I have always been skeptical of owning a nitro RC. I've been told of how unreliable and bad they can be. I myself own an electric stampede and find that I break alot of the parts on it. From personal experience my next door neighbour owns a nitro RC and doesn't use it anymore because of it's reliability issues. Are there really that many things that can go wrong with a nitro? My favourite nitro's are the Revo and Jato. I understand that most Nitro's are complex because they require nitro and electric components Like: servos, batteries for the transmitter, breaks, fuel tank, engine and gear shifter (in the case of both the Jato and Revo). It is true that nitro cars have more components that e-cars. What do you think?

The things I like about Nitro is how you can easily refill and keep running and how they have more torque and generally faster speeds
The things I dont like about Nitro is how they require many more components and even still require a battery.

nitro has way more components than electric.and from my nitro experience nitro vehicles have not been a problem at all.tuning the engine and knowing how your vehicle runs is key to having fun.and yes you do break parts a little more then electric but hey look at what your getting with it MORE POWER and you can do many things with them.i would not be sceptical anymore into you actually try one out and see for yourself. THERE WORTH IT!!!!!

I've been doing nitro 1/10 trucks for some time now and it really comes down to how good you are at tuning the engine and keeping it healthy. With keeping engines running you have to worry about break in, compression, fuel, mixture settings, fuel lines, engine temps, glow plugs, air filter, and some other things. If one of those things isn't working, engine isn't going to work or work as well as it should. With electrics you have the entire battery/esc/motor setup then off the car you have expensive charging equipment. Electrics get more complicated when you want longer run times by running LiPo's, want to keep you Ni-type packs healthy by cycling them, or want super speeds of the brushless motors. I have no doubt that electrics can be just as expensive or complicated as nitros. All in all I think if you have a good setup and battery recharger/conditioner electrics are easier to run reliably.

Yes nitro has more stuff them an electric car... you can almost take out all the Key components in one big glob of wiring..lol
Servo,ESC,battery,motor
Where as nitro has FAR more then that..lol

But are no more complex then a E-car(i think)[X(]

i`ve owned both so...yea.lol

i like the nitro`s for the ease of fuel,start,warm,tune,refuel Go some more...yes quite a bit can fail on them but thats very seldom..
and electrics are nice for the simple fact of charge and go..and they are a little more versicle, like say its raining and you want to run your car, pop a battery in and run it around the house..

but a nitro you can`t really run in that much...like below 32 is a NO-no, lots of rain(pouring) is a no-no(for me) and desert use where it can get up over 100 in the shade that can really screw with the way it runs(but that would even screw with a electric motor)


just to make it shorter:
if your good with 2-strokes, like burning nitro, and paying $20+ per gallon of fuel get nitro
if you know your electronics,and like speed go electric

^^^You must have a big house^^^

Nitro cars are only as reliable as the person thats driving it.................most guys think your suppose to play chicken with curbs and tree's and stuff like that.............not to reliable when you bang up against things like that. Then again why do you even bother to be in RC toys if your not willing to make repairs from the chances you take when driving.............Take up needle point or something like that for a sport, not to many repairs doing that [:@]

My first conclusion when I contemplated the poster's initial question...
Nitro may seem less reliable when compared to electric, but I wonder if some of it is just perception.
Unless you have several hundred dollars in just batteries, and some good charging capabilities, you have to stop for an extended period of time after each battery pack...and even if you had multiple batteries, you have to let the elec. components cool a bit between runs.
So to compare them....elec. run a battery(6-8 minutes) - nitro run a tank of fuel(7-10 minutes)...
Elec. cool and replace battery - nitro pitted, restarted, and run another tank...
Elec. and nitro go for another run together...
Elec. needs to recharge battery - nitro runs another quart of fuel.....

Plus, I think that nitro trucks get run a bit harder generally. When it can scream like a banshee, you are more likely to send it into battle. People with electrics tend to drive more on prepared track surfaces, and treat their machines with a bit more TLC, where people with nitro trucks tend to rip up the back yard/front yard/neighbors yard, the local park, a construction site on Sunday when nobody is there...

In the end, most of the parts on either type of machine are consumables. Nothing is made to last forever. Nitro isn't inherently un-reliable, but there are a few more variables to contend with.

I know that's a bunch of generalizations, and assumptions, lightly sprinkled with opinion...but that's my thoughts on it.

Excellent summation avg joe

i think its all about what you have and what you do with it. as long as you know how to drive and land jumps then you shouldnt break anything, for the most part. you also cant expect to hit a curb at 40mph and not do any damage


most of the time, price dictates quality. a $600 buggy is going to hold up a whole lot better than a $300 buggy or truck. you get what you pay for

Nitro, NItro, NITRO! Once you get them tuned right there's nothing like it... When you see a Traxxas Rustler w/ a Pro .15 on it get trashed into a curb at WOT at about 30 mph and smashed up, then you rebuild the ENTIRE TRUCK (yeah, that was fun lol)... THEN swap a 2.5 onto it and see that thing hit its first 50 mph pass and hear it go "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" .... nothing like it! Electrics dont sound like that, I have two Nitro and 2 Electrics... Electrics are easier to operate as far as no tuning and such, but Nitro is so much cooler in the end!

Almost what happened to me,after using for a few years electrics,i was curious about the feel of nitro,i am very happy with the experiment so far,damn nitro rustler is almost flying lol and the sound of it WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! OH YEAH LOL

i could not of said it beter myself...its not that it is faster or reliable durable or even more powerful, its the fact that it is nitro the smell of the fuel the sound of the engine( someone needs to bottle that as a perfume "ode to burned nitro" i know what my girl would getting.) one of the guys i run with has electric truck and it sure is fast i think he has a castle 3 turn and a couple of lipo's but when we run it seems like with the nitro's you have alot more run time he is always waiting for something to cool or charge. I say a car whispering across the grass at incredible speeds is not as impressive as a car that is screeming across the grass leaving a trail of smoke in its wake.

i agree 100% [sm=thumbup.gif]

I also agree 100%

Also when I got into the hobby in '83 electrics were more of a hassle. I always did better with nitro (we called it "gas" back then). Nitro is not at all hard to keep running reliably. And I don't have any electrics. Just a Losi XXX-NT AD2 and I just got an HPI Baja B5 SS (now that's really gas).