Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

I really hate building kits.

I don't need to fully assemble a car or truck to understand how its put together.

Id rather just go over the car check the screws and put the fluids in I want.

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

Building kits is 75% of the hobby to me. I enjoy it the most.

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

I love to build, but sometimes its a money issue. I bought my RS4 as a RTR, it would have cost me more at the time to get a radio for the ss kit. My firestorm is RTR only so not much choice there. I have built plenty of them also to know how they operate, for the most part, without building them first.

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

I would rather have a kit, it's fun to build stuff

although, I have bought RTR's and race rollers

in the most recent purchase the assembled race roller was about 70-80 bucks cheaper than the kit (8ight-t)

I'm not paying 70 extra bucks to assemble it myself when there's not even any upgraded parts over the race roller

if they were the same price I would have preferred the kit

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

You obviously haven't built a Tamiya kit before.

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

There is an Assembled Kit?

If you mean a RTR minus electronics - I wouldn't consider that a kit.

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

to me i'd rather not trust someone taht's paid less than minimum wage to put MY car together and would rather do it myself and know its done right. and by coming in kit form as least i don't have towaste my time taking it apart before putting it back together. i see a lot of discussions where ppl find fault after running their cars for a while and attempt to blame the factory for a minor assembly error or oversight.

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

there are various stages of "assembled kits"

some just require installation of electronics,

some still require you to build the shocks, and some other minor assembly tasks


if you still need to/get to build the shocks that's not RTR minus electronics (CRT .5 in particular, although I'm sure there are others)

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

Unassembled is the only way to go. When I first got into this hobby in '83 that's all there were. They were just a rolling chassis. You supply the engine, pipe and radio. Of course I do mostly racing. But I do bash with an HPI Baja B5 SS. But they came out with that as the SS kit and I bought it. When you build it yourself then you get to know how it all goes together and have a better understanding of how it works and it makes it easier to understand when you have to repair and/or maintain it. And there's the pride of building it too. And its a whole lot easier than 1:1 cars. I would never get an RTR if I can avoid it. So far so good. And if its already assembled, it isn't really a kit, is it? Do you mean an assembled rolling chassis and you supply the engine and radio?

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

What I would like to see is something close to the equivelent of "PNP" with planes. Basically a rolling chassis. Receiver, motor, ESC, battery, and charger not included, but at a cheaper price than the RTR that does include those things.

So much of the time I get an RTR and the first thing I do is rip out the worthless ESC and motor. The plug-in overnight charger sits in the box unused and eventually gets thrown away. The battery, if included, might end up salvaged for non-RC projects but typically it just sits around unused. The receiver and radio, likewise. I feel like RTR is just a way of getting hobbyists to pay for sub-par electronics that wouldn't get used or sold in a real secondary / upgrade market.

And in the old days when things were unassembled a whole class of people were kept out of the hobby by it. Now with RTRs you have the 'rich kid who depends on a LHS to keep it running' type of people being able to participate in the hobby. And before you mock them, having these types of people in the hobby helps to keep the LHS alive in the age of internet commerce. Hobby shops that are 'in the know' charge these guys between 30-60 an hour in 'labor' costs to fix their cars and get parts sales on top of this. Without guys like these in the hobby, more Local Hobby Shops would go the same way of the mom-and-pop corner store or the comic book / collectables shop.

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

I like building kits. Its very rewarding after you finish and you can drive something you built yourself.

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

Personally I like the rolling chassis better, I dont have a whole lot of time anymore. Infact I barely have the time to wipe my butt when I go to the bathroom anymore, Ive built so many that I dont need to see how things go together to know how they work anymore. Between working on the race car(not my rc's either), work, Hockey, softball,EMT class's among other things I barely have the time to run my rc's let alone build one..... So right now for me a rolling chassis is better at the moment.........

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

Well, some kits come partially assembled,

Other kits come in complete parts,

Then of course RTR are completly assembled,

Guess i'm just lazy [8D]

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

I voted kit form. I've only ever had 1 that I would call an unassembled kit, the CRT.5. Don't ever remember seeing a rolling chassis kind of thing, but I only do nitro and have only been doing it for maybe 5 years.
Had a thought last night. Now don't get all wound up, I'm going to generalize but I was thinking it would be great if almost all nitros came as kits, and almost all electrics came as RTR. It would seem to fit the end users better that way IMO.

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

If you know to build and adjust then you learn how everything works...not only you learn to drive but you understand its reactions...not to mention that after building, maintainance and repairing will be a piece of cake![8D]

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

assembled kits... wth? i don't even get this concept, its like half assed RTR.

i just have one question for everybody.
at what point did this hobby go from "oh cool! i get to build this thing!" to what seems like a majority of hobbyist sounding like whiny 6 year olds complaining "but i don't wanna build it"

my personal mantra "if i can't build it, i can't buy it"

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

I like kits that come unassembled because at the factory its possible for something to be left loose or something and they most likly dont use loctite. Id rather build it because I can kind of learn how the car is put together and have a better idea of how to work on the car. And as the saying goes.. "If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself".

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

Well wagen, from where I sit, the term "hobbiest" doesn't apply to the Whiners.

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

My life is busy enough with out spending days building a kit, when I could be spending that time with my wife and other things, I just rather race and leave the building to the peons.

Go iron my underwear.:eek:

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

I like what they did right before all of the "racerollers" came out, have the shocks and diffs assembled, everything else you get to build.

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

Raceing is nice but I enjoy building my RC plus it only takes a couple of hours to build a RC not days, That is ofcourse without paining but even that doesnt take days.

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

I guess your thread and poll didn't work out like like you planned huh slayer?
I been a peon for the man all my life, but I don't even iron my own skivvys;)!

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

if your so concerned with spending time with your wife and on other things, maybe you shouldn't be taking valuable time out of your day to drive around and maintain an over glorified toy car

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

lol, i wasn't planing it to turn out any way, was just for fun. [&:]

I love that line about iron underwear, my wife gets pissed when I tell her that.
Who the heck actually irons underwear LOL

RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
 

Tell you what, this thread is poppin'...one post after another!