Ready to run or ready to wreck ?

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nitrohead3000

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RC Driving Style
Are ready to runs a blessing or a curse? I work in a hobby shop and I see so many people buying vehicles that are beyond their skill levels to operate or repair just because it is ready to run! They can't repair the vehicle or tune the engine, or drive it. You see them the next day , the vehicle is all busted up !! We charge 30.00 an hour for labor on all repairs plus parts. I think you need to put your vehicle togather just so you can get a better understanding of how it works and be able to tune it. Most people don't even check the screws and nuts on their ready to run to make sure they are tight they just fuel it up and run it and wreck it. Well what do you think ?
 
rtr is where most people who are interested in the hobby start,you have to understand the feeling of getting your first car, your anxious, you get the box home and rip it open, fuel up and go, it says it on most rtr boxes, of course thats what people are gonna do! after that either the addiction takes over or it dosnt! after my first rtr experience i stuck with it and learned how to wrench my own cars! rtrs are a great way to learn the hobby, will you stick with it? thats up to you!
 
Agreed. If it wasn't because of my first RTR Nitro RC I am not sure I would have picked up the hobby. Sometimes you can only learn things thru mistakes. Of course a mistake in this hobby could be very expensive. I think it is part of the LHS's job to help teach and guide the person who wants to get into RC.
 
I have had this discussion with my LHS owner several times.
On the average 1 of every15-20 new RC buyers will stick with the hobby longer than a few months. Most people will run the RC brake it or get frustrated with it, out it away and dig it out a year or so later and try again.

People that start out with a simple electric RCs Non (Radio Shack) tend to stick with it a little longer than new nitro users. People that that get hooked on nitro are a more excessive than electric users.

This seemed to be the the LHS owners conclusion. When it comes to racing the nitro v/ electric is 50/50.
 
Ready to run

I appreciate your comments but for me I rather put it togather myself because I know it would be put togather right. We had a customer the other day who purchased a rtr nitro monster truck and had to bring it back because the screws in the motor mount were loose which allowed the motor to move and strip out the spur gear. Screws nuts etc are suppose to be tighten from the factory and in some cases loctite down but alot of times they are missed. I guess my question is what motivated you to purchase a rtr and have you had any quality control issues with it like missing parts and screws that have not been tighten down.
 
I couldn't agree more.
I have never purchased a hobby class RC that was a RTR. I much prefer wrenching than driving. Not to say I don't enjoy driving but the wrenching, fixing, and modding are much more intriguing to me.

After being on staff here for well over a year and in the RC hobby for a lifetime I believe that 90% of the newbie questioned would be much different if only kits were being sold. Not that its wrong but most of the questions being asked by first time owners are due to the lack of knowledge on how these things work. Simply knowing the proper names of the parts and what the function is helps in the driving experience.

I have found that even the experienced hobbyist can be intimidated by the transmission of a T-Maxx and the diffs as well. If they had to assemble them before use they would be a few steps ahead of the game. Building a kit takes the mystery out of the machine.

On the other hand, RTRs outsell kits 4:1 and are a great stepping stone to get people into the hobby not to mention a critical part of a LHS income.

Where are you located?
 
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I started out with an RTR electric and have since built a few kits and helped other build theirs. I wouldnt be here if it werent for the fun I had with my electric rtr.

I too have had this discussion with my LHS guy (as I'm there almost every other day) and have noticed that alot of newbies get into RC through their friends or seeing someone local do something kewl like jump their minivan with a buggy or come tumbling down a huge cliff face with an MT and keep on truckin. They know they want an RC but they have no clue what it takes to keep these things running when you bash the hell out of them.

Many of these type of newbies just dont have the knowledge or ability to wrench on their own vehicles. One of the guys here at work spend hundreds on an MT and brought it to me everytime he had the smallest problem. This guy after months of bashing/fixing/bashing/fixing/bashing/spending a ton of $$ in hopups/bashing/fixing again still cannot get his ride back ogether properly without help. We have torn the truck apoart completely and put it all back together twice and he still has problems remember where things go and what screws are for what.

Kits are great and personally i dont think I'll ever buy another RTR again (not the same quality of parts typically found in the kits). But I feel they are more for the seasoned RCer. I would NOT recommend a complete newbie with no mechanical ability to put an onroad kit or a buggy kit together. It may just turn them away from the hobby completely.
 
i was kind of the way that you guys are talking about my T-maxx just sat in a box for awile untill I wanted to mess with it. I didnt know much about them untill I met MC he told me alot and helped me with alot of stuff and I got hooked now I can disamble my maxx in like 10 minutes (give or take). But I can't help other people fix theres or fix myne. Coming on here also taught me alot of info I never even thought of.
 
Fast Eddy - I live in Indianapolis, Ind. With the rtr it might help if they spent more time writhing their instruction manuals so they could truly be a source of reference instead of confusion and unclear answers to problems.
 
Well I prefer to buy an r/c kit vs. RTR. Only reason why I bought the savage as a RTR is cuz I wanted one NOW and they only offered them as RTR.
 
One of the things that really pissed me off about my first rtr was the store I bought it from, I find it kinda funny now that when I was buying the car, the guy at the store had nothing but praise about it, oh yeah he said, you dont have to do anything to it, just fuel it up, stick this thing on the plug,fire it up and your drivin!! when a newbie walks into a store and is determined to find a rtr he goes by what he is told at that particular store, sure I would have been much happier then if the guy said, hey,, slow down a bit! this is a good car but you may want to check some stuff on it before you run, like the screws, this stuff is mass produced and you can never trust who put them in the box or inspected it at the factory! now, I am not bashing hobby stores here but you never know about or care too much about the guy selling you the car,, you are running on adrenelin at this point and would buy a bag of ice with the car if the guy said it needed it, I just think that an rtr pretty much sells itself when some one really wants it, take the extra time and find out what it really takes to make your first nitro experience a good one! its all funny now when I go into this same store and see this guy, I just grab my ankles and say ok buddy, wanna stick another rtr in me? then I deal with the owner of the store(a veteran driver and builder)
 
Although I totally agree with the put it together yourself idea to learn how it works, to be honest I wouldn't have started this hobby without an RTR. I have a technical understanding of things, but a kit was just to intemidating at first, without knowing any experiened hobbiest to help me if I got stuck. Also there was the instant gratification factor. I bought my first RC at 5:00pm and had it broken in and broken by 9:00pm that same night. I felt like breaking part by part kinda warmed me up to the process of how it worked, and also buying hop-ups helped me even further to get to know my rc better. I agree that a lot of people who think they might be mechanically inclined start this hobby but the reality of it is they are not. So my take on the whole RTR situation is we need it because those people that Ed described above help give these RC companies money so we can have better stuff for cheaper period. They perpeuate the idustry. Also for the few that are like me, we stay, and buy kits when available from then on.
 
This is a good thread. I started with a RTR. I wanted a Tmaxx and that was my only option. Now I would definately choose a kit over a RTR. I think that you learn so much more from building the kit yourself. It is getting easier too with the quality of instructions.

I was lucky, I had a good LHS guide me through the basics, when I knew nothing. They helped me a lot and I always gave them my business. I don't live anywhere near that LHS. The ones I do live near are all about getting your money and getting you out the door. They don't care if you understand what you are buying, they offer no help. If I was a newbie today, I think that I would be totally SOL. A good LHS is definately worth its weight in gold in helping people with the learning curve of RC. It is in their best intrest, after all if you stick with the hobby, you will always buy parts and more RC's which is good for the LHS
 
My LHS isn't worth its weight in cow pies, but it's a good thing I have the interweb!
 
Another thing to look at is that although most hobby shop owners started as HUGE RC enthusiasts that took it to the next level, they are now store owners. They have overhead and salaries and cost of doing business expenses that they have to cover. The only way to do that is to SELL. When you have a hungry customer with money in his pocket, you tell him what he wants to hear to get the money from HIS pocket to YOURS.
 
I have a huge lhs 5 minutes from my house, and I also have a small hobby shop an hour from my house,now, the huge store is stocked with tons of rtrs and kits, yup, they really love to sell those rtrs but try and talk to these guys about a kit and they run from you like your about to barf on them! the smaller store an hour from my house sells some top shelf rtrs and mostly kits(this owner deals in cars a planes only)he is always willing to help and answer questions for me, and rarely doesn't have the part I need! it seems to me that most of the larger high volume stores hire people that dont know and dont need to know about rcs to sell them,I can't deal with these idiots, I drive to the store an hour away because I dont get yanked around there, true, the bigger stores have more overhead and are worth there weight in cow pies, but all you need is one good store with one good employee/owner who knows his poop! if your a newbie, this is what to look for! its not your fault that you bought a rtr and broke it cuz you werent experinced enough, but those big stores will sure as hell make you feel that way!
 
This may be a bit off topic but relates to part of the original post as far as money goes.
It may be the way it is but $30 an hour labor for an R/C car is robbery. People that cannot do it themselves are subject to these kind of prices while the person doin the work generally doesn't get paid squat. I'm not condemming any particular place of bussiness or person but this is part of the reason we are seeing all our jobs leave the country and more are entering the unemployment lines. Prices keep going up, so we need more money to get by. The companies say they are not makin gmoney so they raise prices. The circle continues and we arrive where we are. Then some bright coorperate people get the idea to move out of the country because the labor is so cheap and they can get away without providing benifits. Now they make the product for a lot less and increase their profit. So, eventuall the majority of people who would be buying these products is out of ajob and the company cannot sell them and goes belly up. Who wins here? Mexico SUCKS! Those people will someday get smart and demand higher wages and benifits and then the cycle starts all over. Where then? Some tiny village along the amazon with only canoe access? Who knows but things are getting worse and worse.
Sorry for the hot headed style reply but I'm more than likely going to be part of the statistics on the above issues within the next year or two and it pisses me off.
 
This is one of the best threads I have seen in a long time. This subject has been skirted around but never really debated in full.

Keep the comments coming.

Originally posted by LarryA
$30 an hour labor for an R/C car is robbery.

In part I disagree with you statement but first here are my thoughts on LHS and Labor.

IMO the LHS should help users with the starting and tuning of their RCs as well as helping them make adjustments and fixing minor issues at no charge. Its this good will that keeps the customer coming back and sets the LHS apart from a chain store or mail order. If the LHS is installing or fixing broken parts or upgrades for people who don't want to or don't know how, I feel they have the full right to charge an hourly fee.

If you think about it the employee is getting 10-15.00 per hour, the payroll and workmen's comp and benefits add up quickly as well. A business owner has the right to get 30-50% back on their investment weather its parts or labor, thats what keeps the doors open.

-Ed
 
Interesting point Eddy. I have seen LHS try to charge people to help them tune, start, set linkage, shiftpoints, etc. I think that those are things they SHOULD do for free.

I do think that if someone wants to have the LHS install A arms, or rebuild diffs or something that is more time comsuming, they should pony up the cash to have it done.

On a side note, there is no question that the whole RTR phenomenon has helped this industry grow, but is it helping sustain growth for the long haul. How many people pick up an initial RTR only to drop the hobby when they have trouble with tuning or what have you. There have been many times I wanted to pass out a rcnitrotalk.com business card to people in a LHS who were being give poopy advice or taken to the cleaners.
 
You know, i'd like to see hobby shop have a workshop type deal where once every few weeks, they take a half hour, and have new people come in bringing their rtr's and teaching them the different techniques on how to tune a motor and such. Showing them what to look for when it's lean, rich, just right.

I think if we saw that, then more people would stay in the hobby. I think many people that give up the hobby, give it up because they bought a gas powered, and have absolutely no idea what they're doing.

I know i'd of given up the hobby if I didn't already do airplanes and kinda knew what to look for.
 
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