well,maybe thats your personal experiance.i dunno.my freind has a hpi and when he first got it he spent alot of time fixing it and still does,the knuckles on the hpi are designed very weak,the ball ends that hold them on get tore up real fast and then the knuckles are shot.so the camber and steering go to hell.the tc3 is a taotally different design that cant be torn up.i agree that the plastic parts break on ALL r/c cars,not just tc3's.but i have yet to break anything on my tc3 (knocks on wood).and its all plastic,i plan to upgrade a few parts to alloy,just for better steering response.to me,a car is a car,ALL of them have the good points and the bad,they are all made of plastic and therefore will all break with a hard enough impact.HPI's are good cars and so are tc3's,tc3 are also well supported my your local hobby store.either one you get you will have a blast with.