Dale Gribble

My Feedback: (4)

Good riddance to my Rampage experience. Believe it or not, the new owner blew out the Rampage's throttle servo (JR z590M)!!! and the clutch spring broke!!! within 5 minutes of easy running. The new owner thought I sold him a lemon and he was pretty sore at me. I had to make concessions to let him know I wasn't trying to pull a fast one one him. So, my Rampage curse persisted beyond even after it left my possession.

Why the throttle servo? I know why. I put the insufficient stock 2.4 transmitter and receiver back in the Rampage to sell it. Do you guys know what happens when you turn the Redcat receiver on before the Redcat transmitter? Well boys and girls, the receiver throws the servo to beyond its max travel and holds it until it gets a transmit signal. I noticed this when I put the system in and I am certain this is what caused the servo to fail. Some will say "ah, you are supposed to turn on transmitter first" to which I say "of course" and "guess what? 1) the engine wasn't started and 2) Not a single other tx/rx in my 20+ year history of RC has done this".

Why the clutch spring? Poor materials? Poor quality control? Take your pick. One issue I didn't even mention was that the stock clutch lost one of its clutch shoes within minutes of starting when I first got it. The shoe literally fell off of the clutch and bound up the other clutch so the truck wouldn't move. This was very early on, so I just put in a new clutch and figured it was an anomaly. Little did I know this was the sign of things to come.

I am certain that Redcat Racing will continue shipping tons of product because we are in the era of self indulging consumerism where cheaply priced products rule. This may be overreaching, but I question the sustainability of an organization that places their quality control solely in their suppliers' hands and remains wholly subject to their suppliers' quality programs and product development. There is a difference between importing a lot of OEM product and just pushing it to the masses vs. taking the steps towards building a cradle to grave product company. The latter is much harder and costs a whole lot more with tighter margins- you have to take controls out of the OEMs hands and start managing it in-house though I am sure the low price of importing Chinese goods and the handsome markup provide little incentive for considering in-house design, product management and quality control.

I would like to see a ground up Redcat Racing product design. Until that time, they are just an importer of others' goods and in my opinion will not be viewed on the same level as those that manage their own designs from cradle to grave like their competitors: Traxxas, HPI, Tamiya, Losi, Associated, etc.

I have probably said too much...