ORIGINAL: ou2mame
I've always been into nitro, never did understand electric, but I guess with brushless, at least the power is getting there. and if you want to race, come to long island, ny
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</div><div>and yeah, my point is just price, used vs new. All my current nitros were bought used, you just have to know what to look for. Check the carb real good, compression, leaks, etc. I turned down a truck because the guy selling it didn't know what he was talking about, so I didn't trust his breakin procedure skills. but if you are careful you can definitely score a good deal. I see slayer pro rollers for anywhere from 125-175, plus 150 for a motor with clutch and ezstart or pull or what have you, puts you at about half the truck's worth new. I'm just saying that the redcat + upgrades to make it managable, is about the same price as used + repairs if you find something worth repairing, or doing required maintenance on. But this isn't a hobby for people who have absolutely no funds to get into, but I do like to be fiscally responsible, and the redcat just wasn't that. I was excited about redcat when I first looked them up, I thought that there was a good chance that they made something of decent quality or design. Later, after running a few gallons through it, I realized that it wasn't that at all. It was just some weird hpi knockoff.</div>
Yeah, I don't disagree with your perspective. Definitely if you know what to look for used is the way to go, besides for most of us working on them la half the fun. I just interpreted you original post as the same old "Redcat sucks" bashing speech. I don't think its true and I don't thinks it fair to Redcat. These models don't just fall apart and fail for no reason. Yes I know they're servos are.known to be iffy and certainly there has been enough posts on here to officially say there is a problem with them, but most of the problems you read about are people new to the hobby that just don't know what they're doing yet. I don't think there's anything wrong with these people digging in and asking sometimes what you or I might consider simple questions with simple answers, but I don't think its fair for people to continually point the finger at Redcat because someone who just bought their first nitro truck can't figure out how to keep it running.
My son is 10 years old. I bought him a used Caldera 10e monster truck when he was just turning 9. You can imagine a 9 year old operating his first real rc truck. He drives it too hard and too fast into immovable objects. This Caldera has held up great, the only real design issue that had to be upgraded was the plastic steering knuckles. You said it yourself, it takes money to be in this hobby. For me, I could not have walked into a hobby shop and purchased a $400 Traxxas truck for him at his age, then more money for something for me. A dad like me can pick up a Tornado EPX pro and a Volcano EPX pro for the price of one Traxxas brushless truck. Now there's no denying how tough that Slayer or Slash or whatever that 4wd SC truck is. My friend has the nitro version and I'm telling you that thing can withstand just about anything. Just for a lot of us, we have to consider our budget. My Monsoon XTR is a great truggy. HPI has a freight very similar to it, almost identical. The only difference is my Monsoon retails for $290 and the HPI version cost around $460. I think another problem Redcat has is because of its pricepoint , it attracts new people with no experience to the hobby. Many times these people go out and spend $200 "which they perceive to be a lot of money" on a rc truck, then bring it home and have nothing but problems with it because they just don't have the experience yet to figure it out. So then comes the "Redcat sucks" post because the guy had to replace the pull start, then he got it running and never rubber banded his servo batteries and watched as it ran away into a pond.