FYI my Panzer III showed up with the main gun inoperable and a road wheel fell off in the first 5 minutes. The road wheel was a 30 sec fix, but the gun required me to disassemble the tank, including the gun assembly. Thanks to this forum, I found out what I needed to fix. In fixing the tank, I did break two wires and pulled a solder pad off one of the circuit boards. Mato included the wrong instructions with the tank. It took over a week to get them to fax me the correct one.

My three Tamiya tanks were built and battled straight from the box. In three years of battles, my son and I have lost two gear boxes, and decided to add gear reduction and a new tensioner to the Tiger I. I'm not trying to hide anything. I even started the thread trying to gather info about the pros and cons of each Tamiya tank.

In the end, I do believe, you do get what you pay for.