was pulled everywhere but the US, like a few other models(like MT2 is discontinued everywhere but the US)... It seems the US just gets HPI's leftovers from the rest of the world. Plus we are usually the last to get a model on the planet usually 1-2 years after they get released in other countries. One of the few exceptions was the Savage XS. The bullet flux was released in europe years ago(I REALLY wanted one back then), and just came to the US this year.

Agree Savage is probably HPi's best RC in their lineup. The Wheely king while being real good does have an issue with the center transmission gears being somewhat weak(why they have NOT fixed them, or made an aftermarket steel set beats me). I also would not mind a baja 5b either as I think those look damn neat

As for why to pull a crap model its cause it damages their reputation badly. Lets face it if they intended it as intro model (even though its way over the cost of intro models that have more options) it should be decent. If a newbie say buys a Brama 10b, and snaps a chassis after 5-10 minutes of running it on pavement with 0 jumps, then buys another chassis just to break that after 5-10 more mins do you think that newbie will stay in the hobby? or if they do, do you think they will buy another HPI?

If they don't want to scrap the line make better replacement parts. Like how hard is it to make a chassis out of a better plastic so it don't snap in half from stock power? or even make a brace, and include it or even sell it as a hop-up.

Its just stupidly simple things they could have done on most of their models that have issues. Like I said IMO the Brama 10b is a way better design than the Tamiya DF-02. Its way easier to work on, and get at the parts, the bulkheads are separate from the chassis, and can be replaced easy without a full chassis swap. But it failed horrendously in the chassis's materials, and dif bevel gears material. 2 things they could change relatively easily 4 years ago to make the RC a good value, but they refused to even sell the things as blasted hop-ups.

Side note whatever happened to the 1/8h scale gasoline engine they were touting so much to be out this summer than it just vanished...

phmaximus

Its a shame that fanboys can turn people away...

U are so correct that with both traxxas & hpi's line up there are better stuff avaliable from other brands. but some those brands are poorly represented in our local hobby shops. personally I buy and research what im getting online, but most people walk into there local hobby shop and buy what looks to be the best in there price range. If I was to do that at my clostest hobby shop I would end up with a HSP, Great Vigor, or tamiya kit. But if I went up the road even futher I would end up with a Onfa or a Traxxas. So u could nearly say that if traxxas and HPI are well represented accross the majority of hobby shops they will be the market leaders providing they supply abaove average products... not saying good products just not crap ones.

Im a little bit of a HPI and traxxas fan, Love the HPI touring car wheels and bodies... and im a fan of the Traxxas TQi controllers, very happy with my slash, and the little ken block car is awsome... and how cool does the revo and 1/16 suspension look, and in theroy its ment to be great.

HerrSavage

Part of it too is just that racing is the trendier thing to do at the moment, and bashing is written off by know-it-all racers as a waste of time for clueless newbs..

Well, I still like bashing, and have decided that I just don't like racing. Racing, IMVHO, is just dorky.. Changing shock and diff oils all day bla bla bla.. Bashing and big air is where it's at afaic..

That said, I moved on from Savages to LST2's..

Hot Bodies is good stuff too..

TheKennyKiller

That logic makes no sense to me whatsoever.

Up until a little while ago Tower didn't let international customers use discount codes on HPI products, it pretty much made them the most expensive RCs on their site for me. Since they have changed it I have been looking at a Blitz as a possible future purchase.

Foxy

I love the blitz and hot bodies in general makes good stuff. HPI has been dropping the ball lately, you gotta admit it. Strange recycling of products, below spec electronics and inherent weaknesses, or just plain bad when they should have been good (think Apache SC).

They still have some great stuff, Blitz, Baja 5B, Savage Flux, Vorza, but they also have a lot of turnips. Hot Bodies are great, love the VE8, don't know why we don't see more HB postings on RCU, but its true we don;t seem to have many.

cumquat

i dont want to be affiliated with that type of person. i know every company has fanboys, it could be said that i was a fanboy at one point or another, but traxxas fanboys are over the top. i cant stand them. when i'm surfing this site looking at verious threads, i often check the "help needed" threads. the second i see the poster is asking about a traxxas, i usually leave. my mind says "you bought it, you deal with it". they didnt do the research and now they have to live with their decisions. and just for the record, considering isnt the same as actually buying. i've considered buying an 80" plasma, but will i? probably not.

TheKennyKiller

I try not to generalise so much. If I was considering to buy something, the attitudes of the people who bought it before me wouldn't play any part in my decision making.

cumquat

difference in personality i suppose.

chasehq

It's a open forum with members with opinions, it's no different to people liking one grid iron team over another.


Unfortunately this is how I feel aswell, for that exact reason you posted above. Now Traxxas are pretty good at what they do, their marketing and hype sell their product well. But I'm more of a scale person (I also generally hate RTR as it takes a 1/3 of the fun process of owning an RC away)and melted coke bottles with tribal graphics and chrome wheels doesn't really appeal to me. ( I say that and I just bought a savage xs, heh.) Usually the upgrades aren't RPMover herethough, it's cheap nasty Integy stuff, which just transfers the damage to another part of the car. Kids buy them and come back into my LHS with their mommys saying it's a piece of (enter expletive here) becausethey were jumping it off bridges or doing a million MPH into a kerb and it's the brands fault.

I was at a local dirt pile next to a skate park and I had a kid with a rustler (I think) laugh at how slow my RC was comapred to hisand to "sell it and buy a Traxxas". I was driving my vintage gold pan RC10 with the factory associated stock motor...

The sad thing is this happens in every genre. Motorsport, motorbikes etc.

nitrosportsandrunner

slight side note:

How often do we see a Clist or ebay ad that read "traxxax staped" or "traxas gas powered"

Those ads are by the people who walk into a hobby shop, buy the traxxas model (which is most likely the 1st they see when they walk in) and then sell it 2 months later cause they did no research...dont know how to repair it or how to find parts.

Hobby shops need to educate people. Yes, they are they to make money and that alone takes alot of hard work. But some (not all) hobby shops care more about making a sale that day, then about having educated (and happier) rc customers.

SyCo_VeNoM

mine is that way now
funny thing is when they would educate the users more they had way more business.
Now that they got the in out sell the new guy a traxxas attitude(seriously traxxas has like 1/3rd of the ground based RC floor space, rest is divied up between HPI, ECX, losi, associated, OFNA, etc) they had to downsize by 1/3rd, but still can't see why. Used to enjoy going to the HS but now I stay as far away as possible.

silvermansteve

My Feedback: (2)

nothong wrong with newsprints and rs4s. good for what they are, imo. but didn't they just put smaller-scale electronicsd on a new rtr? forget which.

Eman77

No love for HPI? Where's RedFisher when you need him?!?

chasehq

To a point yes, maybe educate them about their purchase, but then in some cases sadly that is easily swayed buy which model has the biggest profit margin. Traxxas and RTRs is what a lot of todays generation want in an RC, most of the kids today dont have the attention span to wrench on cars or learn how they work, I have even seen kids that are too impatient to wait for a battery to charge!

I am a strong advocate for kitsets, I really get a kick out of assembling an RC and learning how it works and watch it come together along the way. When something goes wrong i know exactly how it comes apart and what to fix. I think this is why I dont get too annoyed at maintenance.


In saying that (and getting back on topic)...
I have a savage xs and a baja 5b ss. Bajas require, and are high maintanence. but is also directly relative to how you treat it aswell.
The savage i have had to replace all the drive cups with upgraded ones and both arent as robust as i was lead to believe, but that is a case byncase basis and i am still running the stock steering servo in both without trouble and the esc and motor in the savage.

Both are bags of fun when they are running and i have no problem with buying another product from HPI.l

nitrosportsandrunner

im in my LHS enough to see how many new to the hobby are.

They cant recalibrate an xl-5 esc (even tho their traxxas came with a manual)

When the truck stops working, they cant tell if its the esc or the motor....when its really just a bad battery...lol.

They cant solder...or dont even try.

Granted, all of the above are LEARNED over time. But it just seems like many young ones dont want to learn. They just have Dad take the truck to the hobby shop and expect them to fix it.

Some of this is due to the prevelance of RTR's. Most newbs only know how to charge the battery, plug it in and go. They didnt learn anythign about the model before driving it. so, when it breaks, they have no idea how to fix it.

Its also (my opinion) do to parents who spend lots of money (instead of time) on their kids. Buy them a fancy toy, but then arent willing to spend time to help them maintain it.

I dont know the % of people this applies to. but there are certainly alot...thats why I see soo many used models with extremely poor descriptions (even the wrong brand name in title)

Granted, not everyone who gives RC a try will fall in love with it. But the rates would be a bit higher if hobby shops take the time to help buyers understand what they are buying and what they are getting into. And this will help get repeat customers.

But, then I dont own a hobby shop. Im sure it takes more work than it looks. I know they cant take an hour with every customer, explaining all the ins/outs of a product.

I would LOVE to open my own hobby shop. Anyone wanna lend me a 100k to get started

skippy7399

My own collection includes two HPI vehicles a Blitz and Mini Trophy. I also have a Hot Bodies truggy. Yes the Blitz is out matched on a dirt track, yes the mini is a pain to work on, and yes parts seem to be scavanged from other models. However every manufacture does this. HPI is just a revamped name for Hot Bodies afterall. Take my truggy for example. Parts for the Lightning Stadium Pro 2 are discontinued and hard to find. However HPI's "new" Trophy Truggy is the exact same truck, only five or six years newer.

As for the comsumer education on these and other rc vehicles. I actually work for a hobby shop and consider myself to be an enthusiast. However there is nothing worse than seeing someone come in buy a vehicle and be dissapointed in it. It looks bad for us at the store and the hobby as a whole. I actuallly take the time to ask a person how and where they plan on using thier new truck and rely on past experience to point them in a direction I hope thier happy with. Not every hobby shop sends people out the door counting the money in the drawer as they leave.

Oh and again. Working in a hobby shop may sound like a dream job, believe me it's NOT!!!