Originally Posted by
Tanque
Well seeing that your son's main competition is "a spoilt little turd" I'd get your son the most robust example you can justify cost wise....last thing you want is your son's machine breaking down often. On the other hand buy what you can fix yourself. If you can't or won't try to learn how to fix it don't waste your time or money. In the hands of a child, no matter how hard they try not to it's not if it will break it's when...
Jerry
I'm happy to fix it, in fact I actually look forward to fiddling with it as a joint project. I don't know a huge amount about RC tanks but you've gotta start somewhere and from what I understand Heng Long tanks are pretty good too work on. Think I'll go with the pro version for the exact same reason you mentioned though from what I understand the metal gearbox they provide isn't much better than the original plastic one?
Either way I'm happy to hear that the plastics are a lot better these days, if the wife has a melt down I won't feel so bad settling for the standard variant and grabbing metal parts later down the line.