Axial - I think this brand is lost and pretty irrelevant at this point. Except for micros. They seem to have that on lockdown, but that will go away as micros always do. I am sure they still sell a lot of trucks, but the SCX10 III is subpar. I'd choose an SCX10 II over the III every day of the week for performance. They need a new chassis, but with the chaotic state of Horizon, who seems to be scrambling just to try to keep things in stock, I don't see that happening anytime soon. Horizon is too busy trying to buy up everything in RC and become a monopoly. And most new Horizon releases seem to be bashers taking aim at Traxxas.
They don't want to hear the truth nor do they want anybody else on social media to read it. Axial posted a "tech tip" showing the Capra. Prompted by the thread below, I respectfully suggested a tech tip for Axial/Horizon to stop going cheap on the overpriced $550 RTR Capra and providing a separate ESC with drag brake. A drag brake is essential on any type of crawler. They deleted my post. The RTR was $100 cheaper when it came out in 2019 and back then it had a separate ESC with drag brake. They went to a 2-in-1 ESC/receiver for profits. Axial doesn't have much going for it these days and I will continue to steer people away from this brand. They are behind the times and now they have immature people running their social media.
I haven’t upgraded the motor and esc on my Capra yet and the drag brake is almost non existent. Other than turning the nob on the transmitter is there a way to program more brake into this thing until I can upgrade the motor/esc?
www.rccrawler.com
Boom Racing - I want one of these scale trucks. They are super expensive, but I've read great things about the quality. Every Boom part I've got looks great, is durable and functions fine.
Carisma - Zero experience with and not much care about this brand. They have some on-road and rally cars I like, but nothing on the crawling front. Parts and aftermarket support seems spotty especially in the US.
CrossRC - I want one of these scale trucks. The BC8 is a dream truck. A friend has some of their scale trucks, but I must admit I'm not a scale driving guy. Going to have some "deal with it" shortcomings like RC4WD.
Element - Zero experience with this brand. Everybody raves about the shocks and I'm sure that is true because they are owned by Associated who has always made great shocks. The 3-gear transmission should also be pretty perfect albeit not "scale". The company seems to be in disarray right now. Apparently most of their design team has left. So much so that Harley stated the portal axle kit was designed abroad. And it looks like it with those idiotic lockout links on the rear axle. They have some nice bodies and their new Builders Kit 3 is tempting, but they aren't doing anything innovative. Just making what seem to be solid trucks.
They are social media tyrants. They did not like the fact that I told them they needed to update their portal axles to be competitive. I even got a like from Brandon at Vanquish which I thought was hilarious. Element's childish marketing manager, Brad Geck laughed at my post in the FB group, but didn't have anything intelligent to say in response when I question him because he is an immature troll. When somebody asked me why I was saying this, I expanded on my comment. Brad banned me from the Element group, blocked me from the Element RC page and blocked me personally. Total child move and I won't give them any of my money.
GMade - I had high hopes for GMade. I absolutely love my two Sawbacks. Those trucks are durable beasts. I've never shimmed anything and the transmission and axles have been bulletproof even with plastic gears. The only thing I've ever ruined on my Sawbacks are lots and lots of leaf springs, but that includes when one truck was powered by a 17.5T brushless motor and I'd climb and tumble down every hill and jump rocks. I treated my first Sawback like a basher and it always kept coming back for more. They don't have many options these days. Early on, they had tons of chassis options.
HPI - Irrelevant brand until they give us a new chassis and prove that they can support it. The Venture was a fine truck, but HPI failed it.
MST - Sadly does not get love in the US. They have 313mm rigs as well as short wheelbase rigs to fit Tamiya bodies. I have the CMX and it is such a high-quality truck. Great plastics and tolerances. Surprisingly capable for the size. What the Tamiya CC-02 should have been. The CFX and CMX are the chassis to buy if you want to use a Tamiya short wheelbase body.
RC4WD - Junk. Pot metal and rubbery plastic. The most overrated and overpriced brand IMO. The TF2 is over 10 years old and so dated. If you want a new TF2, look to Boom Racing or Cross RC. RC4WD makes nice, licensed tires, but their compounds aren't nearly as good as the competition.
Redcat - Not much about this brand tempts me from other brands. The Ascent, Ascent Fusion and Ascent-18 are tempting. So is their drifter. But all of it seems to need the extra 5% or 10% of the work finished by the buyer.
Tamiya - Unique! Tamiya does what it wants and you will like it. That has to be their internal motto. Sometimes they do things that make no sense, but they certainly sell lots of kits and are a very successful RC company worldwide. Not much in the way of a modern trail truck or scale crawler. Plenty of platforms to work with though. Just see OSRC. Tamiya can be credited with helping start this RC crawler thing as the TLT was the base for most early builds. Then the Clod Buster axles were used for MOA rigs. They do make a ton of very fun RC's. Everybody should build a Tamiya kit. They are an absolute joy. The tolerances on their plastic parts are second to nobody in the industry and that includes their plastic gears. Their manuals are also the best. The Phillips screws can suck, but it is easy to solve that with an aftermarket screw kit.
Traxxas - Best all-around RTR and bashing brand out there. I'll argue that to no end. The TRX-4 isn't the best performer, but it's the most durable truck by a long shot. You can go simple with the Sport or get one of the other trucks and have the fun of the remote diff locker and 2-speed transmission. Really fun trail trucks. Just get ready to replace a servo. Traxxas doesn't consider stripped plastic gears covered by warranty and that is asinine thinking. They are one of the best at making scale Lexan bodies. The TRX-4M is arguably one of the best mini crawlers and again their mini bodies are second to none in terms of scale. I highly recommend everybody have a TRX-4 trail truck, especially for newbies looking for a first truck.
Vanquish - As a former VP hater, this is probably my favorite brand now. Their metal parts are great with pretty nice finishes and fairly good tolerances. These could be better, but then the cost would go up. American made parts is a nice plus. I built an Origin, an Ultra and a Pro is in the works. Nice kits and fun builds, but I have only run the Origin once out of the three. They have beautiful wheels that revolutionized this niche of RC. Just too bad they won't make polished wheels. I am not a snob (well RC snob anyway) and am glad they went to plastic parts and RTRs. This did not cheapen the brand. Instead, it created a new and high-quality brand for the masses. My Fordyce RTR was great out of the box. What appeared to be a super top-heavy rig worked surprisingly well out on the trail. The VRD Carbon was also a fun build and pretty good out of the box. I just hope they keep making more kits. They seem to be getting rid of most of those in lieu of RTRs because, sad to say for us, that RTRs are what sells. Depending on the person and their intended use, Traxxas or Vanquish would be the brands I recommend to most newbies getting into this niche of the hobby.
EDIT - Added the following:
Axial - They don't want to hear the truth nor do they want anybody else on social media to read it. Axial posted a "tech tip" showing the Capra. Prompted by the thread below, I respectfully suggested a tech tip for Axial/Horizon to stop going cheap on the overpriced $550 RTR Capra and providing a separate ESC with drag brake. A drag brake is essential on any type of crawler. They deleted my post! The RTR was $100 cheaper when it came out in 2019 and back then it had a separate ESC with drag brake. They went to a 2-in-1 ESC/receiver for profits. Axial doesn't have much going for it these days and I will continue to steer people away from this brand. They are behind the times and now they have immature people running their social media.
I haven’t upgraded the motor and esc on my Capra yet and the drag brake is almost non existent. Other than turning the nob on the transmitter is there a way to program more brake into this thing until I can upgrade the motor/esc?
www.rccrawler.com
Element - They are social media tyrants. They did not like the fact that I told them they needed to update their portal axles to be competitive. I even got a like from Brandon at Vanquish which I thought was hilarious. Element's childish marketing manager, Brad Geck laughed at my post in the FB group, but didn't have anything intelligent to say in response when I question him because he is an immature troll. When somebody asked me why I was saying this, I expanded on my comment. Brad banned me from the Element group, blocked me from the Element RC page and blocked me personally. Total child move and I won't give them any of my money.
