Truth be told, 90% of redcat's bad rep does come from bad dealers. At least that's how I see it.
No matter the brand, if I owned a hobby shop and new a customer had just bought a truck from me and needed a part that I didn't have on the shelf, I would be willing to take said part off another truck to sell to them.
If you, as a hobby shop, cannot supply the parts people need to keep their RC's going.....then you are not doing your job and wont keep a good customer base, which in the end will result in your store failing. It is that simple. Take a $5 loss to keep a customer!

The fact that you couldn't find the parts elsewhere is largely due to the fact that it is a new model. The models that have been out for some time are very easy to get parts for.
The same thing happened to me last year with the mirage. I broke the suspension arms and redcat was out of stock....and I couldn't find them on ebay. I finally found 1 online dealer that had some.
But now, its very easy to find mirage parts.
Redcat's dealer base is decent, but simply not on par with big names like HPI and traxxas, Losi ect. So, when new models come out it can be the case that parts are difficult to find at 1st. Same can be said of the models themselves, as redcat often runs out of stock on new models. They can only guess how many will sell in the 1st few months. If demand is higher, they run out.

My thinking on redcat, as a previous dealer and someone who has run nearly all of their electric models is this:
sometimes the quality is a bit shy of the big brand models.
Sometimes parts are hard to find.
Customer service is generally good....tho it seems this can depend on who answers the phone.
Many of their manuals lack information.
Those be the downsides. On the upside...Price 1st of all. A 4wd brushless redcat costs the same as a brushed 2wd traxxas!
2nd, its great fun to beat your friends $600 emaxx with your $300 earthquake 8e. Or to leave your buddy's $250 brushed slash in the dust with your $200 brushless volcano. Also, showing off what a lightly modded $150 rs10 crawler can do is a blast.
3rd, I like modding, upgrading, customizing. Ive found that many of the quality issues on redcat models can be fixed fairly easy. The 8e models have diff issues, fixed by shimming them. The epx pro models need "O" rings added to the diff output cups, as well as the camber and steering links moved to the holes closest to the hubs (greatly reduces chance of hub arm breaking) and the shocks on the tornado should be moved inboard, which makes the tower far less likely to bend. This is simple stuff.

I have owned traxxas, HPI, losi, duratrax, exceed, Tamiya ect. Ive put as much work into other brand's models as I have any redcat. I have never bought a redcat and then felt like I wasted my money. I have had one or 2 big name models that felt like a waste (HPI E10!)

A rule of rc to understand....NO matter how much your model cost....or who made it....it will break. You will have to buy replacement parts, some part will need upgrading and at some point you will need to rebuild the whole darn thing. If you don't like working on an RC, then RC isn't for you. I bash my stuff hard, so I spend as much time working on them as I do running them (well maybe not that much but you get the point)

Lastly....What part on the Terremoto broke!!!